MTC Week 1: It's finally P-Day!!!

It's finally P-day! It feels like I have been here forever! I finally understand what Bryce meant when he said time is really weird while on a mission. When we first got here the missionaries said "welcome to the MTC! Where the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days" it couldn't be more true!

Man.. so much has happened I don't know where to start... The first few days were kinda hard adjusting to the missionary lifestyle. But now that I've been here a week I'm starting to love it! My district is awesome! There are 7 of us and we're all going to Mexico, 5 of us are going to Chalco! So I'll probably be seeing a lot of these Elders throughout the next two years! Mi companero is really awesome! He's hard working and we teach really well together. Teaching is a lot of fun, but it can get kinda stressful trying to prepare a lesson in a language that I don't know... But it has been going really well! We've committed him to baptism and we're continuing to teach him every day! (He is a fake investigator.. but it feels pretty real) We started teaching the day after we got here, which I think it kinda made us feel like we should know the language already.. So that made the first few days a little harder. But now that we actually can simply communicate in the language, we don't stress over it as much.

On Tuesday we went to the devotional and guess who spoke?... Elder Richard G. Scott!!! It was incredible! He spoke on prayer and it was pretty much exactly what I needed to hear! My whole district joined the choir, so we went over to the Marriott center two hours before the devotional started. We practiced our song for an hour and then sang hymns for the second hour! The spirit was already so strong by the time Elder Scott walked in. The quote that hit me the hardest during his talk was something like "Give thanks to your Heavenly Father when he withholds answers to your prayers, it's a sign of his trust in you" yep.. that's what I needed to hear! It's also amazing how the spirit can teach you of things that the talk isn't even about! I tried taking notes about my thoughts and his talk, it really made it one of the most powerful talks I have ever heard!

For those of you that haven't ever experienced the MTC, let me tell you a bit about what it's like here. Everyone is telling the truth when they say that you're fed well here! I've eaten so much food it's crazy! I should probably weigh myself to make sure I'm not gaining a bunch of weight... You never have a moment to just sit and relax, every minute of every day is planned out. Mail is the best thing here! We pick it up after every lunch and dinner, those are my favorite times of the day! Oh and by the way, DearElder is awesome! I love getting them, but hand written letters are nice too! But if it's easier to write more using DearElder go for it! Because I get it a lot faster! You have to learn to keep smiling here! It really is fun if you make it fun for yourself. You really don't have to worry about not being able to go to bed at 10:30, because by the time it's 10:30 you're sooo ready for bed! We sit in class a ton, I'm just glad we have a window looking out at Y mountain or else I might go crazy in that little room.. Life at the MTC is super fun! I mean.. I basically hanging out with a bunch of guys my age! Even though we're always working hard, we laugh a lot and there's pretty much never a dull moment.

So.. There's this board in the gym that shows all the records made at the MTC. I'm determined to beat the Push-up record. It's 226... I know it's high.. but by the the end of my MTC stay I want to beat that record! Even if I don't though.. I'll have had a good workout from it ;)

Ok.. now for some spiritual stuff. The biggest lesson that I've learned while here is that in order to be a good missionary you HAVE to forget yourself. It took me a few days in order to do that, but I know that loosing myself in the work will bring me the most joy while out here! Even just teaching my fake investigator has been super rewarding! When he said he would be baptized, I had a smile on my face for the rest of the day! My farewell talk truly sums up what I've learned my first week here. I have no doubt that I was supposed to speak on sacrifice just to help me make it through my first week here! Christ gave the ultimate sacrifice and we are the recipients to the blessings that have been received because of that sacrifice. Through my sacrifices on my mission I can bring blessings to the lives of others! Loosing myself in the work doesn't just mean loving it, but also not thinking about what I'm going to get out of it, but what others can get out of it. I'm already loving being a missionary and I know that it's going keep growing on me!

Thank you everyone for your support and your letters! Getting letters really is the best thing ever! I haven't been homesick while out here, so don't ever worry about making me miss home by writing too much! I love it here, but it's still nice to know what's going on at home :)

I love you all,

Elder Twede