One Year Older And Wiser Too

Hola amigos y familia!


I've now been here for over a week and it feels so weird. It feels like time is all over the place and that I've been here for like a month already. Our schedules are so packed and busy that it feels like we're MTC veterans already, it's pretty crazy. As always, classes are pretty boring and Spanish is something that will take forever for me to get but is still slowly coming along. I'll try and break down the highlights of the last week of what happened...


Friday 6/21


Last week was pretty good. We did baptisms for the dead and initiatories. I love going to the temple, but it's a little unfortunate because our temple trips always fall on our P-day, so we have a little less time. Honestly, though, I can't complain too much because the temple is a lot more important and I'm happy to go every week. Since it was our first P-day, we didn't really know how to set up scheduled MTC activities, so we really just lounged around until we had to meet with new missionary presidents coming in who needed to practice teaching us a lesson, which ended our P-day a lot earlier. It was a good lesson, but we wish that we still had a little more time to chill.


Saturday


Saturday was really cool because that night we had a devotional with Elder Kearon, the newest apostle. It was so good. Obviously, the devotional was very missionary-focused, and his topic was how we should become the messages we are teaching by expressing joy as we teach them. My favorite quote from him was, "Don't worry so much, just work hard and have fun." He is such a cool guy and apparently, he was converted into the church when he was 26 and went through multiple different missionaries before being baptized, which I didn't know about. I thought that was inspiring how he still became an apostle after all of that. It was super cool.


Sunday


On Sundays, it's up to the ZL's to organize sacrament meeting, and since we didn't know the other districts super well yet, our district kind of did most of it. The sisters are in charge of music, and somehow I ended up being the one conducting the music, which I don't think I've done since junior high. It all went well though and ended up being a good sacrament meeting. After that, we are supposed to study the scriptures for 2 hours, which was a little tough because I was so tired and kept falling asleep, so I had to take a walk so that I could lock in. Also, our whole district signed up for the choir that sings during every Tuesday devotional. I didn't have much of a say in it and I had no idea what to expect because I've never been in a choir in my life, but it went a lot better than expected, which was good. Then we just had a devotional given by the head of the MTC, which I honestly don't remember a lot of. It was still a really good and spiritual day though.


Monday


Monday was a normal day besides having a workshop class on the use of social media. I feel like most of it was just common sense though. We also discovered the rec room, which had ping pong tables in them, so that was a huge find because we could use them whenever we were on break.


Tuesday


Tuesday was a really good day too. After having our normal classes, we all went to the last choir practice before we had to actually sing for the devotional. That entire practice I was just trying to match Elder McIntyre's pitch because he knew what he was doing and I didn't. I'd say it went pretty well though for how little background I have in singing. The devotional was also super good too. It was given by Brother and Sister Dushku from the 70. He talked about being all in and shared this cool story of Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon. Pretty much the point of it was to not look back and think about how the way home is forward, not back. That was my main takeaway, but he shared a lot more cool things that I can't fit in this email.


Wednesday


Wednesday was cool because we had the opportunity to welcome and help the new missionaries into the MTC. It was super weird welcoming them all in the garage, thinking that I was only there a week ago and now I feel like I'm already a veteran. I met a lot of cool new Elders, but it was a lot of work and a super tiring day. You also feel kind of guilty pulling these missionaries away from their family even if it is for a good cause. Overall, it was a lot of fun though.


Thursday


In the morning, me and Elder Holden went to play ping pong, and for the past week, he's been thinking that he's so much better than me because he did tennis in high school and has been beating me a lot even though the games were really close. But then we played 4 games in a row and I beat him in all 4, then he got frustrated, so we went back to the apartment. Also during our first class, our teacher, Hermana Sanchez, surprised me by decorating our classroom and putting a balloon crown on my desk for my birthday. It was really sweet of her, and she felt bad that she wouldn't be there for my actual birthday, but I thought it was so nice of her to do anyways. She also gave our whole class brownies and then brought a bunch of teachers in to sing Happy Birthday to me. All of it was so kind of her, and it was a super good day.


TLDR: Lots of really good devotionals, greeted a lot of new missionaries to the MTC, and felt the birthday love.


Thanks to everyone for wishing me a happy birthday today too. I really do feel the love and feel so lucky to have everyone supporting me. I hope everyone has an amazing week!


Love, Élder Mitchell IV


Photos!
Me and Elder Holden definitely paying attention in class
The Boys
Making sure my district is alright
Caught pondering
Birthday Boy
District + Teachers
What I'll miss about Utah
Temple trip today







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