Hey everybody! I guess I'm just gonna start off by saying the MTC has been the best experience of my life and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Haha but seriously it is awesome here. I have the best district ever, all these guys are like 10 of my best friends that I have to hang out with 24/7. We're all very very different people, but we all get along so well. Not to get too spiritual this early in the letter, but this week has just been 1 huge spiritual experience. The first couple days were hard, but after that it's like I've felt the spirit non stop here. D & C 36: 9 I think is the scripture, it basically said that we don't gain faith through miracles, but we experience miracles through faith. That scripture just kinda hit me like a truck mid week and was an answer to my prayers. We've also taught 5, 30 minute lessons in full spanish so far to a young man who doesn't know any English. It's pretty much like a role playing type of thing, but the spirit is always present in our lessons. I get super nervous before every time we teach because I'm nowhere close to being fluent in spanish, but it always seems to work out every time. Ok now for a little bit of the week, I don't even know where to start we do so many things every single day of the week. I guess first shout out to Jeff for mailing me a Chick-fil-a sandwich, that was hilarious and all of the Elders in my residency were super jealous. And of course there was an elder in the room next to me who packed an entire chick fil a bag of chick fil a sauce so he hooked me up with one of those and it was a great meal. So Sunday we had this awesome meal of steak and potatoes at the BYU cafeteria or something just a little ways down the road from the MTC. We got to take a walk there and it was super nice. We also had the option to join the MTC choir so of course we did that because it got us out of like 2 hours of class time. I guess everybody had the same idea because over 900 missionaries showed up to choir practice and one of the instructors told us that we were officially part of the biggest organized choir in the world. I'm not sure if thats true because we don't have google, so if somebody could look that up for me that would be great. Then Sunday night we had a devotional by some guy who's like the Master of All missionaries or something like that, I can't remember his name. He was an old man who was in charge of all missionary things in the church I think. Anyways it was a really entertaining talk. After that we got to watch a talk by David A. Bednar in the main gym. It was the best talk I've ever heard, and I think it changed my life, I'm not sure though. Anyways it's called "the Character of Christ" and I think it's exclusive to the MTC, so all of you out there that are coming to the MTC make sure to watch that talk for your first "movie" sunday.
The rest of the week pretty much went by the normal schedule: wake up at 6:30, class at 7, breakfast at 7:45, class from 8:15 to 11:45 (and our lesson with santiago somewhere in there), exercise time either at 1:00 or 2:30 depending on the day for an hour, 30 more minutes to get ready for class, dinner at 5:05, class starts again at 5:50 and then class all the way until 9:30, and lights out at 10:30. That might not be 100% accurate so don't quote me on that, but that's pretty much how it goes. 3 hours of that class time is personal study, then companion study, then personal language study broken up by hour. Then we have 2-3 hours of grammar instruction from teachers and 2-3 hours of lesson type instruction. All of it is 100% in Spanish. A lot of the companion study time turns into story time though. Me and Elder Mower are getting along great. We're both so much alike it's like a perfect match. Most of the other companionships in my district are 2 Elders that are super different, so we were pretty blessed with that part.
This Wednesday was super exciting because all of the new Elders and Sisters came in so we officially weren't the new kids anymore! It was nice because the entire first day you walk around the MTC and everyone you walk past says "Welcome to the MTC", because you have an orange sticker on your name badge and you aren't allowed to take it off until the end of the day. So it was really nice finally being on the other end of that. We also got the real cafeteria back this week and the food here as amazing. I have gained 9 pounds and thats not an exaggeration. They have scales in the gym and the weight room. I'll send some pictures in a separate email. The best part about the MTC is seeing yourself and the Elders in your district progress so much every day. My testimony has grown so much in just 1 week, I can't imagine how much I will have changed in 2 years. Thank you to everyone that has emailed me and written me and sent me packages, you guys are awesome. I love you all so much, even if I don't know you personally. Yo se que el ivangelio es verdad, y Jesucristo es nuestro Señor ý salvador. :) That´s it for now, email me if you want to talk or send me a note throughout the week through dearelder.com :)
- Elder Rush
First Week in the MTC (June 26, 2016)
MTC Week 3 (July 9, 2016)
