Hey Y'all (so Southern it hurts),
This has been such a crazy week and I've learned so much! I had to bring my journal with me so I could remember all the things I’ve done. I’ll start with Sunday the 21st.
So on Sunday we had sacrament meeting with our Branch, which is really made up of just our zone (comprised of my district and the other district). Our Branch President's name is President Mosher, and his councillors are Brother Harris and Brother Peck, they are all really nice and really funny. Well the Saturday night before, Brother Harris came to our residence to visit everyone and asked if I had my talk prepared (we were all told to prepare a talk on the weekly topic, for example last weeks was baptism, then be prepared to share it if called upon on Sunday). Well as soon as he asked me, I had a feeling I was going to end up speaking and guess what…I got asked to talk. It went well, but the biggest benefit from speaking in church last Sunday,is not having to worry about being called on to speak this Sunday.
Sunday evening Elder Greenburg and I went to a choir practice to practice a song we thought we would sing at the Christmas devotional. The song were learned was so amazing and was called “While Shepherds Lately Knelt”. It is written so well and the words are probably the best words to a Christmas song ever, but that’s just my opinion. Well on Tuesday (the day before Christmas) we had our second practice and ran through the song again, but Brother Agate, the choir director, told us that the special guest who would be present at the Christmas devotional wanted us to sing a different song, so we ended up singing “While Shepherds Lately Knelt” that night for the tuesday night devotional attended by Bishop Gary E. Stevenson!!!. We then had to stay late after the devotional to learn another amazing song, “Precious Saviour, Dear Redeemer” that we had to sing the next day. That was so difficult but we somehow managed to learn it. So we sang that at the Christmas devotional where Elder Russell M Nelson came to speak to us.
I realized I forgot to say who else was in our zone. My district is 1A and the other district is 1B. They have three sisters (Sisters Lyons, Tenney and Allen) that are going to Wisconsin, as well as an Elder Thatcher who is going to Wisconsin. The other Elders (Shumway, Hauter, and Dalton) are going to Rancho Cucamonga Mission in California.
I met with a TRC investigator named Theo (these are Non-LDS students who meet with missionaries at the MTC as part of their Religion classes). He is the coolest dude ever and i got to teach him with my companion. It was such a blast to get to know him and was such a testimony builder of how much you can come to love people you have never met before. It was so disappointing to have to stop meeting with him (due to the holidays) but hopefully my companion (who is staying longer than me) will be able to keep teaching him because of the progress we have made.
Christmas was amazing, I got to call home for half an hour (the first time they have done that at the MTC) so that was good. As I mentioned before, an Apostle (Elder Nelson) came and spoke to us. Lunch was disappointing (ham, funeral potatoes and green beans) but the talent show we had afterwards was the single greatest moment of the MTC. I was beside myself with laughter so many times during that I needed a breather after. We then had another Christmas meeting that was pretty good. There was a group of people that sang songs from The Christmas Carol, so that was great and we watched another church film. It was called "Aphraims Rescue" and was such a great story. Also (like the missionaries we are) everybody cheered when they one guy kissed the girl. What a fun evening.
We had 'in field orientation' all day yesterday where we learned how to work with members, how to find people to teach, and more of the nitty gitty of everyday misisonary life. It was very alright as a day. That evening we had another class period with a new teacher, Sister King. She taught us about the fundamentals of teaching ‘people' not ‘lessons’, and that was really good. We role played (shocker) and I have never felt the spirit so strongly while teaching somebody.
Love you lots,
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