Thursday, April 7, 2011

Week 8! the final days of Americanness.



            Wow! I can't believe that soon I will be in Germany! Time here at the MTC has really flown, and I'm so excited to go teach the gospel to the German people. Okay apparently I have offended some people with my reference to German being better than Spanish, but I was just quoting Joseph Smith. Anyways the language is going great. Well as great as it can go here at the MTC, I am fully prepared to have my world rocked once we get to Germany. I am hoping that I will be able to understand at least a few words. Our teachers have been getting us super pumped up and ready to go by telling us all sorts of fun stories. I can't wait to have some cool stories of my own.
            And I'm grateful to be going to Germany, especially after hearing about Caleb's shower and lovely little house. And we had a health meeting this week to teach us a whole bunch of things we need to know. All of the missionaries going international go to the same meeting, and they were talking about some crazy stuff. Purifying water with Clorox, mosquito nets, tropical disease... yeah I probably won't have to worry about most of those things, but if the world happens to end or something else crazy happens, I guess I will be prepared. Purifying water with Clorox still sounds risky to me. Isn't that stuff deadly? That’s a rhetorical question, I know it’s deadly, so I guess just make sure that you don't add too much???
            Well having General Conference here at the MTC was definitely a huge blessing. I learned A LOT. It was really cool because everyone watches it all together in the gym, and the spirit was just so strong there. Every talk was amazing. I really liked Elder Bednar's talk about revelation and Elder Uchtdorf's talk about using the Priesthood power. (Just a note, Elder Uchtdorf is German, for anyone who might of forgotten that) But all of the talks were awesome. We still had a fireside on Sunday after conference, and it was so cool. Via Sikahema, who played football for BYU and played in the NFL and is now a sports broadcaster in Philly, came and talked to us about how to make missionary work fun, and how his mission changed his life. It was way cool. After that we got to watch the MTC news clip thing. It was way funny. Everyone was laughing a lot because it was a pretty accurate depiction of life in the MTC. I love how Caleb was on it too. What a stud. 
            Well besides having an awesome conference weekend and a random weird last Utah snow storm, MTC life is still going great. On Tuesday Elder Oaks came and talked to us for the devotional. Not THE Elder Oaks, as in Dallin H Oaks, but Elder Robert C Oaks, an emeritus member of the Seventy. Yeah somehow a rumor of Elder Oaks coming got circulated around the MTC, so people were very excited. Then a lot of them were disappointed when it was not the Elder Oaks from the Quorum of the Twelve, but I really enjoyed this Elder Oaks talk too. He is a way cool guy. He is a retired 4 star general. That is pretty cool. But that’s not as cool as being a former president of the Seventy. Anyways he talked to us about missionary work, and how we need to follow the spirit, because the spirit is everything. He told us about a conference of mission presidents that Pres. Uchtdorf presided at. It was all the mission presidents in Europe, and they were talking about how they were having a hard time baptizing people. Elder Oaks said that "they were making excuses". Then President Uchtdorf stood up and said "Gentlemen, we can baptize everywhere." and explained that if we incorporated the spirit into everything we did then the Lord would lead us to those people who He has prepared to receive the gospel. It was very inspiring and I loved his talk a lot.
            That is pretty much it for this week. My next email will be from Germany, so this is goodbye, of sorts. I love everyone, and thanks for all of the support. The church is true. I know that for myself, independent of any other person. The work will move forward until it has filled the earth. Alles fur den Herrn!

Liebe
Elder Terry

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