Email: Week #4 in MTC

Hi Family!

That's cool you got to clean the church, I never have done that before. I also have never had a problem with walking up to bear my testimony. It is just a gift that the Lord has really blessed me with. I may not necessarily be the most talkative person that you know, but once it comes to the gospel, I am always willing to get up and speak!

 

I am able to take pictures every 2 weeks, so this Sunday I will have to think of some creative pictures to take while I am at the MTC. The picture of the 'tower' was the main spiral of the temple, with the Moroni on top. In English, it kinda means Sanctity to him, the house of the Lord. It doesn't translate the best, but it works. The fountain is right in front of the main entrance to the temple, which I was able to go again today! I used to be kind of nervous and afraid to attend the temple, but now I just love to attend it every week and look forward to it! I would be really happy to go once a week with you when I get home. I just enjoy feeling the spirit in there and being in the celestial room! Down here in Argentina, they show the same video as they do over in Mesa, it is just dubbed to Spanish.

 

It would be awesome if you could get more people to send me e-mails, I would just love to hear from everyone! Also, because I type a lot faster than most people I just fly through all my e-mails while some people barely get through a few haha. We get an hour every Thursday to e-mail.

 

The Willis's finally got in yesterday. I was able to talk to them about that I knew their son and they thought that it was really cool. They had a crazy experience. They had to do an emergency landing in Uruguay because something was really wrong with the plane, that actually the plane could have easily crashed, so that is really good they are okay and made it here safely. The old MTC President, President Openshaw, had a meeting with the couple district leaders. So when he prayed, he prayed that the new presidents would be able to arrive in safety and that the weather would be okay. We didn't think really much, or anything, of it at all. But after hearing the story, about how the thunderstorms down here tore off a piece of the wing on the plane (the part that keeps the plane in the air), such that the plane easily could have gown down. So it was really neat to notice how receptive to the Spirit that President Openshaw was, and how much I really would like to work on getting to that level.

 

I have now been in the MTC for 3 weeks now, so I have 2 and a half more weeks to go. The MTC is not really that big, probably around 60 missionaries. Once a week, we go proselying out into a neighborhood. It is really hard to do so, because talking to random people in the street is hard enough, but doing it in Spanish is another story. We have a sacrament room in the MTC building that we use, and the temple is about 100 feet away from the MTC, so it is easy to attend. I am only learning Spanish here, I still have no idea about Guarani, but the thing is that most people know Spanish, so they don't really focus much on it. The food here is almost always really good. It literally is meat with every single meal. They have this one desert, called alfajores, or triple shot, which is like really amazing. I hope they have them in Paraguay, so I can stock up on them before I come home. They are just huge chocolate covered cookies.

 

But I am getting into a pretty normal routine here. I wake up at 6:30, eat breakfast, and then head off to an hour of personal study. Then I have a couple classes, lunch, then some physical activity time (I play basketball, volleyball, soccer, or do workouts), more classes, dinner, personal language study and then we plan for the next day. It gets a little boring at times, but it is really fun to be here still! I really like my district a lot. It is my trio of elders and then 4 other Hermanas (the picture I sent you is all of them). We all get along really well. I am just wanting to say that it is awesome how things work here. We are always praying for the gift of tongues, and it really isn't something you understand unless you are here. People are learning languages so fast. I know for a fact I would not be in the same place I am today without that help I get from prayer! It is just awesome. All my classes I am taking now are about how to work with investigators and learning the language. I am in a room with 4 latin americans, so it helps to learn some Spanish.  I have learned a lot while in here, and it is neat to be in a place where the Spirit can bear testimony to me everyday! I just finished reading 3rd and 4th Nephi in Spanish over the last 2 weeks, and it is awesome that I can understand what is going on! I can really feel the help I need to get working. It is just kind of crazy to imagine that I will be leaving off into the field soon, but I know I will be ready if I keep studying.

 

Well, I am never really sure of what to write in these e-mails, so sorry about that haha, but I just am still having a lot of fun here! I am excited to get out into the field, and am glad that I have already made some good friends out here in the MTC! I hope all is still going well, and thanks for all the updates on everything! I sure do miss you all, e-mails are hard, because it is the one time I kind of feel homesick again. But it is awesome to write you guys! And also make sure to let people know that I would enjoy any e-mails I can get! And thanks for sending all those pictures and my patriarchal blessing. I showed the pictures of my family to the other people in my district. They were really shocked to see the difference between Kurtis and I haha, and the Hermanas were saying that they thought Lindsay was really pretty too. But it was fun to show them everyone. Well, I will be off and hope all is going well! Make sure if there is anything else you want to know, just send me lots of questions! Talk to you guys next week.

 

Elder Crandall