Week 2 - Christmas in the MTC

I don't know what to say about this week, other than it has been so exciting. We had a few more lessons in Spanish this week and we got to meet our long term investigators. Mine's name is Jose Meza, and he's from Guatemala. I don't know when he joined the church, but he gives service to the MTC by pretending to be an investigator for our lessons. We've also progressed so much in the language. The other day the district leader Elder Bezzant and I practiced translating the English scriptures into Spanish. They were fairly short and easy verses, but it was a lot of fun to see how well we could conjugate.

This has also been a week of devotionals. Since last Sunday we've had probably 5 devotionals and 2 special guest speakers. Tuesday night we had the member of the 70 in charge of missionary work come to speak to us. He talked about how the doctrine of Christ is to change yourself and become better, not to be accepted as you are. The MTC choir (mandatory participation for my branch) performed "He Sent His Son" for that devotional. Christmas Eve we watched a video on the Testimony of the Prophets and Apostles from 2000 on Christ's life and his ministry. 

Then came Christmas Day... Let me tell you, Christmas at the MTC is absolutely fantastic. We had an early morning devotional that started with the video "Finding Faith in Christ" which is about the testimony of Thomas the Disciple of Christ. Following that Elder Bednar came and did a Q&A session with our MTC, and 2 others in Ghana and Chile. He talked about Agentsy, which means that we chose to be agents of change in our own lives. He explained that objects, like pens, wait for someone else to change their circumstances, while agents do what they can to make the change themselves. Nephi prayed not for an angel to punish his brothers, but for the strength to break the bands which bound him. It was an inspiring devotional.

Following his devotional we had a special Christmas meal, a reading of "A Christmas Carol" and a special performance by David Archuleta and company. He did fantastic and his reasons for going on a mission were really cool to hear. After his performance we watched "Ephraim's Rescue" which is an amazing Pioneer movie for anyone who hasn't seen it. The whole MTC was either laughing or crying the whole way through. Overall Christmas turned out to be a great day for the missionaries.

I love all of you so much and I'm really glad to know you support me. Thank you for the Christmas packages and all the letters. To anyone expecting a handwritten letter from me, chances are I don't have your physical address on hand, and will need you to send that to me in some form.

As far as pictures go, I will be emailing them home, where they will be put up on elderelderscott.blogspot.com. Get it? Because I'm the elder of the Elder Scott's?  Anyways if you want to see pictures of the things I've been up to, that's where they'll be. I love you all and I want you to know the Gospel is true. There is no other reason 85,000+ missionaries would pay money to leave home for 2 years, and preach to strangers. That's all from me. I'll talk to you next week!

Hasta Luego!

My companion stood under a tree while someone shook the snow off of it.

Elder Horton Videoed his slide, and fell so hard at the end of it.

Non-Utahns are so funny... It's like they've never seen ice before.

Night snow at the MTC

This is Branch 35, Districts E and F.  Elders Left to Right: Hyde, Springer, Horton, Noble, Meek, Cassel, Curtis (bottom), Slack, Scott, Jesson (bottom) Perkins, Bezzant, and Orton. Sisters Left to Right: Hermana Pratt, Blake, Schickedanz, Foutz, Sanchez, and Kingsford. I love this group of Missionaries!