MTC Week 5 - T Minus 10

I'm within the last 10 days of my stay at the MTC! which means that Travel plans came yesterday! I will be leaving on January 25th at 8:30 from the MTC. My flight takes off from SLC atn2:20 pm, and from Atlanta at 9:00 pm. I will be arriving in Buenos Aires at around 9:00 in the morning local time. from there I have no idea how I'm getting to Posadas, but I imagine it will be by several busses. I'm flying Delta, flight 1117 to Atlanta, and 101 to Argentina for those of you who want to track the flight. It feels really strange to know that I am within 10 days of leaving the country for nearly 2 years. The MTC has been really great, and I've learned a lot because of my stay here, but I am SO ready to leave. Argentina is going to be a blast. I can't wait to get out into the field and start helping actual people. Plus having a trainer who already has some idea of how to teach lessons is going to be great, because the learning curve when neither of you understand is rather steep.

What has happened this week... Several lessons with improving spanish ability, some really amazing choir performances, and a really great devotional with Elder Anderson of the 12. This week we had an amazing opportunity to teach a lesson over Skype! The MTC coordinated for us to teach a girl in Costa Rica for a half hour or so. That was really cool because she spoke no english, so we really had to understand the spanish we were saying. It was a little difficult, but overall the lesson went really well. Next week we get to skype a new member, hopefully from Argentina.

The Choir did amazing this week. The MTC choir performed a beautiful arrangement of Joseph Smith's First Prayer during the Tuesday night devotional, and the special choir got to perform both of their pieces as well. Tuesday morning we performed our Missionary Medley of primary songs at the beginning of the training meeting for the new International MTC Presidents and the new Temple Site Coordinators. We were told there would be members of the 12 at each of those meetings but there weren't. However the general authorities over missionary training were there at both meetings, and they spoke during the Tuesday night Devotional.

Special MTC Choir

Which was absolutely fantastic. This devotional was among the first to be coordinated across all the MTCs around the world. Any that could watch it live, did, and the rest recorded it and played it later. Elder Neil L. Anderson spoke to us about becoming the best missionaries we can be. He said the biggest thing to remember is to never stop talking about Christ. Mainly that every lesson should be centered on Christ, his atonement, and his teachings. Christ should be mentioned in every lesson we teach. And on top of that, we should be talking about Christ in the streets, in the stores, and everywhere we are. We should continue without ceasing to talk about Christ. He also said that our job as missionaries is to preach faith unto repentance, and repentance unto baptism, and that anything else is outside our scope. At all times we should be teaching to increase faith and commit to baptism. He then had several other general authorities bear testimony of missionary work. It was a really cool night.

I think that's all from me this week. Next time you hear from me I will be packing and preparing to leave the country! I'm so ready. I love you all so much, and I want you to know that I pray for you. Thank you all so much for your support while I'm out here.

¡¡Buenos Dias!!