It's Been 2 Weeks Now

Once again P-day and I can email!!

 

Hope everyone's feeling better. Lots of pople in my district are sick, and I've had a little cold the last few days. I also found out they took down the MTC sign, so I cant get a picture with that anymore, sorry = / . I'll be sending home a few pictures, so expect those in the next few days. Just waiting for the prints back then will mail them.

 

Can you believe another week has gone by? It's been 2 weeks now... crazy. It's going by so fast. Nowhere close to 2 years, but it's still gone by pretty fast. This is the last week we are here in the MTC. We leave October 4th for Boise. We are all excited to get out. There are some people in our zone who still have another month+ left. The Mongols have already been here like 6 weeks and the still have about 6 left. I would hate to be here that long.

 

I still love it here, even though I can't wait to get out to the field. I've grown so much, both in knowledge and as a person. There are lessons I've learned here that I either wouldn't have learned or would've taken me years to find out elsewhere. I really am glad I'm here and there's nowhere else I'd rather be.

 

Not really too much to say; nothing's really stuck out too much from the past week. We're still teaching, learning how to teach, and relying on the spirit. It's pretty much the same. We did teach one couple (they were actually workers here, but we didn't know that at the time) who seemed pretty impressed by us. I'm in a tripanionship, and they said that we had really the best unity they've seen in a tripanionship. That was pretty nice to hear. The lesson we taught them was pretty interesting. They had questions about life after death (her brother had passed away and their minister said he was in hell since he didn't believe in Christ), so we taugh them the restoration. Sounds crazy at first, but it makes sense. At first it sounded weird to me, but we taught the restoration of the Book of Mormon and how Joseph Smith translated it. We challeneged them to read and pray about it, then I pointed them to Alma 40-42 where it talks about death and resurection, told them to read it on their own time since we were out of time and pray about it's message. It's interesing to see how we can meet the needs of investigators through different lessons like that. We read their little bio and we thought about teaching plan of salvation, since they had questions about life after death. But I have no doubt it was the spirit who directed us to teach the restoration like we did.

 

Oh, I almsot forgot. We had a General Authority come into class one day this past week. It was Elder Alonso of the Seventy, one of the newly called last spring. He was impressed with us and our testimonies. It was nice hearing that from a Seventy; to hear that we're all gonna be wonderful missionaries. There's a chance he'll speak in conference, and our district has a joke that he's gonna use what we told him in his conference address if he speaks. How cool would that be?

 

Life goes on, my companions and I get along very well. Though we have butted heads a few times on what to teach, we always teach with the spirit and, not to be prideful, I think we're the furthest along with our progressing investigators. That experience last week really changed how I view my mission and what I do.

 

One last thing before I go. On Sunday we had the chance to watch a movie of Joseph Smith. I think this might be another thing that changes my mission. I watched him work wonders, miracles, and even command in the name of Christ, and I had this thought "I have that power". I have no doubt it was the Spirit who put that thought there. The only differecne between Joseph and me is the life experiences we have/had. I hope I dont get imprisoned or tarred and feathered, but I'll have my own struggles. But the important thing is that I have that same power and authority. Once I came to that realization, it made me want to use it, not for myself, to be the star or hero of the mission, but to bring souls unto Christ, that is why I am here.

 

Well, time's about up. I dont know if I'll be able to email nextweek since we leave next Tuesday (Oct 4th), but I think we can call from the airport. So if I can I'll do that. I look forward to hearing from you again soon.

 

Love,

Elder Blomquist