Sunday, July 4, 2004
Well it looks like I’ve missed more than a week of writing. I’ll just touch on a few highlights of this week.
First of all I had a really good experience in the TE on Friday. Elder Lewis and I had decided that we would try to teach the second lesson plan about the principles of the gospel and the atonement of Jesus Christ. We tried it earlier in the week at the TEC but it was pretty much a disaster. We decided that we’d just teach about the atonement and how we can overcome physical and spiritual death through Jesus Christ. We had an amazing experience while we were teaching. Somehow when we were teaching the first “investigator” everything that I could say just came to me. I had never felt the spirit while I was teaching in Tagalog until then. I was, and am, so grateful for this because I’ve really been afraid that it would take me forever to be able to really teach. I really want to be able to teach with power when we leave here in a few weeks.
My good friend, and brother in spirit, Brian Saville and I were in the MTC at the same time. He served in Las Vegas. We both had great missions and are grateful for each other’s help in out lives.
It’s really been hitting me lately that I’m almost done with the MTC. I don’t feel ready in many ways for the field, but in another sense I just want to get out there and teach the people. I’m supposed to get my flight plans sometime this week so I’m really excited.
Last night we had a special fireside to celebrate the 4th of July. The mission president invited a sister to come and sing and play for us. It was good. President Owen spoke then about the importance of following all the little rules and about being strictly obedient[1].
[1] After the fireside we were allowed to go out into the parking lot of the MTC to watch the fireworks from BYU stadium from the Stadium of Fire. It was a bit surreal watching them from there and being so far removed from that holiday celebration.