Okay, updates on my week...
Sunday was Fast Sunday and the MTC doesn't even have food in the cafeteria until dinner. One of our zone leaders is diabetic and he said that was like the third time he ever fasted. But he did it and we all had a huge feast afterwards. Also, we had another one of those videos I've told you about. We watched one from Elder Bednar and it was way good! It was about recognizing the Spirit and he shared some really cool stories about how the Spirit works. He was pretty blunt again. He said, "Often times we wonder if it's the Spirit talking to us or if it is our own thoughts. Forget about it. Who cares. As long as you are being a good person, keeping your covenants, and following the commandments, the Lord will put you where you need to be in your life." I thought that was pretty cool. The apostles are sooo blunt but it's sooo awesome because they tell you how it is. I wish you guys could see the talks that I get to see because they don't release them to the public.
On Tuesday Elder Costa of the 70 and his wife came to talk to us for our Tuesday Devotional and he is actually from Argentina. Best Devotional yet. He is really funny and he showed his personality. He actually roasted one of the counselors in the MTC presidency that was conducting the meeting. The counselor went up to say Elder Costa's name which is Joaquin and Elder Costa went up and was like, "Try again." So he did and then Elder Costa was like, "one more time." Anyways we were all laughing and it was funny. Elder Costa is from around the Buenos Aires area I think. They have a university there where he attended, and I think his wife is from the Cordoba area, but don't count me on that. Elder Costa is actually a convert to the church and he shared with us his really cool conversion story which involved the example that the missionaries were to him which was really cool to me. But the really cool part about Tuesday was that he wanted to meet with all of the missionaries serving in Argentina after the devotional. There is like 23 missionaries going to Argentina and all of them and their districts got to have like a Q&A after the devo with him. It was in a smaller room with only about 50 of us and we just got to talk to them. It was awesome. He answered a lot of questions about how to teach and how to live in a different country than the US.
The rest of the week has been pretty normal. Nothing crazy in particular, but last night was super awesome. I think I've told you about our TRC investigator, Patricia. If not, she's from Uruguay, she's studying at BYU, she speaks with Castellano, and she doesn't have any religious background. She is way cool and we love her, but she just seemed to be going through the motions with everything and it has been really hard to help her understand the Spirit. She would keep all of our commitments, but she when we would ask how she felt or how we thought they would help her, she would just say things like "good" or something like that. Anyways, in class the past few days, we have been really learning how to teach investigators to their needs. We finally found out that we had been teaching her all wrong. Yesterday was our last TRC lesson (we have been teaching her like 3 days a week the past 3 or 4 weeks) and we wanted it to be really good. We planned this lesson a lot different and our main focus was to help her understand that the church is true. We wrote down a list of her needs and then we wrote a list of questions according to her needs and they were questions that really dig information out of you so that we have some quality stuff to work with. We weren't really even thinking that committing to baptism was in the options, but with the questions we asked her, we finally got her to say that there is a God and that Joseph Smith restored the church and that baptism is a commandment of God. Anyways, she said that she wanted to follow God and we committed her to baptism yesterday. We ended on a really good lesson and it is a major confidence booster for when I go to Argentina.
Holy smokes I forgot to tell you. I finally got my travel itinerary!!! My flight for Argentina is at like 2:15 in the afternoon on the 20th. We fly to Atlanta, get in at like 8ish, then at around 10 pm we fly to Buenos Aires and we don't get in until like 9 or 10! After that we have a flight to Santa Fe, but we don't have the travel arrangements for that yet. Anyways, it's going to be an exciting, but loooong day.
Other than that, thank you for the packages, I forgot to thank you for the ties I think they are muy swanky! It helps to have a few more. I'm doing really good, the language is coming along. I'm excited to be in Argentina, but I'm still working hard in the MTC. I hope everything continues to go good at home!
