Sunday was really good and our topic was on Christ's Atonement. There is a really good mormon message in our district meeting that I liked called, "The Will of God." It's about a currant bush and how we need to have the understanding to thank Heavenly Father for loving us enough to cut us down- It's a comparison to when we have trials. Anyways, the rest of Sunday was also good. However, I was really sad that Brother St. Clair and his wife got transferred to a Japanese Branch last Sunday. He was our second counselor and he was just a really nice man. I could tell that they really care about us. His wife was crying a lot last Sunday so she said that we had to tell her jokes to make her feel better, but we can still see them during devotionals which is good. Sundays are one of my favorites at the MTC because you get a break from class, but church is usually pretty spiritual.
I had some cool experiences on Monday. So Sunday night I decided in my prayer to ask for more specific blessings instead of generic things like peace, happiness, health, etc.. so I asked to be able to see miracles in the next day. So Monday came around and it helped because I was actually looking for miracles. I found two! Both of them included Elder Bailey, one of my best friends here and one of our Zone Leaders. Background information, Elder Faragher in my district has been really struggling and it has been extremely difficult for him to get through day to day. We've talked to him and there was nothing we could say so I talked to our Zone Leaders. Sunday night, Elder Bailey had a dream that he was supposed to share Joshua 1:9 with everybody but Elder Faragher was specifically in his dream. Monday, Elder Faragher was pretty much done and was doubting that he would even get to Argentina. Elder Bailey shared his dream with him and the scripture that says, "Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest." That was sweet! Elder Faragher really needed that great boost of confidence. We know he's not going home and that he is putting his trust in God to take care of him in Argentina.
The second one didn't happen Monday, but I heard about it. The MTC president and his wife sat next to us at dinner and were just having conversation with us. They are wayyyy cool by the way! I don't even know how we got on to this topic. I think they asked us if we had any cool spiritual experiences in the past few weeks so Elder Bailey shared this story with them. First of all, Elder Bailey is also a Type I diabetic and he says he's only fasted like three times in his life. The day before was P-day and he got a letter from his mom saying that his little brother is struggling with him being gone. Elder Bailey decided to fast on Sunday and his blood sugar range is from like 70-100 something. He does have access to food since he's diabetic, but the MTC doesn't offer normal meals on fast Sunday except for dinner. He checked his blood sugar because he was feeling low around 1:00 pm and he was at 63. He decided to keep going and he hadn't had food since the night before. About a half hour later he checked again; it said 100. He kept going until dinner and he said that he was so surprised because he knew that it was a blessing of the Lord to be able to keep fasting. It was a really cool experience.
Sorry to be rambling about this, but it was a really cool answer to my prayers because it shows that if we ask for specific things, we can identify more clearly when our prayers are answered.
Tuesday I decided to get over my fear of eating gross things. I am willing to try a lot of things, but if it isn't prepared right, I have a problem with that. Anyhoo it's been getting warm here and we were in the classroom and I found an ant on my pant leg so I... picked it up and ate it. I didn't tell anyone I was dong this and they all freaked out when it happened and it was kind of funny, but I didn't taste anything. I'm still alive and I hope that's how Argentina goes! But seriously, I'm getting nervous about getting worms. Like REAL NERVOUS!!! I've heard way to many stories already about it. I've found out that we can't even drink the water there because it's bad... great. So here's my choices: Just drink pop- (no I'm not getting gordo), boil all my water and store it- (hassle, but probably what I have to do), and use the water filter you gave me. Ugh not looking forward to that.
Nothing happened Wednesday.
Thursday we had infield orientation- thank GOODNESS that's over! That was a bunch of stuff I already learned. It was from 8:00-5:30 that was the longest stinking day. I thought it would be more technical things, but it was more like how to teach people which we've been doing in class so I was kind of disappointed in that because I was looking forward to that. The only good thing about it though was that we had like an hour long play that we got to watch that was pretty funny. It was very hard for me to keep my eyes open.
Friday was a normal class day, but it was sad that we had our last class with Hermano Cook. He's been a really cool teacher and it was sad that we had to say goodbye to him. He told us some funny stories though, he served in Chile Concepcion by the way. One time there were some missionaries in his area that were teaching a really old lady that was pretty much crazy. She stormed into the sacrament meeting and started yelling at them and accused them of stealing one of her chickens and her Book of Mormon! Another time, he said that it was April Fools Day and a lady that was like 50, who was a member, brought a squirt gun to sacrament meeting and started shooting people during the sacrament meeting. Anyways, I'm sure I'll have some crazy experiences.
So far that's how my week has gone. Thanks so much though for the speaker and the St. Patrick's package. I'll have something to eat on the plane now-that was really nice. I'm looking forward to getting out into the field. I know my Spanish is going to be really slow when I get there, but I'm confident that I will catch on. The MTC has been good, but I'm starting to get stir crazy. I'm really going to miss my district though!
Love,
Denver
