July 8, 2013

Week two is in the bag!  It’s crazy how fast this week has flown by! It’s been a really good week though. We've been teaching investigators, but they are members who come and act like it. It’s very realistic and good practice for the mission field. I've learned so much about teaching in the last two weeks and I know it will pay off. We've taught four lessons like this and we also teach our teacher a lesson once a day, plus a bunch of role playing with other missionaries, so I've probably taught about 15 or more lessons. I’m really learning to rely on the spirit because things just don’t work out as good during a lesson if you just do it yourself. It’s an amazing thing when you just open your mouth and start talking, even though you have no idea what to say, and the spirit really does put the words in your mouth.

We've had a chance to listen to a lot of devotional talks, but my favorite has been from George Durrant this past Sunday. He was pretty funny and talked about being bold. Sometimes I get nervous to ask certain questions or say things when teaching investigators, but being bold is so important. Also we have learned a ton about learning how to love our investigators, because when you love and see them the way Heavenly Father sees them, then you can just talk to them like a friend and everything just works out better. 

We've had like 8 different teachers over the past two weeks. Brothers Hilton, Makahilahila, Sebesta, and Fairclough have been our main teachers and they have really been awesome. They each have certain teaching styles, but I've learned so much from each of them.

Sounds like everyone had a pretty good Fourth of July even though you didn't watch fireworks. On the fourth, we had a special fireside where we had one speaker, watched the movie 17 miracles (about the pioneers), and then watched the fireworks from the Stadium of Fire. The movie was pretty good all around, but my favorite part is when the 18 year old boys carry everyone across the Sweet Water river and give their lives to save everyone else. For the fireworks we had to try to find places to watch, but it was hard to see because there were trees in the way for the most part. Besides that it was just another day normal day at the MTC.

The other day we had in-field orientation which is for missionaries that are leaving the MTC pretty soon. That was a very long 9 hours. It went from breakfast to dinner and they taught us some stuff that was relevant, but I think they could have told it to us in an hour.

In other news I successfully earned $15 on a bet yesterday. Hope that’s not to bad (haha). Elder Johnson and Elder Timmons were talking about some challenge that is supposed to make you throw up automatically, but I said it sounded easy and they bet me I couldn't do it. The challenge is for you to eat two bananas and drink a whole liter of sprite and apparently they've seen tons of youtube videos of people doing it and throwing up. I took them up on the bet and downed it all in less than five minutes and didn't even feel sick, so I proceeded to eat a bunch of other food too (haha). 

For gym time we've been playing basketball lately. It’s pretty fun, but it’s hard because everyone is so good and they won’t pass me the ball...(haha). Elder Johnson and me get along the best and we are pretty good friends now, hopefully we are in the same area when we get out there.

I’m not sure what else to say and I am running out of time, but I’m excited to leave tomorrow for DC! It’s kind of sad to leave the MTC, but I’m ready to get out there and work hard.

Love you all! Bye bye.

-Elder Miles