March 1, 2011
Week 1
Howdy,
I am in love with the MTC! I arrived early Wednesday morning with the 2 other missionaries from the stake. We had an opportunity to take a self-guided tour of the MTC. I immediately noticed how friendly everyone here is. This place is such a good conductor of the Spirit.
My companion's name is Elder Bockelman from Virginia. He will be going to the San Salvador El Salvador West/Belize mission. He is an amazing man and we are getting along so awesome. I believe the Lord paired us up for a reason. We have such strong spiritual experiences together it is awesome.
There is an Elder in my district of nine elders who is also going to the Guatemala North mission. His name is Elder Lapray. I room with him.
We began learning Spanish immediately the first day. By the 2nd day it was starting to come back to me. I know that the Lord is helping me with the language and it is such a blessing. I have now even begun to catch myself slipping into Spanish unknowingly. Me and my companion are making an attempt to speak nothing but Spanish. We also made a goal to teach our first lesson this Friday in Spanish, even though they recommended to teach it in English. We know that if we work as hard as we can to prepare the Lord will help us with our shortcomings.
There are four elders to a room and the rooms are pretty big. The beds are long enough, and I have begun sleeping really good. The Lord has definitely blessed me with the Spirit to keep me calm and collected. I am expected to ship out March 15th so I don't think I will meet the new MP since they come in June I believe.
We are being taught by Hermano Sparks and Hermana Staib, who are both recently returned missionaries. I have been studying both the Book of Mormon and Preach my Gospel in Spanish and am starting to get a good grasp of the spiritual language in Spanish.
We had our first MTC talk on Sunday, which was awesome. The speaker talked about how the Lord gives us challenges because he knows that we have room to grow as a result of those challenges. I love that message and the peace it brings. For the closing hymn we sang the primary hymn about the "Army of Helaman" (forgot the title). They changed a couple lines to say for example "We are now the Lords missionaries". This song brought the Spirit so much. Having 2,000 Elders and Sisters singing that song at the same time was awe inspiring.
Afterwords we had the opportunity to watch the Joseph Smith movie. WOW!! In the end when Joseph is on his way to Carthage and Praise to the Man started playing, both me and my companion broke down into tears. The Spirit was so great in that room. It was a perfect moment. At that moment the Spirit testified to me without a doubt that Joseph Smith was a prophet of the Lord and that he was the vessel for the Restoration of the Gospel today.
I would like to testify in Spanish. Hopefully it comes out ok.
Yo sabe que Dios es nuestra amoroso Padre Celestial. El quiere que nosotros vamos a regrasar a El. Sabe que Jesu Cristo es nuestra Savior. Sabe que ay un profeta en la mundo hoy. Sabe que podemos regrasar a Dios despues de esta vida.
I love the Lord and I am so glad to be on a mission and to be able to serve the people of Guatemala. I want to share the blessings I have received due to the gospel. I love all of you and know that the Lord loves you. I hope that we may all one day feel this love.
I will write again next Tuesday on my P-Day.
If you would like to send me any messages while I am at the MTC, you can use DearElder.com and I will receive that immediately in letter form so i can read it.
I love you all,
Elder White
