Half way done in the MTC!

 Oi! Family and Friends

This week has gone by super super fast which is a good thing. So the new Mission President Seminar was this past week and like I said me and my companion got to pass the sacrament at the special sacrament meeting. So we were in the place where the sacrament meeting was being held, and then 10 of the 12 Apostles walked in. Only Packer and Hales was missing. 

Then we were sitting there for a little bit and then everyone starts standing up, so we get up. We stand for like 5 minutes, but no one comes. So we sit back down. Then a couple of minutes later we stand back up again and in walks the First Presidency. President Monson is such a funny guy. He was joking all the way up to his seat on the stand. The Spirit really entered the room when they came in, and it was such a powerful experience seeing the First Presidency and 10 of the Apostles on the stand. 

Elder Nelson conducted the meeting, with President Monson presiding. So we passed the sacrament exactly how we practiced three times. And I will never forget passing the sacrament with the Prophet presiding and having the First Presidency and 10 Apostles witness it, such a special experience to me. 

 After the sacrament Elder Nelson gave a little of an introduction into President Monson's talk of a story of how President Monson was able to get the communist East Germany main leader to agree to letting missionaries into the country, and allowing East German Missionaries the ability to leave and go serve missions. It was a powerful story of President Monson's example and boldness. After Elder Nelson was done, President Monson got up and talked for over an hour about how to motivate missionaries, as since he was talking to all the new mission presidents. Even though most of the talk was not something that I could directly apply to my life, I did take quite a few notes and found great things than I could apply to my life. He is such a funny man. I love him and know without a doubt that he is the Lord's prophet, and I will never forget that sacrament meeting ever.

Then for Tuesday night devotional, the 10 Apostles came again to sit on the stand but no First Presidency, and Elder L. Tom Perry talked. It was a different kind of talk but a refreshing one. He gave us like a PR presentation of statistics and pictures of temporal blessings of living the gospel and being a member of the church. For example we have a higher life expectancy of the average citizen and because we fast once a month, we are 40% unlikely to have clogged arteries. 

So he gave us a snapshot of what temporal things we are to bring to the people we teach. That we are not just bringing spirtual and eternal blessings, which are still really important, but also temporal blessing which makes this life that were living even better. It was a really good devotional. And then after we had a really spiritual zone devotional review. So that was my experience with with the Prophet and Apostles and I will never forget that, and will always consider myself lucky to experience all that this past week.

Oh yeah then on Saturday night we met with our new mission presidents. So we met with President Kretly and his wife and they are some of the nicest people ever. He said that he will be a little more involved with Angola then President Spendlove. He and his wife are just super nice and great and have a real enthusiasm for the work. I love them already and they left for Mozambique yesterday. So it was also really nice to meet our new mission president as well. 

Anyways for this last week, nothing else to special. We taught our investigators and I had a real spiritual experience with one of them. We were teaching the Plan of Salvation to Benadita and I was explaining, or at least trying to explain in Portuguese, the Spirit World after death. She realized that she could see her dead loved ones again and that she could live with them forever. The spirit then testified to me how important this gospel is and how it can truly bless families and bring them together for eternity. I then bore my testimony of the importance of the Plan of Salvation and about Families, and had a really strong spiritual experience that I know that I will have throughout my mission. 

Let see other than that nothing too new around here. Just another week closer. The temple is being closed down for a couple of weeks, but luckily it opens up before we leave so we can go one last time. There is a lot of smoke and ash in the air from all these fires, so we've been smelling all the smoky air the last couple of days. The language is still coming along, just trying to get better and better each day. Other than that nothing much else to say but that I love you all, and thanks for all the mail and packages! 


Tchau,