Saturday, July 13, 2013

MTC Week 4

Family!

This week was just a little bit more exciting than last, but not much...  Anyways, here we go:

So the 4th of July ended up being really great!  We had a special patriotic fireside before the firework show, and it was super amazing.  We got to watch the movie "17 Miracles", and I've never felt the spirit of that movie as much as when we watched it then.  After that, we got to go out and watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks.  We had a pretty good view from the West Campus, and it was a great time.  We were allowed to stay up late to see the finale also, so we ended up going to bed at 11:15!  Crazy night for sure...  Oh, and thanks for the festive package and the one for this week.  That Chex mix was really good, and it was a huge hit around the apartment! 

Not a lot of huge things happened this week, but I did have a few little experiences happen here and there that are worth mentioning.  We had a guest teacher come into our classroom one day, and after class was over, she pulled me aside and told me that she wanted to help me with my pronunciation.  She said that she had been listening to me speak during the lesson, and that I pronounced my T's like a gringo.  We then had a 10 minute mini lesson on how to pronounce the letter "T" in Spanish...  So yeah, I can't pronounce T's I guess, though the way she had me start saying them was basically the same as how I had been pronouncing them before...

I got the opportunity to demonstrate how to begin teaching to a bunch of brand new missionaries yesterday.  We knocked on a door, introduced ourselves, and then got to know the investigator in front of this big group of missionaries.  It was a pretty cool experience.  One of the investigators was referred to us by his friend, and when we asked the investigator why he thought his friend had referred him, he proceeded to tell us this super long story about picking a name for his new son.  It was pretty strange, and basically what he wanted was to have us help him pick a name for his son!  It was one of the weirdest things I've heard so far...

I recently got the chance to start playing the part of investigator for some of the missionaries in my district.  My investigator name is Santiago, and it's pretty fun to pretend like I don't know anything about the gospel and ask questions that make the missionaries think.

I have a new favorite hymn!  I can't remember its name, but its hymn number 88 in the Spanish hymnbook.  It's the only hymn that is written in Spanish but not in English; usually it's the other way around.  But yeah, it's a good one, you should look it up!

I had an absolutely amazing lesson this week with my investigator T******.  He was having doubts about prayer, and so we shared the story of how Nephi prayed to know if leaving Jerusalem was really from God or not.  The scripture ended up applying perfectly to T******, and the lesson went even better than we had hoped.  Talking about it after, both Elder Maughan and I could think of a couple of things in the lesson that had come straight from the spirit and that we hadn't even thought of before the lesson.  It was a pretty big testimony builder that the Spirit is the real teacher and that the Lord knows what we should say much better than we do.

Ok, I saved the big news for last.  Elder Maughan and I got called to be the new Zone Leaders!  Right now we are the Zone Leaders in Training, but starting on Sunday, we will be the new Zone Leaders!  We'll be over about 6 districts, and we'll be Zone Leaders for a week because we'll be leaving for the field.  We got to help orient the new missionaries in our zone last night as part of our Pre- Zone Leader training.  So yeah, that's exciting!

Well, that's about all I've got.  The days all blend together here, and time is flying by.  This time next week it'll be under a week before I leave for Cincinnati! 

I love you all, and thanks so much for the letters and packages!

Love,

Elder Foote