...My next letter will be from Colombia!

Hola Familia!

 

Well I have received my travel itinerary for my flight to Bogota! I wake up at 3 am on Tuesday, and head to the airport in SLC for my flight at 6:00  to none other than DFW! I am glad I get to say bye to my beloved Texas one last time. From there we fly to Miami where I will have a 3 hour layover, that is when I will be able to call you guys! Expect a call around 1-3 pm Texas time. From there we head to Bogota where we will get in around 7:45 local time! We will then be picked up by the MTC president and he will take us to the MTC!

 

I am so excited for a change in venue but it's also really sad because I had just started to feel the real brotherhood that you form in your district. I have real close friendships with a lot of them and we will miss them for sure! There are 11 total people in our group going to Colombia--2 from my district, Elders Whitney and Curtis, and we have met 2 others going to Cali as well. They are all super cool and I hope I get to serve with them in the future! I cannot wait to get to Bogota and hopefully take my Espanol to the next level with all the natives that we will be surrounded with. We are thinking of having all the Americans challenge them all in futbol, we know we'll get wrecked but it's all good...haha.

 

As for this past week in Provo it has been grand. We have been teaching 2 new investigators (who are our teachers acting as someone they taught on their missions) named Jose and Santiago. It is truly amazing how far I have come in teaching in such little amount of time. I am getting to the point where I can lead a lesson entirely in Spanish, especially lesson 1. 

 

Memorizing the First Vision in Spanish for my farewell talk has really paid off! I absolutely LOVE learning more Spanish. I truly have developed a love for the language. I am always trying to speak it even when I have no idea what to say! I am so grateful for the oppurtunity to learn a language! 

 

Other than that the MTC gets really repetitive after a while. You do the same things over and over again. I am learning SO much about the gospel it is just ridiculous! I am getting so pumped each and every day to go out and shout this wonderful Plan of Happiness to the WORLD. During study time I am still trying to focus on my purpose but I have also added reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish. I read the pages until I find a word I don't know and then write it down in my planner and learn what it means, it is really helping me develop my vocabulary!

 

I'd love to share with you something I learned from the scriptures this week...

 

I was studying the topic of Service and I found something really cool. We read in Mosiah 26 that we need to come to know God in order to be at His right hand and return to Him. (see Matt. 7:21-23) And we read in Mosiah 5:13 that one needs to serve his master in order to know Him. So how can we serve our Heavenly Father in order to know Him? The answer is found in Mosiah 2:17 which says that he who serves his fellow beings is in the service of their God. So we need to know God by serving Him and we do that by serving our fellow beings! That is why service is so key in missionary work and that is why so many RMs say that they were closest to God on their missions. Because of their non-stop service of their fellow beings! 

 

Well I love you all and appreciate your prayers, they are felt everyday! I love showing the card that you sent of pics of the family to my district because I am so proud of my wonderful family! You all are my motivation and inspiration and because I was so blessed with such a great family I want to help others feel of that same thing!

 

Talk to you Tuesday!!! And my next letter will be from Colombia!!!!