April 28, 2010

Dear Family,

I did write last week and it said that it sent so I don’t know why you didn’t get it. Just in case you don’t get it again I decided to write this hand one as well. First off, I love you all so much and I love the letters y’all send. In answer to your questions; Yes! I am happy. Of course I am. Tired, but very happy. My favorite part about the MTC is the Devotionals, The RC (referral calls), and Sunday dinner (chicken cordon bleu). I had another cool experience at the RC this week, as I talked to a black lady from like Virginia or something. We talked for about an hour. She kept saying well yeah that makes sense, but I am going to have to ask my pastor. So I will have to call her again next week. And this week’s devotional we had L. Tom Perry come. Awesome! Out of all the things I noticed and hard, the thing that stuck out the most to me was that he looked like he was the happiest man on earth. He was always smiling. What an attribute. As he talked about the Book of Mormon I realized what made him smile all the time. It was the fact that he had learned the power behind the Book of Mormon and he had learned the key fact of life, that God loves him and that through this love he could love everyone else as well. I have this same knowledge as well, but the hard part is to never let yourself forget that you know it. Hopefully as each day moves forward, I will be taking another step to this attribute. As for what my day is like it is different every day with the exception of Pday and Sunday. We have 30-45 min. for breakfast, lunch and dinner; 90 min. for gym and ducharseos (sorry this didn’t translate in google translate). We wake up at 6:30 and have breakfast at 7. Class starts at 7:30 so we study about 12 hours a day, or we should haha, it is probably overall 11 hours of productive study. We are back in our dorms at 9:30 and lights out at 10:30. Fun stuff. As for the food; it is usually pretty good. But I am still the exact same weight; dad gum. I am pretty sure I have gained fat, but lost muscle. The spiritual experience of the week would be both the RC and the Devotional. When I get discouraged, the thing that helps me the most is just asking myself why am I thinking about me? And then I pray and go do something nice for someone. Being discouraged for other people is a little harder because you want to be their friend, but you realize that you have been called to be a leader and you can’t doubt God. In life I think, we all need to be a leader sometimes and then also sometimes we need to step up and be that leader. So we need to make that judgement for ourselves of what the time calls for; to be led or to lead. And yes, we go to the temple every Pday and it is so awesome. I love it. And yes, I have been taking pictures. I loved the story about our street as well. That was hilarious (I’m glad he found it hilarious! I was terrified! Haha!). I am so excited for Steve O. I am a better teacher than Alayna. I can’t wait to write y’all next week for Mother’s day and Alena’s birthday. I am so grateful for the love of Grandma and Grandpa, as well as Sister Andersen. I AM SO EXCITED TO BE A MISSIONARY.

Elder Ty Nelson