Final week in the MTC

This email is going to be mostly spiritual as i don't have a whole lot that happened this week but be prepared for next week's email it's going to be crazy!

Wow, I love love love the MTC but I am so ready to go out to the field! I'm also terrified to go out into the field but I can't wait. This week has been pretty fun! Definitely learned a lot. The one biggest thing I can say that happened was I took upon myself a challenge to finish the entire book of mormon before I left the mtc. This is supposed to be a 3 week challenge but I started reading in the second week I believe. I really wanted to finish it so I was reading almost every opportunity I got. I made a key in the end of my book of mormon and I would highlight certain things, certain colors for certain topics and I would put a matching sticky note in the page so i can find it easier. Let's just say I have so many sticky notes that my book doesn't close all the way anymore so those sticky notes may be a short term solution haha. But from Thursday of last week to Monday of this week I read about 225 pages. I was a good chunk of the way through alma. 

The reason I told you guys about this book of mormon thing is because i've had some great experiences from it and i'll split those up in parts so you can read whatever intrigues you the most. or all of them! I'll also talk about my temple experience today so choose your adventure haha.

1) Gift on Tongues

2) Why I stopped

3) Temple Experience!

1) The Gift of Tongues

Wow. I've really seen the gift of tongues start to work in action! It's seriously been awesome and ever since I've devoted myself more and more to the lord I've noticed my recollection of words and grammar come way faster than ever before. Most simple questions you give me I can probably find a way to say in my very broken french. Last night my collegue de chambre (roommate) who is a Native French speaker told me although I still need to learn, my pronunciation and the speed I can create sentences is very impressive! He said I was doing very well and I can definitely tell! I give all thanks to the gift of tongues and to my recent personal conversion to the gospel increasing my skills faster and faster.

2) Why I stopped

I actually stopped because although I was learning tons about the Book of Mormon (Which was great) my language vocabulary is very limited right now. The gift of tongues is helping me tons but it can only help me so much if I only know a certain amount of words. I need to work on increasing my vocabulary and relying on the gift of tongues to help me remember, but if I'm putting 100% Into my Book of Mormon, that's not helping too much.

3) My Temple Experience

This is going to be a very quick version of the story but basically, today was my last day to go do endowments at the Ghana, Accra Temple! I went in wanting to go with a question and come out with an answer, however, throughout the entire day I couldn't come up with a question! I got to the temple and I was lucky enough to be one of the first to go into the room. I got in and because there was still a lot of time before the session started, I really tried to dedicate myself to prayer for a little bit! In my prayer I said, I don't have a question but I really want a question so help bring maybe a concern or something i can work on to my mind so i, through the power of god, can find an answer during my temple experience. I had a few questions come to my head but they all came and left pretty quick, one that really stuck which surprised me was "How can I learn to smile more". Weird question right?! Well throughout the session I seriously had such a strong spirit, I don't know if it was because it was my last time or what, but I really had a great time. Never really received an answer though. I got to the celestial room and I again turned to prayer, first I said my thanks, then asked about my question again. I finished praying and looked up and saw Elder Norr. Elder Norr was just looking up admiring the celestial room, smiling the ENTIRE time. That was a little touching to me, something as simple as a smile. Everyone smiles all the time and for some reason that specific one hit me. Then I looked around, I saw all these amazing people that I won't see again, possibly ever, that I've grown to become close with and developed relationships with. Some of these guys are serious serious SERIOUS stand up guys and I have amazing respect for so many of them. It was really sad thinking I could possibly never see a lot of them again after next week. Then I thought to smile, These guys? Awesome. This Temple? Awesome. Endowments? Awesome. The World, My Family, My Friends? ALL AWESOME. I swear from that point on I smiled for like two hours straight. Everything I saw I just thought of how lucky I was to be surrounded by it. We all need to really work on being grateful for everything God has given us, cause he's giving us a LOT.

Ok that's pretty much it! Sorry for nothing really too crazy

In other news my teacher wanted to see where everyone in the district lived so he looked up like "Beautiful Utah" "Pretty Zimbabwe" then he looked up "California Beauty" I'll just leave it at that, it didn't end up too hot. 

Next email you get i'll be in the field! 

ALSO SORRY I HAVEN'T ANSWERED ANY EMAILS THIS WEEK MY PDAYS BEEN SUPER BUSY BUT I'LL ANSWER ALL NEXT WEEK.  JUST KNOW I READ THEM ALL AND I LOVE YOU ALL AND I'LL GET TO THEM NEXT WEEK! MUCH LOVE MY FRIENDS.