March 18, 2016

Hey guys it's crazy how much stuff has happened in only a week, I've been looking forward to getting back on the computer since Sunday. Overall the MTC is great but a lot of the reason for that is that I have awesome fellow missionaries in my zone. This week we started teaching TRC investigators, which is a little more of a realistic setting even though they're actors. But I forget that every time I go in the room and visit with them because it feels very real and the discussions that happen are really spiritual. One of our investigators is Nathan and he's a non member going to BYU so he knows a lot of people in the church but wants to know more. He had a lot of deep questions that were hard to answer but we helped him understand that knowing the answers to those questions weren't necessary for his salvation, but that having faith in Jesus Christ and gaining a testimony would lead to those answers he's looking for. He was really satisfied with what we taught and I think he could end up getting baptized someday, but we only teach him for this week. our other investigator is Jonathan, he's a history teacher who's German, but left home when he was 17 and had a pretty action packed life. He's really insightful and intelligent and has studied several religions but has never really considered being a part of one, so we've spent a lot of time talking about things like the Godhead and how they each play a role in our salvation. He seems especially interested in the Holy Ghost, and how he works, he's asked us questions like how we know it's the Holy Ghost communicating with us and the circumstances that we're in when we can feel the Holy Ghost. So we're trying to help him understand we're not their to teach him the facts but to help him gain his own faith and knowledge of Jesus Christ so that he can follow Him. I just realized last week on our temple walk we took some pictures but I forgot my camera back at the residence. Oops, I'll just send them next week. I've been studying the Book of Revelations really in-depth during my personal time in the last week, and Joseph Smith says its "one of the plainest books God ever caused to be written." So once you uncover the symbolism and what things represent you can actually learn a lot about the plan of salvation. Of course I've also been studying the Book of Mormon, especially the words of Isaiah found in 2 Nephi, because Nephi and even Jesus Christ (when he visits the Nephites) endorse the writings of Isaiah and they say there's a lot to be learned from them. That's everything I can think of right now other than I found out I'm leaving the MTC on the 28th and realized I'll be here for Easter, so one of the twelve Apostles is likely to be here so we'll see if that happens.