MTC Week 7

Hey Everyone!

First of all, sorry for the short e-mails. I spend all thirty minutes on this one e-mail. The reason they are so short is that it is hard to write new things when we do the same thing everyday, all day, for seven weeks now. I figure I won't repeat myself over and over again.

This week has been really busy! We are steadily realizing that we have less than two weeks left until we are thrown to the wolves. Um...i don't know spanish...haha no but seriously we are really excited but nervous too. I have found that when my brain is fried from learning Spanish, there is still a way to be productive, and that way is translating songs into Spanish so you can sing them for your district. A few weeks ago we learned how to sing Scripture Power in Spanish...it ROCKS!!! I sing it all the time.

"Escrituras me protegerán
Con su poder el mal yo venceré
Escrituras poder me darán
Poder que solo tengo al leer"

Anyway, another example, we are going over giving directions in Spanish, and so in the vocab we happened to come across the words "Near" and "Far"...you know where I am going with this? Yes, this was all I needed to break out My Heart Will Go On from Titanic. It got a pretty big laugh out of Hermano Conde. I might send the lyrics in my hand-written letter, but not now, for the sake of time.

Also, this week has been the week of ended relationships for Elder Stokes and I in the MTC. We had our last appointment with Pedro, and got our feedback for Bro. Valladares. "Pedro" accepted a committment to me baptized. It was a pretty good experience. He said in the feedback that Pedro was a convert from his mission, and was the hardest investigator to teach that actually got baptized. He congratulated us on being diligent in helping him understand, because he was trying to be difficult in some instances just like the real Pedro was. He ended by saying we are very prepared missionaries and knows we will do great things in the mission field. We were kind of surprised because we thought he was going to rip us apart.

So the second relationship ending was Carolyn. I called her again for the third time and the missionaries had still not contacted her. Needless to say I was very frustrated. Can somebody tell me what is so hard about going to a person's house who WANTS to learn about the church. We had a nice talk about God and Christ, and how we recieve joy in bringing others to Christ. It got kind of emotional when we had to say goodbye, because we both knew we probably won't talk to eachother again. There is nothing left to follow-up on so there isn't a reason to keep calling, and I won't be able to call forever. Anyways, at the end, she thanked me for being an inspiration to her and for counseling her (which I didn't really think I did...I don't think she knew I was only 19 haha) and wished me well in my life. She has had cancer for 3 years and doesn't think she is long for this life, so I told her about the Plan of Salvation, and she said she believed thats what happens after we die. So she said, "Well, Sean, I'm sure we will see each other again. I will be up there waiting for you. Let's find each other so we can meet in person." I told her I would like that very much, and we both agreed it wasn't a coincidence that I picked up the phone last month. It just overall was a great experience this last month.

I have seen Kenny Fawcett walking around and we talked for a couple minutes in passing. He said "Guten Tag!" and I told him I didn't know German anymore because Spanish devoured it, which is somewhat true. I have to really think now to get something out in German, whereas it is easier and easier to just blurt something our in Spanish.

I have accomplished my goal to become Elder Nacho Libre here with my outrageous accent. I haven't told anyone about this goal, but this past Friday, I went to a younger district and said "Hola mis amigos" to which Elder Strang replied, "Hola Nacho" YES!!!!!! NAILED IT!!!!!! It made me really happy, also my mission is now complete. Everything else is just frosting on the cake.

20 seconds...we should be getting flight plans on Friday!!!! woo hoo!!!

Love Sean