The fist week of the MTC was crazy!! Sorry it has felt like forever since I left, but I didn't get P-day for a week and then a day! But this is amazing! We started the week off as completely new and confused missionaries and now it feels like we are completely experienced and ready to do some work! My companion is Elder Ewell, and he is an awesome guy! We get along super well and have a blast! Our district is also super cool! There are 2 other elders in our district also going to the Milwaukee mission, Elder Gause and Elder Stucki. They are super fun to hang with, they are in our room with us as well. The other 4 elders in our district are going to be serving in the St. Louis Missouri mission and they are also some pretty cool guys! We also have 4 sisters in our district that are serving in the Houston South mission. They are super fun and have some of the strongest testimonies I have heard. We all sit together at meals and really anytime we can be together with everyone we are! This morning we all went to the temple and did an endowment session and it was super spiritual! There is nothing else that I would rather do to start off the day!
So a little bit about the spiritual things we do.. we go to class every morning for 3 hours, which sounds like it would take forever but it goes by so fast. We have the most amazing teacher! His name is Bro Dishman and he always finds a way to get us to feel the spirit and come closer to Christ while we are helping others do the same. And then we have lunch and a bunch of study time for ourselves. We are supposed to do an hour of personal and companions study at some point during each day. So every morning we plan that, and everything else we need before breakfast and class. The days went by super slow at first, but now it feels like it is a normal day! Study time has become one of my favorite things, the more we know about the gospel, the better we are able to teach it! We do companion study and that always provides so much growth between the two of us together, both in spiritual growth, and growing closer together. We get all of our study done before we go exercise about 3:00. We get to do that for an hour a day, and then we go to dinner and back to class! And that is pretty much the normal schedule, it sounds kinda rough, but it is so much fun!
Sundays and Tuesdays are different because we have church and a devotional on Sunday, or a devotional on Tuesday. This week at church was awesome, we get to have 30 min of just singing hymns about half way through the day, and that is one of the best things we have done so far! The devotional on Sunday night was from Elder M. Russell Ballard of the quorum of the 12 apostles!! It was fantastic! He talked about how we need to be focused on a mission and be obedient to see miracles! There is so much I could share about it but that is pretty much the main point. After the devotional all the new missionaries get to watch a talk by Elder Bednar called The Character of Christ. It is soooooooo good. I don't even know how to put into words the things that he shared. But he talked about Christ and how in times of stress he doesn't turn himself in like the natural man would, but he turns outward, and helps others when he is in a hard situation. We all need to strive to be more like that! It is difficult, but as we do it, we can come more like our Savior, and have a closer relationship to him!
On Tuesday another Apostle came to the devotional!! It was Neil L. Andersen!! He and his wife both spoke to us and they both gave amazing talks. His wife talked about the power of prayer, and how when we pray with faith we will receive an answer to our prayers. She shared an example of her grandson saying a simple prayer to be comforted from his nightmares, and it was amazing! I love prayer and the fact that we can talk to God directly, because that is what it is. Then Elder Andersen talked, and he talked about the mission experience and how right now we, as missionaries in the MTC, have great faith like a flame. We need to keep that flame alive throughout our entire missions! We need to pray for miracles, because as we pray for them we will see them come into our lives. It is so hard to write about everything that they talk about, but they were amazing. I feel so blessed to have gotten to be able to do see two apostles speak directly to me in the last 4 days!
Thank you for all your support and prayers! I love you all!!
Elder Bryce Reynolds
