Friday, September 23, 2011

La Tercera Semana en el CCM

Hola!

I can't believe that I have already been here for more than two full weeks!  The time in the CCM(MTC) goes by really fast and really slow at the same time.  The weeks go by fast and the days go by slow.  This week had its ups and downs.

On Wednesday, our service morning of the week, I went and weighed myself and found out some not so good news... my metabolism is finally starting to fail me, or I am just eating way too much more than any human being can handle, not sure which one.  They always just have such good food and make me want to grab like four plates at a time...then I eat all of it!  I gained 5 pounds in the last week.  I also haven't been running as much because we have been playing softball like everyday for our gym-time.  So I am going to have to start watching what I eat...that probably won't do much either because I will just eat everything that I watch! 

This week we had another AMAZING opportunity to hear from another quorum of the twelve member!  After sacrament on Sunday the branch presidency handed out October Ensigns to everyone saying to study it and read all of it before Tuesday Night Devotional and then bring it to the devotional.  It doesn't happen very often that the MTC just hands out an issue of the Ensign to every missionary there so we were all thinking that someone from the first presidency was coming to speak to us, but we still got it good with an apostle.  Russell M. Nelson and his wife came and spoke to us about the Book of Mormon--because that was what the special edition of the October Ensign was.  It was an amazing talk from the both of them and the Ensign is also great!  I encourage all of you to go and read it.  It has got some really important stuff in there including Ezra Taft Benson's famous Book of Mormon talk many years ago in a general conference.  Hearing two apostles in a row each week makes me excited to hear from even more of them this coming conference in a week.

We also got two new progressive investigators this week--Ernesto and Gustavo--whose parts are played by both my teachers, Hermano Brown and Hermano Trigo.  Teaching is really cool but really hard at the same time.  I have been having a hard time preparing and being organized with the last few meetings, but hey, that's what practice in the Missionary Training Center is for right?

A few other Elders and I are really cool and have started translating some English phrases into really terrible Spanish.  For example:
Como le gusta estas manzanas----> How do you like them apples
Cualquiera---->Whatever(This one is actually something they say.  Hermana Arcos, a tutor here taught me that)
Cierra la puerta----> Shut the door
Que en el mundo----> What in the world!(This may or may not be the most popular one...)
Paz afuera niƱo exploradora----> Peace out boy scout

And many more!  I will put more in next time for your entertainment.

This week when my companion and I were walking out the bookstore we saw a garbage can full of books so me, being myself, went and checked it out, because I am a big fan of dumpster diving for free things, or just free things in general...The books turned out to be tons of misprinted in some way FHE books in different languages like Tagalog(the only one I could even remotely recognize...).  I grabbed tons of them and found out that they had a section of colored pictures which consisted of a bunch of pictures from Christ's life and also some relating to Jose(Joseph) Smith.  Jackpot!!!  So we made a huge collage in nuestro cuarto(our room).  The next day we went back and found more treasures like a big broken heater and a long panoramic picture of the BYU bookstore taken back in like the 80's or somethin...so forever ago!  That is also one of the main masterpieces of art in our room.  Those finds had just about completed my week! 

How about let's finish with some bad news.  I had to get a shot yesterday.  And they gave me a sparkly band-aid, I wasn't going to deal with that.  So I complained a bit and they gave me a Toy Story one which was much better.  And the good news is that I probably don't have to get any more shots,

There have been a lot of things that have happened this week but I don't quite have enough time to write all of them.  But you got a good feel of what has happened here this week. 

The spirit is amazing here in the MTC.

The spiritual thought of the week is to go and read the whole October Ensign!  Well, if your a busy person and have things to do and people to see, I would recommend even just reading the amazing talk by President Benson.  It brought up some great points back to my memory.  The Book of Mormon is a very powerful book and is also the most correct book on this earth.  I agree with Joseph Smith's words of "a man can get closer to god" by reading it and abiding by it's teachings.

The Church is true!

Con Todo Mi Amor,

Elder Larisch