Week 3 MTC!!! 1 MONTH LETS GOOOOOO!!!!!!!  May 23, 2012

Dear family and friends,

Can you believe another week is down and that I now have been in the MTC for a month!!!  What!!!!???? That is crazy……. I never thought I would be here for a month, but now I have two more to go and it seems like it is just flying by so quickly. The older group that is in the MTC with us will be leaving on Tuesday of next week. We will be all alone for a week until the new districts come in. It’s going to be so sad without them. They were such a great group of people and so friendly and such a good example to all of us. It was so nice to be with them. But since they are leaving we will be restructuring and we will be gaining 3 or 4 more districts. So that will be crazy!!!!!! Oh and on top of that, MY COMPANION AND I ARE ZONE LEADERS!!! We are going to have to be in charge of 7 districts. I think it’s going to be quite the task but I cannot wait for this opportunity to serve these people. We’ll show them how amazing the MTC can be, if you put your mind in the right place and focus and give up everything and serve The Lord!

      We teach on Wednesdays and last week my companion had been telling me this word which sounded like “garmoshkeh” and so he kept telling me it meant tennis.    He was trying to get me to say it, but I just wouldn’t say it….. So, finally he got me to say it and apparently it means a “small accordions”…………. he thought that was pretty funny!!!! But it didn’t really work out like he planned because the investigator didn’t know what”garmoshkeh” was.  So the joke ended up being on my companion!!.

      On Thursday we have workshops and we were learning how to follow the spirit in order to find answers to our questions. One of the things I was asking, was why would Our Heavenly Father let Joseph Smith be killed? So as I was studying…… I read somewhere those who die will go and teach to those in the spirit world.  And it just hit me………… Joseph was such a great teacher, leader and example to all. Of course it was his time to go, and he would be going to the spirit world and teach all those who have not yet received the gospel. It was so cool to receive that answer, even though it may have been obvious, I knew it was from the spirit.

    We were reading some scriptures the other day and someone read the scripture about Adam fell that men are that they might have joy.... and it just reminded me of seminary when we would say at the end of that and woman are that they might provide it... Gotta love the O’Neill’s ha ha they are the best!!! So many things I remember from them!!

    Well now to fill you all in on the kind of weekend I had.... so it was Friday night and we are just about to pray and go to bed. I was saying the prayer and as I started to pray my companion liked kicked me in the leg. I was thinking, what the heck!  I thought…… just kept going. After I said amen and opened my eyes I found out that apparently my companion had been spasming/having a seizure. So we called the front and they took awhile to get to us. Then we went to the hospital that night. We needed to get my companion checked out. They weren’t sure really what had happened to him. We ended up going to the hospital around 11 pm and we sat in the waiting room for about an hour or 2 until finally they put us into a room. We sat in the room for a little bit and then they took him back and did an EKG and a CAT scan. They could not find anything wrong, so they gave him a heart monitor.  They wanted to see if the heart monitor would give them any ideas of what was wrong. By the time this was all said and done, it was about 3 or 3:30 in the morning.  By the time we got to sleep it was probably about 4 am, which means that we only got, at the most, 3 hours of sleep and it was Saturday.  Saturday is like the longest and hardest day of the week. We were both exhausted and it was crazy that we made it somehow through the day.  We tried to teach the plan of salvation on no sleep and it was quite the lesson, I can’t remember what we said, but it made some sense. So then on Sunday morning we went to go back to the hospital to get the monitor taken off of my companion. On Monday we went to go see the doctor and now my companion Elder Packard will have to get some brain scan thing from some neurologist or something like that.  I feel bad for him!  This is something we will need to do next week.  Yeah, that is how it went for us over the weekend.  Oh so while we were at the hospital on Sunday………………… first you have to picture the little boy RJ from the movie The Blind Side.  This little boy was just like RJ, his height, looks, attitude, demeanor and how he talked……... okay so he comes up to us and sees my sweats that have BYU-I on them and he asked if I went there?  I said yes. Then he said, hey me too!  He was pointing to his shorts.   He didn’t go to school at BYU-I but he had shorts from BYU-I. Then he looks and sees our name tags.    He asked, "hey are you missionaries?!" We said yes and then he says I’M MORMON TOO!...........Right mom?……….. it was the cutest and funniest thing. A little bit later they asked us where we were going to be serving our mission. We told them in the Ukraine. I asked the little boy if he wanted to serve a mission.   He said yes!! I was glad to hear that.  I found some good in going to the hospital even though it was a scary moment.
Well on a less serious note……….. When we give church talks, we have to give them all in Russian now. So wish me luck! I hope I can pull off the talk. I hope I can get my point across and be able to pronounce what I write down on my paper. ha ha  It should be fun.  It just helps us get more prepared for serving our mission in the Ukraine.  Many times we sing in our residence or whenever and Elder Samuelson joins in and as he joins in……….. We all of a sudden stop singing.  It’s not really on purpose, but it seems like it is.  So Elder Samuelson gets really mad because he is just singing by himself. We just say, “What are you doing?”  It is all in fun. We love him and I love everyone in my district and zone. They are so great and I know we are all here for a reason.     The food here in the MTC is causing me to gain a few pounds………….. not good!!!   I got to work harder in gym!!

When we are watching Mormon Messages it makes me want to go serve so bad and I know that I am here doing the Lords work and that I have a divine purpose and that is to teach the gospel. I have received multiple answers……… that this church is true and that Joseph Smith did restore the true gospel and that the book of Mormon is true and it is here to guide us through our lives. I love this gospel and any of you debating whether or not to serve……… please go to the Lord and ask Him. Our Heavenly Father will testify to you what you should do. He will testify to you through the Holy Ghost. Make sure you stay worthy to always have the Holy Ghost with you.

He is truly there to guide us. The Holy Ghost helps me in the MTC and will be there throughout my life!!!!!! 

I love you all and wish you all the best! I will continue to pray for you all! Prayer is the one of the most powerful things in the world!!!!!!! I love you all!!!!

Elder Anthony Litchfield