Week 9 MTC    June 27, 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has been another short week at the MTC and every single time it gets to Wednesday it blows my mind that it’s already Wednesday again. There was not a whole lot that went on this week; it was a fairly odd week actually due to all of the new mission presidents who will be heading out into the field this Thursday. We had about half of the campus closed down because we had all 12 of the Apostles here along with the entire First Presidency, so it was a pretty locked down place, more than normal.

For the Tuesday devotional we were in the same room as 10 of the Twelve Apostles only two were missing for health reasons. It was amazing to be in the presence of so many apostles and be pretty close to them. I was able to hear Elder L. Tom Perry speak for the 3 time now.  He is a great speaker. He gave this presentation on the church and how much it basically blesses our lives and the lives of others. One thing that was mentioned was that members of The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints will serve on average 430 hrs/year while the rest of the world only serves 48hrs/year. That was interesting to hear because we are so service oriented and we are always looking for ways to serve. Right now I will be serving for well over that number of 430 hours since my service will be a 24/7 service for the next 22 months.   It is going to be amazing! I am so excited to get out there and teach the gospel. I hope everything goes ok with my visa. We should be getting our visas tomorrow or in a few days. It is crazy to think that my time in the MTC is coming to a close.

My companion had 4 doctor’s appointments to go to on Monday. We went to our first appointment and we had it all planned out to get back right in time for the next one, but our ride didn’t come for an hour so we were late for the second one. We just got dropped off at the front but then we got in trouble because ONLY General Authorities and mission presidents were allowed up at the front. That’s how crazy locked down they had it. Oh well, it all worked out he made it to his appointment and still got to do his other two.

On Saturday we all thought we were going to meet our mission president, President Comparo.  Unfortunately that ended up not happening, so instead the entire MTC who didn’t have a new mission president watched the movie: The Other Side of Heaven. It was a nice break. We missed teaching one of our investigators twice because of this hectic week. It was great to have all the General Authorities here, but it was sad we didn’t get to teach our investigator. He was supposed to be "baptized" this Saturday, so we will have to move that back.  Hopefully it won’t be too bad.

We have two investigators Tema and Anton for the English spelling. They are both scheduled to be baptized this Saturday but I think only Anton will be able to be baptized because he is the only one we have taught all of our lessons to. Tema still has a few more he needs to be taught before we can call it good. It is so amazing how much love I have for both of them as investigators, even though they are our teachers, and we know they aren’t real investigators. We just love them so much and want them to have this joy of the gospel in their lives. It’s so cool because they are both so excited to get baptized. It just breaks my heart when we have to move the baptism date because we didn’t get to teach them all the lessons.  Next week they should both be baptized however.  So that’s exciting!  Soon I will go out into the “real world”, The Ukraine and hopefully transfer all that I learned here and bring souls back unto Christ!!! Only two more weeks till I head out!

On a side note I met a missionary who will be going to Michael’s mission or the other Elder Litchfield’s mission. Since Michael is in the office he already knew who he was. It was great to meet someone going to Washington DC South. Yesterday I also met an Elder who is going to Guam where Chase Adam’s served so that was cool too. Anyway, this week went by fast and I felt like not a lot happened but it was probably that it all just ran together and forgot some of the funny things that went on.   Sorry about that, I will try to take better notes throughout the week so I can share more.

I love you all I know you all pray for me and I can feel the strength that I receive from those prayers. Thank you so much for the prayers and all the support you all have given me. I know that this journey will be much more difficult to accomplish without the support I have. Thank you all so much!! I love this gospel and the joy it brings to my life.  I know that it will bring joy to all the lives of those who will be willing to accept it.  I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet called of God who restored His true gospel to earth today and that he translated the Book of Mormon, which this book is another testament of Jesus Christ and the fullness of the gospel of Christ. I know that we will all live together forever as eternal families because of this gospel and that we will have the opportunity to teach those in the afterlife who had not heard the gospel. I love this gospel and I love all of you!!!!

Thank you for all you do!

Love Elder Anthony  Litchfield

Week 8 MTC  June 20, 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

I can’t believe another week is down. I swear that just the other day it was June 10^th. I was thinking to myself,  hey we only have 30 more days left, but now it’s 10 days later and we only have 20 more days left until we are supposed to leave the MTC.  It’s so crazy how fast time is going by each and every single week. Sometimes the time seems so slow in that moment but then it’s over and then I think to myself where did my day go. It’s crazy, but I am loving it so much here. I am getting a little nervous to head out, because I hope I have learned the language well enough to teach the people of the Ukraine. I feel pretty good about it right now and good enough that I could teach pretty much all the lessons if I had notes, meaning words for each lesson to help me.  It will be so different once I get out there…….. I can’t wait it is coming up so fast…….

July 10^th is the date I’m suppose to leave to go the Ukraine.

So this week, like I said, went by really fast. This week was pretty much routine here at the MTC. There were only a few things that really stuck out to me this week.  As you all know my companion has not been feeling the best and he has been a little stressed out about everything that has been going on so I was able to give my very first blessing. It was a blessing of comfort and it was one of the coolest experiences ever. I honestly don’t remember what I was saying but I remember feeling scared but then calmed as I began to speak. The words just started to come to me and it was so awesome to get that first opportunity to give a blessing here in the MTC rather that in the mission field. We also were able to use our priesthood on one of our sisters in our district.  She was feeling down about that language and everything else going on. So we were able to participate in giving her a blessing as well. I am so glad that I am a worthy priesthood holder who is able to perform these ordinances, as well as the rest of the missionaries in our district who are also worthy. It is so important that we have this priesthood because without it, we could not do any of the things we are able to do. It is such a privilege that we have the priesthood and we are able to use.

Okay so this week we were giving a lesson to one of our investigators and he asked us a question. I can’t remember the question or what I even said, but that is what was so cool about it because it really wasn’t me speaking words, I felt like the words just started to come out of my mouth. They may not have been the most sophisticated words but I opened my mouth and words started to come out. I was able to look the investigator in the eye and saw what I needed to say; it was such a spiritual experience. I can say that the gift of tongues is real and that is what will help me and all the missionaries everywhere if they are willing to open their mouth. A more recent experience I had was yesterday, we were teaching our investigator about the law of chastity and he was asking us some really good questions that we didn’t really know how to answer. But I once again just opened my mouth and used the words I knew and was able to look him in the eye and have an actual conversation with him rather than reading something. I can’t remember the questions exactly but I remember that it was the spirit helping me say and testify about what we were teaching.

One last thing that happened this week……….. On just a little less spiritual note.  In sacrament Elder Wilding, Sister O'Neal, Sister Young, and I all sang in sacrament. You all know that I am not a huge fan of singing in front of a lot of people but it actually went really well.  We practiced a lot and that really helped out. I felt like I was ready, but I still felt nervous when I was up there. It all came together once I opened my mouth and started to sing.

So if there was anything that I could say………….. well this can apply to anyone really, if you prepare yourself and learn what you need to learn in school or in your language or in the gospel, the spirit will help you, but you have to open your mouth first before he will help you and give you what you need to say.

This has been a great week and very spiritual and I am ready to go out and serve the people of Ukraine and I hope that they are ready for me to get out there and teach. I love you all and am so happy that I have all of this support from you all.  It is such a blessing and I just want to say THANK YOU! You really don’t know how much it helps and means to have people supporting you.  THANK YOU SO MUCH!

I love you all and hope all is going well

Love Elder Anthony Litchfield

Week 7 MTC!!!!!   June 13, 2012

Dear family and friends,

I love you all so much and want you all to know how much and often I pray for you every single day. While in the MTC we pray quite a bit for everything we need and so I have a lot of opportunities to ask the Lord to please bless you all. I hope that you are all being blessed by my prayers and I know I am being so blessed for all your prayers!!! I appreciate all your love, support and prayers. The power of prayer is so strong. Thank you all so much!!!!

This week was more of a normal week. There really wasn’t anything new and super exciting that happened………. EXCEPT WE GOT NEW MISSIONARIES!!!!! I was so excited for them to come into the MTC. They all have such strong testimonies of the gospel. It is so ridiculous; they are picking the language up even faster than we did. It’s so crazy to see how that happens! It is definitely the power of the Lord. There is a great need for missionaries right now in Ukraine and Russia and the Lord needs us to get out there as soon as we can. The only way we can do that is to learn the language a little faster. Soon they will be cutting all of the Russian speaking groups down to a 9 week program. I wish that was us because then we would be leaving next week to teach the gospel, but it’s not, so I will learn as much as I can here. Heavenly Father has a plan for us here and now.

Elder Packard and I got to do the orientation for the new missionaries. It was so much fun and it was truly let by the spirit. We planned on how we wanted to teach things but did not plan what we would say. We prayed for guidance and we truly were guided by the spirit. The new missionaries thought that Elder Packard and I have a perfect missionary companionship, which was a compliment. It showed the new missionaries that you truly can love your mission companion. We are definitely not perfect, but we do our best to resolve everything so the spirit is always with us through all of our lessons and planning. We were told our presentation was one of the best presentations that they had ever seen. It was great to hear that. It felt good to bring in the new missionaries on a good note!!!

Another example of when I followed the spirit, which is something I have been trying to work on, is we had a lesson the other day and we were all set on teaching on obedience and praying always, but then out of nowhere I asked if the investigator (student) partook of the sacrament on Sunday. He said he did, but he didn’t know why he was taking the sacrament because he was not yet baptized. I then proceeded to tell him that even before baptism we can feel the Holy Ghost have an influence in our lives, and that when he partakes of the sacrament he can feel the spirit and it will help him through all of his trials. So we spent that entire lesson talking about church attendance and partaking of the sacrament, it was so cool to have that experience even though it is not a real investigator.  It is so much better to learn now to follow the spirit now rather than later when there are salvations at stake!!!

This week I got to meet Carson’s cousin who is in the other zone…….. Elder Betteridge

 (I believe is how you spell it) It was fun to meet his cousin. Oh I also saw David on Thursday of last week, which may have been the last time I will see him for two years.

I am so jealous that David gets to go see Michael, but that will be good for Michael and David.

 It will be good for him to see Michael and hear about his success.

Oh okay this was really funny…… we were all sitting in lunch a few days ago and over the loud intercom they called an Elder Moustache to the front desk. It was one of the funniest names we had heard over the intercom.  Sometimes we really entertain ourselves with silly things.   We live in our classrooms but sleep in our residence. I am so ready to get out there and teach the gospel.

Yesterday we had our first 100 percent SYL (Speak Your Language) and we have another one tomorrow and then one on Saturday and then one the next week….. Its four days of SYL.

 Next week will be an entire week of pure SYL; it is going to be so much fun. I learned a few new words from participating in the SYL. I still struggle some and did not do my best at speaking Russian all day, 100 percent, but I know that if I will be more diligent and learn the words that I need to say on a daily basis that the Lord will bless me. I want to learn the language just a little bit better before I head to The Ukraine. I am so excited to get out there and start bearing my testimony of this gospel, because I know it is true! I know that their lives will be blessed if they will just read the Book of Mormon and pray for help and guidance and answers. Heavenly Father will answer their prayers through the power of the Holy Ghost. It will be difficult to communicate at first, but I know that if I can just bear my testimony and bring the spirit, then the Holy Ghost will do the rest for me!!!

I love you all and I love this work that I am doing. I am here on the Lords errand. I am an agent in the Lords hands and this is not about me at all. It is all about our Heavenly Father and I need to forget myself and realize that this is for the salvation of our Heavenly Father’s children.

All Heavenly Father’s children need to have the opportunity to hear this gospel because it will truly bless them.  It will bless them more than they will ever imagine.  I have seen these blessings in my life, even after all of my trials and struggles.

I love you all and wish you all the best and hope you all have a wonderful Day!

Love Elder Anthony Litchfield

P.S. Happy Fathers day to all The Father’s on Sunday :) I send you all my Love…….. Especially my dad! Love you dad! You’re the greatest!!!!!!!

Love you all!!!! :)

MTC WEEK 6………….June 6, 2012

Dear Family and Friends!!!!

Well it’s been another week in the MTC and it has been a very spiritual week for me especially! So I know my emails sometimes get a little long and so for those of you who may only read this first little bit, I figured I would share my spiritual experience that I had this week. First of all I want you all to know that I love you and that our Heavenly Father loves each and every single one of you.  He knows you personally and knows what you need in your life! So this week we had many speakers and devotionals but for some reason on Fast Sunday  I felt the spirit testify to me stronger than it ever has about the power of the Atonement in my life and the life of everyone else in the world. I know for a fact the Jesus Christ died for every single one of us, so that we can all be able to repent and return to live with our Heavenly Father. I broke down in tears because of how strong the spirit was and I knew that no matter what I have done in my life or what anyone else has done in theirs, they can be forgiven no matter what, because that is the power of the infinite Atonement. It was the best day for me so far in the MTC, because of how strongly the spirit testified to me. I know I could feel that spirit because of my obedience and doing all I can!

Okay and this is something I felt yesterday during Tuesday devotional. I would love for all of you to read the Book of Mormon, if you have not read it.  If you don’t have a copy of it, I am sure you can contact my parents and they will help you out and give you one. I know how much this gospel has blessed my life and I feel like I have not done my part with sharing the gospel. So please read it if you want to know why I am doing what I am doing. There is so much truth in the Book of Mormon and the spirit will tell you why it is so good and that it is true.

I got to play a little soccer and some softball. It just brought back some good memories of when I was a kid. I felt like I missed some of those sports that I no longer play, but it also showed me at the same time that I am getting out of shape. I couldn’t even run for 40 minutes playing soccer…… ha ha.  Now I know I am out of shape! However, it was a lot of fun and definitely a great part of the day.  It’s nice to go to the gym and do something physically active, because 10 hours a day we are sitting down studying.

Last week after I sent my email, we went to the hospital for my companion. We don’t know the results yet but he seems to be doing well and things are looking better for him. So that is just a little update on that if any of you were curious about that situation.

On Wednesday I got to see Elder Wright (Tanner).  It’s hard to get used to calling him Elder  Wright …….. ha ha It was great to see him…… it was something I really needed that day, because all of our people were gone. It seemed like the day was just dragging on but when I got to see Tanner…… it just lifted me right back up. I knew that the Lord was supporting me and gave me what I needed, so I could keep pushing on and working hard!!!

We will be getting new missionaries coming into the MTC Wednesday (today) and I am so excited!!! We get to set the example and the tone for them. We’ll show them how great of an experience the MTC can be if you have the right attitude. I am so thankful for the MTC and I know that I have learned so much about myself since I have been here. I have really learned how to study the gospel and teach the gospel. It will be so fun to meet the new missionaries and get to know them tonight and then we will get the opportunity to teach them a little bit about companions on Thursday. I can’t wait for them to get here.

So something embarrassing happened to me this week………. we were in class and I was talking with my teacher and apparently we are supposed to be formal with our teachers. I didn’t realize that because I thought we were tight. So I used the informal which is Tbl but then our teacher acted super mad, but was really joking around.  I was told that with teachers you always use Bbl  (formal) and I turned so red and was so embarrassed. It was bad, but I got over it after a few minutes. I was so embarrassed that I completely messed up my sentence that I was trying to say.

It was an uncomfortable experience, but I’m still learning and now I know you speak to teachers using the formal way.

Something cool that happened was that I was trying to break the free throw record at gym. I didn’t have anyone watching me but I was just shooting and I made 10 baskets and then 20 and I thought……. Hmm……….. I could break the record and it wouldn’t matter. I kept shooting and I got to 28 and the record is 29 and so I shot another one and I made it. I tied the record, but no witnesses or anything…………… just me! Then I thought, I’ll keep going………….. but low and behold I missed! So I tied the record, but didn’t break it.

It was a sad day in the MTC. Ha ha

Another exciting thing that happened this week was that we caught a mouse. One night I saw things run across our floor and my companion hates anything that moves and so he asked

“What was that?” I said uhhhh I think someone threw something into our room. He said….. Nope, I just saw it and it was a mouse!!!!  My companion was freaking out and made me switch him bunks. But that was good for me because I sleep so much better on the bottom bunk. Anyway they gave us a mouse trap and the trap went off but we didn’t catch it. So then we put some peanut butter on the trap and caught the mouse the next day. It was fun!!!! Now I am on the bottom bunk and I have been sleeping so much better. Crazy!!!!!

Well I will leave you all with a little challenge that our substitute teacher gave us during one of our classes. The challenge was to sum up the plan of salvation in 5 sentences. It was really difficult to find the 5 most important sentences. So if you would like to take this challenge, I would love for you to send me your 5 sentences on the plan of salvation. It will be interesting to read them. I know I had a hard time doing this. Good luck :) I look forward to reading what you all have to say.

I love you all so much. I want you all to know I have a testimony of this gospel and I know that I am doing the Lords work. I know you are all being protected. I constantly pray for you all….. Every single night! I love you all and hope life is treating you all as well as it is treating me.   Take care and may the spirit of Our Heavenly Father always be with you!!

Love Elder Anthony Litchfield

Well I just realized that my last email said week 3 one month which should have said week 4, one month……… oops!

Anyway Week 5 MTC   May 30, 2012

Dear Family and friends,

Another week is down and it has been a crazy week. So to start off we have this thing called TRC, which is Teaching Resource Center and we basically do a home teaching lesson. Last week when we had the TRC we were talking with one of the teachers.  We taught the teacher the lesson for 20 minutes.  After the lesson she asked why we only taught 20 minutes.   She asked why we were already finished.  We told her that we were only doing 20 minute lessons this week. She then asked us how long we have been in the MTC and we said 4 weeks. She was shocked that we had only been in the MTC for 4 weeks, because of how well we spoke. She asked if we knew any Russian before we came into the MTC. My roommate said, yes two semesters. I said no, that I hadn’t learned any Russian prior to coming to the MTC.  She was very impressed with my ability to speak and it really made my day and helped me realize I am learning a little more each day.  The gift of the Holy Ghost is extremely strong and is helping me every single day.

Since I have been at the MTC for awhile everything is kind of starting to get funny……….. When it’s definitely not funny at all!  We laugh at the silly things. But it’s good to be a little crazy & enjoy the time that we have here. The MTC is a great place to be and the spirit is so strong!

Okay so some news on my companion, first I’ll tell you about his personality then his health issue. He is a very fun loving guy, but sometimes he takes others people’s ideas and just goes with them because he thinks they are cool. So these last three weeks we really haven’t had any companionship study time, because he has been copying this book that someone else made.

 I mean it’s a good idea and all, but it really took away from his studying and my studying with him.  Hopefully we can figure things out.   It was kind of an interesting last few weeks, but nonetheless our lessons still went well. I think it’s mostly because he has some Russian background.  I have also been taking fewer notes into the lessons, just a few words that I might want and it has been such a blessing to do that.

NOW my companions health........today we are going somewhere for him to get some scan or something.  I’m not exactly sure what it is, but we are leaving here around 8:30 a.m. so if this doesn’t get sent, that is why.    My companion is doing better, but he did feel like he was about to pass out the other day.  Kind of weird! I think things are getting better and he is just a little scared with it all. So hopefully this scan or test will tell us something more.   I hope that the test will come back saying he is fine.

Well a few things have happened this week. The older group is now gone and we are now technically the “older group” which is really weird to me. It will be hard because we won’t have the rest of our friends to keep us entertained throughout the week. It’s going to be a long few days until we get the new group and by that point I will only have like a month left!!!!  That is crazy!!!! Okay this is super cool…………………...                                    WE GOT OUR NAME TAGS IN RUSSIAN NOW!!!! It was so cool to see them. It’s unfortunate I can’t send pictures of it with my email, because it looks super cool and there is not a single letter on my name tag that is English! ha ha…………. fun stuff!

For sacrament meeting all of our talks have to be in Russian and I think I will probably give mine the first week that the new kids (missionaries) are here. 

       I noticed I scratched my watch crystal, which bummed me out. It’s a nice long scratch right across the face of it. I’m sure you all wanted to hear that!  Ha ha But I have to find new things to talk about each week and this was a big deal!!!! ha ha. But at least it is not broken; I have to look on the bright side of things!

        Yesterday we had a great speaker at our devotional and to me the main point of it was the power in a simple testimony. I was looking back on our experience the first few days in the MTC and the first things they teach us; is how to pray, and bear your testimony, which has so much power in. I know that the first few days I was butchering everything I said, but I could bear a simple but powerful testimony in Russian. I know that if I can continue to do that; the spirit will help me fill in the blanks. Well as long as the investigator is willing to listen!

I have a very talkative zone and they love to take time to share what they think. But sometimes they talk a little too much. Yesterday when I explained the power of simplicity, it was kind of me telling them to make things simple and don’t just ramble. But I don’t think they all got that. It’s okay, because I know they all have extremely strong testimonies and I love to hear them share their testimonies and express their gratitude for this gospel.  It is such a blessing to be with these missionaries and hear their testimonies

I have a testimony of this gospel, I know it is true. I know that our Heavenly Father loves us and that Jesus Christ is our savior. I know that Joseph Smith restored the gospel and was a prophet and died protecting it. I know that the book of Mormon is true through the power of prayer and I know that through the Holy Ghost we can know of all things. I love the gospel and I love all of you!  I wish you all the best and hope you have a wonderful week!!! Till next week…………. much love,

Love Elder Litchfield