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!!!! :)