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