Week 2 Report

Here's the latest email, received today. Wow! I am inspired by this guy!

Hey all!

Its been another crazy week here at the MTC. But its still awesome and I'm still have a lot of fun.

I got my travel plans like last friday and Elder Light, Myself and 3 others will be traveling to Peru on Wed. Feb 3. We will be travel on a dirct connect all the way from SLC to Lima so its like a 14 hour flight or something close to that. I got assigned as the travel leader so I'm in charge of making sure everyone gets to peru


We went to the Temple on Thursday and did a session, the temple is awesome and so beautiful. The celestial room was way awesome.

One of the elders in my district went home this week. We are not sure why, but he was one of the really cool guys, so I'll have to write him when I get a chance. It was really sad to see him just leave because we knew that he should be here.

Time flies here at the mtc, except during the day. the days seem to take longer (I'm pretty sure its because of waking up at 6:30 every day) but it only seems like I've been here for just a few days.

A district left on tuesday, so we sang "God Be With You Till We Meet Again" in spanish to them. The whole zone crowded into one room and we sang it at the top of our lungs. It was way cool, Elder Light and I will get the same deal on Tuesday because they do it every time some elders leave.

So yesterday to replace them we got a whole bunch of new elders. Yay for not being a newbie any more! Well for another 6 days anyways. They are going to either, Argentina, Texas or the Dominican Republic.

I've started reading 2 chapters a day in the Book of Mormon in Spanish in addition to the 5 chapters in english. Its amazing how much more I get out of it by studying it in another language. There some words with different meanings, but for the most part the fact that I have to translate every word makes it that much more meaningful. I've really made it personal. Its awesome.

On sunday I went to choir. The director was hilarious and really helped us to realize the importance of the song (Joseph's First Prayer) and the power of it. Also on sunday we had a Brother Steven B. Allen of the 70 speak to us. He was a great speaker and challenged us to us the Book of Mormon as often as possible when we teach. There is so much power in using the words of aincient prophets that God inspired them to write. He also said he was very grateful to us for voluntarily giving up so much to serve the Lord for 2 years. He asked some elders to come up and share something that they had given up and the first elder said "marriage" and when he was asked where his girlfriend lived, he said "Well, she's here right now"...and so she was! She stood up. How weird and funny is that? Like seriously???

TORNADOES? IN GILBERT? Wow! That is total craziness! Its snowed at least 2 or 3 times a week here, I hate it. But my compainion loves it. (Darn Alaskan).

Lets see what else. Oh I learned something in gym, don't try to block poynesians when they are spiking the ball...it doesn't work. And your arm will hurt afterwards for while for the sheer force of the ball.

The food here is totally hit and miss. like some days it'll be quite good and others its awful. Its annoying, but its all I got.

Oh and my Spanish is coming along really well, I can communicate most things that I want to in spanish that I want to, and I can understand pretty much everything that is spoken to me. I have a harder time speaking in Spanish than I do understanding it. So thats something I'll have to work on.

Let me know how the superbowl goes! Thank you to Dad for the sports updates, it really means a lot to me.

All in all I'm doing really well, I'm gonna push myself pretty hard this week, I leave on Wednesday to Peru and I miss and love you all!

Elder Patrik Connole