August 27, 2015 - The Last Email from the MTC!!

Hello Everyone! Well here is my last email from the MTC. It has been a great experience here and I wouldn't change anything about it. On Monday morning at 3am I will be on a bus headed to the airport for a 7am flight to Oaxaca. We were able to receive our travel plans on Thursday and the whole district has been packing up and getting ready to head out soon. This last week has been the best by far of the MTC. Although the language we have been learning is the hardest by far, and the lessons we have had to teach have been the most difficult, I have found that in the times of the greatest difficulty are the times where God will strengthen you the most and in those times, you can receive the spirit stronger than you ever could any other time. Alright so here are the highlights of the week, it has truly been amazing! Yesterday, Elder D. Todd Christofferson came down to our MTC and spoke to us along with his wife. The main message that he wanted to share with us could be summed up into a simple quote that he shared with us, "Everyone is born with a desire to serve other people, and a desire to want to bless people in ways that are in ways, unworldly. Yet, they don't know how to act on this desire. We, a lucky few have the knowledge and opportunity to be able to do this for our fellow men. Although it may seem like it is a burden, in the end it will always be a blessing for both parties." This just hit me so hard! We are so lucky to be able to have a knowledge of the Savior and a knowledge of how to bless the lives of people around us through the knowledge that we have! He then opened up to 5 questions from the audience, and it is amazing how each question specifically helped me even though it had not previously been on my mind. The last question that someone asked was about the Savior. And he said this, "No one can say, I can't do this, when he did it all alone, when he was begging to the father, "Why hast thou forsaken me." We are never alone because he went through it all. If your answers aren't coming when you want them to, remember that Christ plead 3 times to the father to remove the cup from him, but in the end, he was willing to always submit to his fathers will." What a strong testimony from a prophet of the Lord! It was one of the best experiences that I have ever had in my life! Him and his wife are the most humble people that I have ever witnessed, he kept saying over and over how the MTC presidency could teach us better, and how they were far better than he was in the gospel. If there is one word to describe Elder Christofferson it would be "humble." Afterwards we had to head to our service activity of helping to escort the new Elders in to the MTC. My district was out there waiting for the busses to come and all of a sudden here came Sister Christofferson walking down the sidewalk. She was waiting for Elder Christofferson to get out of meetings and she said she wanted to come talk to us! So our district talked to her for a while, then the busses got there and she greeted some of the new Elders. When we had finished unloading the first van, I turned around and here was Elder Christofferson walking down the sidewalk to us. He shook my hand first and said "Nice to meet your Elder Peterson" Then he greeted the rest of my district. When his bodyguards were ready to go they started walking away and I said "Thank you Elder Christofferson" and he turned around, looked right at me and said "No thank you for your service Elder" I have never been so humbled in my life! It was amazing! The other thing that has been hard this week is having to say goodbye to all of the volunteer member investigators here. Last night we talked with Llores one last time. She was telling us about the open house of the Mexico MTC temple. She said that last Sunday alone, they had 9,000 people come through, and she was there ushering until 11:30 that night. It is amazing how much the people down here love the Church. It is their greatest pride, joy and happiness in their life and they would do anything to sacrifice for it. Llores stood in a hallway of the temple for 12 hours on Sunday, working overtime by 4 hours. This is sacrifice and a huge example to us. That is really all that has happened this week! It has been the same schedule each day of 3 hours of class in the morning, gym, computer classes, and study in the afternoons, and 3 more hours of class each night. I truly am in a Garden of Eden as Elder Christofferson said. It is beautiful to watch the green parrots fly by, all the palm trees, 72 degrees and sunny. Everyone that we have talked to about Oaxaca has said that we are going to get fat from the food and we are going to sweat to death from the heat. I don't know we will see if that really happens! Anyways I would love to hear from you with questions or happenings in your lives! Thank you for all the support! Elder Peterson --