January 18th 2014

These past few days have been long and somewhat stressful but they were exciting and filled with the spirit. 

Wednesday:

the afternoon was pretty much just getting settled in my new room and meeting people from my district and my companions. I am in the MTC West campus with all the other Spanish speaking missionaries. All of our facilities and classes are in the Raintree housing area and we stay in the Wyview complex. In my district there are the six of us: Elder Udall, Elder Penaia Teo, Elder Christensen, Elder Jacobson, and Elder Anderson. I was in a triple companionship with Elder Udall and Elder Penaia and we stay in a dorm that has the 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen/dinning room/living room. Our First lesson was completely in Spanish so i was totally lost along with the rest of my district, but as the week has progressed it has not been as bad. In the evening we had a teaching Experience with one of the Elders from "The District" videos. There was a makeshift living room with an investigator that was set up in a classroom and the lesson would start with 2 elders coming in and starting off a lesson with the investigator. then Elder Christensen would pause the lesson and then we, the 30 or so brand new missionaries in the room, would continue the lesson. On one of the lessons, we got onto the topic of priesthood blessings and that there are modern day miracles. As the discussion progressed we keep pushing and pushing the investigator to believe in the power of the priesthood and in miracles until it got to a point where the spirit was super strong and the investigator was really contemplating what we were saying. We talked about how through the priesthood his kid could e healed and he rushed out of the classroom and came back with his kid. The thing was, that we all though he was and actor and we all were very surprised to find out that everything he was saying to us was real and when he brought in his kid a few elders anointed him and gave a short blessing. This experience made me realize that i will have to actually teach real  people and what I can say can really make people believe in the Gospel.

I know I didn't write that much today but i will work on it this week so I can write more. Spanish is progressing pretty well and we teach our investigator tonight....Hopefully we do well enough. I love it here and I know this is where I'm supposed to be

Love,

Elder Giles

Elder Boyce, Elder Billings, Elder Giles