Thanks for all the letters and packages! I love the
ties and thanks for sending me those cinnamon rolls too! They were good
but Dad's are still better. Thanks for the valentine package as well and
thanks for writing some notes to Elder Penaia too! He hasn't
received any mail this whole time in the MTC so that's awesome that you
wrote him notes, he really appreciates it (he has been getting emails
though). Can you also thank Sisters Alisa and Corrine Barlow for me? If
you didn't know, they sent me a package with
some lifesavers and one of those nice wooden "Plan of Salvation"
visuals in Spanish. I really appreciate it and I can't wait to use it on
my mission! Thanks for everything!
My Birthday was pretty cool on Tuesday. My District sang happy
birthday to me in the morning before class and at lunch our main teacher
came to the cafeteria and gave me a German Chocolate Cake ( my district
had told him about my birthday the day before)!
Then we went to the usual Tuesday evening devotional and listened to
Elder Zwick talk to us about Hastening the Work. One cool thing he did
was he walked through the crowd and asked a few missionaries what their
thoughts were on hastening the work. Then that
night our District had a little "party" in which we ate some of
the cake, and they gave me a birthday card that they all signed and a
tie. All in all my birthday was probably the best you could have in the
the MTC and I am very grateful for my District.
The weird thing about being here at the MTC is that now my favorite
thing to do here is teach. I did not like teaching lessons or anything
before coming to the MTC and I never did a very good job with it. But
now all I want to do is teach people because
that is the reason we learn Spanish so fast and because each lesson we
feel the Spirit and the love from Heavenly Father. One of Elder Penaia's
and my investigators this week in TRC (Teaching Resource Center) was
Jorge. I'm pretty sure he is a non- member
and he was one of the best investigators to teach. He had many questions
for us as missionaries and the main thing that was hard for him to
understand was how we could believe in what we believe such as: el Libro
do Mormón, Joseph Smith, and the Godhead. It was
a really cool experience teaching him because we got to bear our
testimonies a lot, which invited the Spirit, and even though we really
didn't teach a full lesson, we both felt like we increased his faith and
brought him closer to Christ.
So I got my travel plans yesterday. I fly out of Salt Lake City to
Atlanta, Georgia and then straight to Buenos Aires. Not too bad, I would
say, but it will be a long 2 days because I get to Argentina in the
morning around 8 so I will probably be put straight
to work. Yea!
Some other news: Elder Penaia is getting a temporary reassignment
because his visa is not ready for Argentina. Elder Anderson is getting
permanently reassigned to a different mission because Argentina won't
accept his visa. :( But he does have the comfort
of knowing that he will be assigned to somewhere in South America
This Sunday's devotional is going to awesome! Elder Holland's son
is coming to speak to us about Joseph Smith and share some cool stories
about him. There is also going to be a professional choir there that
will sing songs intermittently throughout the
talk and then at the end ( I think), the MTC choir and the other choir
will sing "Praise to the Man." It will be awesome to listen to the talk
and sing in the choir!
I love you all and thanks again for the letters and packages!
Love,
Elder Giles
Elder Giles and his District!
Thanks Heather for the updates! So fun to hear about the MTC, hope his travel goes well to Argentina. I celebrated my birthday in the MTC as well, it was fun.
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