Elder Stone

Dear Mom and Dad (and family)
Holy cow, I love the MTC! As soon as I walked into here I felt the spirit so strong! They kind of whisked us away into different buildings to get all our books and name tags for our missions. You wear those things around everywhere. Considering I joined a club at SUU just for the name tag I think it's pretty cool to where one around all the time! Now instead of having the name of SUUSA I have a far more important person I am representing. It was nice having Whitney come pick us up before we went into the MTC. Cafe Rio was muy bueno for a last meal. Yeah, I was a little bit nervous up until we got to the Provo Temple parking lot to take pictures. The nerves seemed to float away at that point and the excitement hit! Well the first day we were kept pretty busy. To be honest, it feels like that was forever ago! Not in a "I'm missing home" sort of way. They just keep you soooo busy all the time. From studying time to language learning to teaching investigators (yes, we already have an investigator) there isn't much time to think about anything else. To be honest, I love it that way! There is a saying here that even in the few days I've been here I'm starting to agree with. "The days drag on but the weeks sure fly!" The second day I was here I felt like by the end of the day it had been three day's packed into one. I saw some notes I took at the start of the day and I was thinking, wait what? That was today? It was crazy! A cool experience that happened the first day I was here was in the opening devotional little thing we sang "We are as the armies of Helaman". The only difference is we sang "we are NOW the Lord's missionaries". That hit me really hard. I have been singing that song for years now and it brings me chills but singing it with the word NOW adds sooo much more power. I was reading in the missionary handbook about our schedule and it talks about how this is the only time in our lives that we will be able to dedicate your all to the Lord and the time we have is short. I've already noticed that! I'm less than a week in and I already am upset that I eventually have to be done. My goal is to end my mission working my heart out so that I have zero regrets coming home. It has still been a little difficult staying up for 16 hour days but I love it. Well so far I've only talked about getting here! I should probably move on before I spend 4 hours on here just typing. I actually can't spend 4 hours because I only have 30 minutes. I'm basically typing like a maniac right now. My brain is struggling to keep up with my hands. Well Saturday we met our Branch President for our zone. Or was it Friday? I don't know. He is a really cool guy though! He came in and gave a little devotional about being obedient. Obedience is such a big key up here. Obedience seriously has brought me so many blessings already, and I'm sure there are more to come. Well after the devotional we had a personal interview with the President Peer (that's his name) and he just talked to us each individually for a few minutes. After everyone was interviewed he called me back in with the whole Branch Presidency and he asked me if I would be the District Leader. I didn't really know what to say so I decided to say yes. I had been praying that I could find a way to serve so that I could keep my mind busy and then I got called to that position. It was so amazing. Now I have the opportunity to get to know my whole district a lot better and when I get down I can think of a way to serve my district. I have had a few leadership meetings on Sunday because of it and I have learned a lot about being a Christ like leader. It is way more of a service position than a leadership position but I'm really happy to do it. Well on another note, Sunday was amazing! It was cool to start off my first Sunday here with a fast. I got up in Sacrament meeting and bore my testimony in Spanish so that was really cool. It was super choppy and took a lot of time in between but it was a good experience to have. They seriously immerse you in the language from the first day! The devotional that night was really cool but my favorite part was probably singing the song "Let Us All Press On" in the conference center. It was soooooo powerful! We did the Elders singing one part and the Hermanas singing another. That night I went to a video devotional of President Bednar called "Recognizing the Spirit." I'm pretty sure it was just for me. It talked about how do you know if it is the Spirit talking to you or just you? President Bednar's respond was unexpected but perfect. He said, don't worry about it! Just be a good boy, follow the commandments, remember your covenants, and press forward and the Lord will guide your foot steps. It was so profound to me and exactly what I needed to here. I'm going to try to do that better. Well finally, today is Monday! We went to the temple this morning for a session and it was awesome! I need to think of better description words but I can't think of any right now. Anyways, the Provo Temple is beautiful! I don't know if it was just the beauty or what, but I learned so much from that temple experience. It was great. Well I better get ready to go get the mail for my district before we have more meetings, so I'll write again later. I love you mom and dad! Thank you for encouraging me when I was struggling. I don't have time to write a letter on paper right now but be assured I will have one to you next week. I love you soo much! Kelci, good luck with school and the dance! Is it already over? I'm not sure. Jaden, write me about all your fun soccer experiences! I'll talk to you soon. Love you, bye! (: