Over the Hump

Well, Brett is on the down slope with a little over 3 weeks left in the MTC. Here are some of the thoughts he sent us this week:

Life here at the MTC is amazing. I love it. I agree with you, I am over the hump, and now is the time to separate the super dedicated missionaries from the weeny missionaries. It is a constant struggle to push myself to be the best I can be.

When I wrote Brett this week I told him of an interesting experience we had with an old friend of mine who I haven't seen in over 32 years. We were friends from elementary school up through 9th grade when I moved from California to Wisconsin. He wasn't a member of the LDS Church when I knew him, but when I found him on Facebook a while ago, I noticed a picture of his family in front of an LDS temple. They stopped on their family vacation this week and spent a few days with us, including a trip to the Columbia Temple.

I do remember you telling me about you're friend. That's cool that you guys got to go to the temple. I get to go in a few hours, and I'm excited. It was closed until last week, so I haven't really had any opportunites to go until recently. I loved going last week, and I really felt the spirit in the Celestial Room like I always do. I'm not sure what ordinances we will be doing today, but I know I'll feel the spirit no matter what.

Apparently the church has updated or changed some of the material the missionaries are using, and it gave him a little stress this week but also helped him learn how important it is to rely on the Spirit when teaching the gospel.

So teaching has been really great. Yesterday, we had prepared our lesson and were ready to teach what we thought would be a simple 30 minute lesson in Spanish on the Restoration. But of course, they implemented the new teaching material on the first of August, so we we were completely caught off guard when we were told we would be teaching about how you can recieve revelation in church. And of course they gave us about 30 seconds to prepare a 30 minute lesson. To say we were slightly stressed would be accurate. But it was okay, the lesson was amazing. I surprised myself at how well my spanish is on a subject that I've never studied really or prepared for. The Holy Ghost does wonders, I am constantly being knocked off my feet at how powerful it is. We heard in a devotional that while they might say we are in pairs, really it's a threesome. You, your companion and the HG. I am grateful for the Holy Ghost, and I am constantly striving to have Him as my companion.

He closed with another peek into his expanding insight: 

Another cool quote I heard in the Devotional on Tuesday that I thought you might like dad is "Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement." I heard it and I thought you would like it. I like it alot, and I know that our mistakes and failures are actually blessings from our Heavenly Father. It is all about attitude. If we take it as a gift and realize that God has a plan for us, everything makes sense. I love this gospel, and I love you guys