So week one of the MTC felt like about a month, week two felt like a day. Time really starts to fly when you get into the groove of it all. Teaching lessons is getting easier, I'm learning to better teach by the spirit and to the needs of the investigators. When I first started I was so glad to only have to teach 25 minute lessons instead of the 45 minutes that some people got but now I find myself wanting the longer times because there's so much more I want to know about them and talk to them about. All in all I'm pumped for the mission field.
Speaking of that I leave the MTC Monday for Hawaii, so if any of you were planning on writing me from Dear Elder hold off for this one week because they might get lost in the transition period. Surprisingly there have been only two times that I've gotten another Elder Smith's mail. One of them was really confusing because it was too an Elder Zachary Smith but I couldn't tell who it was from. Two and a half pages in I finally realized it wasn't mine. Whoops.
Anyway MTC life has flown by, it's gonna be real hard to leave these Elders and Sisters when we all go our different ways, but we're all excited. Also last Thursday my companion and I were made Zone Leaders. That means that yesterday we had to welcome all 24 of the new missionaries in Zone 41 to the MTC, then me and Johnson were in charge of the Elders from that group. Naturally that was 20-24 of them with 12 of them all going to Ghana. Kinda crazy but we enjoyed leading the orientation and making sure they all felt comfortable.
We've had the chance to hear from a lot of speakers here, my favorite was Juan Uceda of the seventy (from Peru). For starters he sounded exactly like Ricardo Montelbon but on a spiritually note he had a lot of great points. He himself was a convert and assured us all of the power that we held to change the hearts of many. He also stressed giving all your heart, might, mind, and strength to the Lord while serving. That really hit me, you only get as much as you give.
One last closing thought, it's amazing to me how much more meaning Hymns have now that I'm a missionary. The songs Called to Serve and Army of Helaman hit me particularly hard whenever we sing them. It's a great feeling.
Thanks for all the letters and emails, hope to keep seeing them,
Elder Smith
Excerpts of an email to Mom:
Aight here we go with those quick answers. Elder Johnson is from Colorado, also he's ethnically Hawaiian but he's never been there, knows all about the culture though so that's cool. He's great and we get along perfectly. Honestly I'm close to the whole district but I'm really gonna miss the Mesa-narries when we all part ways. Checketts, Dodds, Muir, and Empey are all great guys so saying goodbye is gonna be tough, it's crazy how you can get so close to people in such a short amount of time. I haven't given any blessings but I have participated in two when a few of the missionaries in the district got sick. There's been a cold going around since I got here, I've had it the past couple days but I'm already feeling better. Some got it real bad. I briefly met another Hawaii missionary but for the life of me cannot remember his name. My flight leaves 11:56 am Utah time on Monday so I'll probably be there an hour or two before then, expect a call from me within that block of time, sorry I can't really be more specific. A lot has happened this week, I'll talk more about those in the group email, but I got made Zone leader about an hour after I emailed you last week so that's a thing.
Glad to hear things are going well with Dylan and Poppi back home from the hospital, not sure if it's happenstance but I do really believe that me being out here is helping everyone back home. Yay! Alright well I got emails to type so I'll talk to ya later.
Peace,
Elder Smith
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