WEEK 3

Hola Mi Amigos!

Christmas in the MTC was a cool experience! We had a morning devotional with Dallin H Oakes and most of his family and like 20 grandkids and all of them played instruments and it was pretty cool!

Also, our night time devotional was actually a performance from David Archiletta(not sure how to spell his last name) and it was pretty dang good! 

When they announced his name, like all of the sister missionaries let out high pitched yells and claps, and they had to get reprimanded by the MTC president cause it was still sunday...real classy sisters.... haha

Oh yeah, today is the last day of this year!! haha last Pday was on christmas eve, and now this one is on new years eve!!

This past wednesday was the first day new greenies came to the mtc since my group because they didnt send any missionaries out that close to christmas. 

It was kind of weird, my district felt like in the Maze Runner how the last guy came up the elevator, and then no more came after him cause he broke it.... haha but now its fixed and we got a new spanish district in our zone.

I had such an amazing spiritual experience, one that i have never had before this week. 

Me and my companions teach lots of "investigators" that we know are fake, but we practice teaching in spanish, but now we start doing something called TRC which stands for Teaching Resource Center. Members refer friends who are spanish speakers who are genuinely interested in the church, and we teach them real discussions in the TRC center in the MTC. 

My investigators name is Jose Mèza, and he is from Guatemala. He owns a business here in Utah, and has lived here with his family for about 6 years now. 

He is in his 50's, and he is such a great person. He is so wise, and i learn so much from him about life in general during our lessons!! 

I invited him to be baptized after the first lesson just like Brother Grover taught me, and he said that once he felt the truthfulness of our message, and of this gospel, he would love to prepare for baptism. 

His mother died a year ago, and he is having a hard time with it. It gave me so much joy to share with him that he hasnt seen her for the last time. Through Gods plan of happiness for us, i told him that we can be with our families for eternity. 

The big experience was during our third lesson with him, we were actually teaching him the second half of lesson 2 which is mainly about our life on earth and the Atonement, and towards the end, i had the strongest prompting to say to him "Our purpose in teaching you and helping you Jose, is because we love you, and we want to be able to help you with any aspect of your life. Is there anything that worries you, or concerns you have in your life that we could help with?"

(said in fluent spanish i might add;)

He just started crying. He said his heart hurts for the people of this world. He talked about how in american history, things started going downhill right when americans started separating god from school, and then only allowing god to be present in churches, and he said that thruout history, (he had randomly decided to study 4th Nephi, not sure why, cause i asked him to read second nephi chapter 2 but thats besides the point.) and in the book of mormon as well as the bible, the worst wars and death and suffering where when the people turned from god. 

He was so emotional and he asked, i want to help my family and friends, and my people.

(Dont worry, im almost through the story) 

Ive always been one who was good with my words, and could always express what I wanted to say. but this time, i KNEW exactly what i needed to say to him. I said, "Jose, i know there is so much evil and sadness and awful things in this world. And i know its hard to change people, (at this point, i felt the spirit so strong i started crying with him) I said, "Jose, this is the reason i am serving a mission away from the family that i love for two years. I know that the message i have is the only way to change somebodys life for good, and i know that you have felt the truthfullness therof. I know that god loves you jose, and he feels the faith you have for him." 

at this point we were about 55 minutes into this lesson, which is 15 more than we were supposed to, I asked him if he would say the closing prayer for us. 

He knelt down with us, and said almost a 3 minute prayer. I have heard so many prayers in my life, but never has one brought me more peace than Jose's humble prayer for mankind, and his family. He thanked god that he got my companionship as missionaries, and asked to feel even more of the spirit in his life. 

i was on a spiritual high for like 8 hours after that!! Holy Crap is missionary work awesome!!

I cant wait to be able to teach lessons to people more once im in the field, and helping the people of Monterrey, Mexico:)

Happy New Years! 

Elder Jones