Starting my warm up

Well yesterday marked my halfway point in the MTC, not sure whether or not that qualifies as any kind of accomplishment but hey I'll take it. Like what I said in my first email I'm using my mission to make an analogy to a 3 mile race, and since I'm halfway through my time in the Missionary Training Center, I think it's safe to say I've put on my shoes, got my warmup sweats on and started jogging around, focusing in on the race at hand. Getting more and more excited (yet a little nervous) to finally start the race.

This week went by pretty fast because of a few of the 4th of July related stuff that we got to do on Saturday (even though we really didn't do anything special other then sing the Star Spangled Banner before our class started, which actually was cool to sing 3 verses of it, not just the first one). On Saturday we had a really cool "freedom celebration" where they had a flag ceremony that represented every country that anyone who was in the MTC is from and any country that anyone in the MTC is going to. It was crazy seeing just how incredibly diverse this place is. From Guam to Brazil, Iceland to Japan, it was so cool to see all the flags be brought in. After the flag ceremony we watched a video that showed how much our church has grown since it was founded. I knew we were the fasting growing church in the world but wow in the past 20 years our total number of members, stakes and temples has absolutely exploded (here's the link to the video check it out if you get the chance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au9KiwEpyrw)

After that, we got to go outside just to the parking lot and watch the fireworks from the Stadium of Fire show, it was cool, kinda fun to stay up later then usual, but honestly I just kinda stood there in a daze because a year ago I was in that stadium watching the fireworks with my BYU summer term friends. It was just surreal to sit back and think about how much has changed, kinda sad, kinda cool but really really weird.

Spanish has been going ok. I can finally navigate my way through conversations with my teacher and our fake investigators that we're teaching about the gospel. I can pray pretty well, more or lest bear my testimony about certain things like that Christ is my savior, the Church is true, the Book of Mormon is another Testament of Jesus Christ, stuff like that. But for now the biggest struggle I'm having is just expanding my vocabulary, conjugations and pronunciation. It's tough, but whenever I talk to my friends who are learning Cambodian, Russian (sorry Maggie, uhh Sister Brown) or Chinese, I count my lucky stars.

I also wanted to share something cool that I came across during my personal study this week. I was reading in Mathew Chapter 4:18-20: it says,

18 And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.

19 And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

20 And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.

Obviously I've read this before but it was really cool for me to come across this and be able to apply it to my mission, because literally throughout your mission you're a Representative or follower of Christ. We come out on missions not always knowing the full truth of the gospel, so following Him is an act of faith, and our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ (more or less being fishers of men). And what's even more impressive to me is that you can apply this to any area of your life, you don't have to be a missionary to follow Christ. Pick an area of your life you want to improve in and think about how you can follow His example and act in a way similar to how he would have acted. Just food for thought.

Anyway, I've been thinking about you all a lot the past few days, missing my BYU friends because of the Stadium of Fire, and missing my Family and Chicago friends because of the 3rd of July and Gilson beach Fireworks that I missed. Hope you all had a good 4th.

Elder Merrill