Elder Richard G. Scott came to the MTC to speak to us at devotional!

Hola familia!

This week was awesome. On Tuesday Elder Richard G. Scott came to the MTC to speak to us at devotional! It was probably the highlight of my MTC stay so far. They don’t announce who is coming beforehand so when we saw him walk in the crowd was so excited. He started by saying "I almost feel like I died and went to heaven." He said it was wonderful to see so many sisters three times in his talk and testified to all of the sisters that we would bless the world and our future husbands and children more than we could imagine. He spoke about communication with our Heavenly Father and counseled us about how to pray. Towards the middle of the talk he paused and said "I feel inspired to bestow an apostolic blessing upon those of you who are learning another language", and told us that through our faith we would be able to master each of the languages that we are learning. Again toward the end of the talk he paused and said I invoke an apostolic blessing of peace upon you. He said the Lord has called each of us and that he would help us. The Spirit in the room was incredible and so many around me were in tears. We sang the closing song and as the Sister who was assigned to say the closing prayer got up, Elder Scott got up again to the mike and asked her to go sit down for a minute. He said "Remember the Lord has called you to succeed and not to fail. Remember he won’t abandon you. He will help you. He knows who you are. He inspired your call. You will discover strengths about yourself that you never knew you had and he will fit the task to your capabilities." I had never seen anyone get up again after the closing hymn and that was really neat. You know that those words must have been inspired. There was someone who needed to hear those words. Maybe lots.

This is the district in our zone that leaves tomorrow. We are sad to see them go. We have become such good friends. Most are going to California.

Our tree from our room‏

We moved homes this week. By home I mean our classroom changed. We call our classroom our home and our bedrooms our residence because we are in our classrooms all day long and we only sleep in our rooms. This room has a window! And a tree next to the window. We named the tree Mata Guillermo.

This is our tree that we can see out our window.

We are settling into our new home just fine. I am grateful for the experiences that I have had that allow me to be fine being in a room all day studying. Not everyone in my district has handled this transition quite so well. Most of our teachers realize this and give us a break every hour or so. This week Hermano Hopoate said during one of these times, "You can go and take a break for five minutes, get a drink, go the bathroom, play patty cake or do whatever you want for five minutes." He was obviously joking about the patty cake but little did he know that patty cake would become such a big deal among the elders in our district. It has become somewhat of a competition to master patty cake. Silly  Elders.

Hermano Hopoate and our elders in our district.

 One of the highlights of our week was that we committed one of our "investigators" to baptism! It was such an awesome moment. She is our most difficult investigator to teach. She was like a brick wall. We couldn’t figure out how to get her to open up to us so we had been working so hard to help meet her needs. At first when we asked her she said she didn’t feel ready but we shared a scripture with her we had found during personal study and she had another question then said in Spanish, "I feel like this is something I need to do." We didn’t understand her at first but as we came to the realization of what had happened we were so happy. I was skipping around the MTC the whole rest of the day.

These are all the girls in the new district. I love them too. Hermana scott is the redhead.

 No news on my visa yet. I am trying not to be impatient but it is hard because Hermana Scott (one of the sisters in our zone) has a brother who has been in our mission for a year and she tells us lots of wonderful stories. Every day in our district we say "Guess what! We are going to get our visas today!" Then when they don’t come we say "Guess what we are going to get our visas tomorrow!"  We have written a few songs about it as well. "Someday, my visa will come. Someday, my visa will come." (Sing to someday my prince will come, Snow white)

Hermana Johnson and I‏

Our door all decorated in our new home.

Today we went to the temple and did sealings. It was awesome. There was actually a couple there from Dayton, Washington doing them with us. When we were in the dressing room getting ready to leave we were stopped by Sister Cheryl Esplin of the general primary presidency! She asked us where we were from and where we were going and shook each of our hands. She spoke to us at relief society on Sunday so we knew she was in town but we were surprised to see her and that it was cool that she wanted to talk to us. When we walked out of the temple my companion and I were a little star-struck. We looked at each other and said "Did that really just happen?" The lesson she gave yesterday was so great. In the MTC all of the sisters in the entire MTC meet together for relief society. During her lesson she had us stand up and sing primary songs which was fun.

 Last night for Devotional the BYU men's chorus came and performed for us. It was incredible. I saw Tom Rowley in the stands but I don't think he saw me. It was cool to think that we were in the same room though.

Yo se que el evangelio es verdadero. Yo se que Jesus es el Cristo Viviente. Su camino es el sendero que lleva la felicidad en esta vida y a la vida eterna en el mundo venidero.

Love you lots!