¡Hola Compadres!

I hope everyone had an awesome Thanksgiving. This week has been kinda weird because two days ago was Thanksgiving, yesterday was our In-Field Orientation (even though we don't know when we are leaving), today is P-day and tomorrow is Sunday so I haven't had a normal weekday for a while so it sorta feels like a vacation (but not really).

So last week I had the opportunity to do some more temple sealings which was just as awesome as the first time. The sealers are always so friendly and talkative and want to tell you everything they know about the place where you, the people you're with, and the people you are doing temple work for are from. Those old guys have been around.

My favorite part of the MTC right now is being able to teach each other as investigators in our district. It really lets me see from the investigator's point of view and helps me see what I might be missing in my lessons so I can concentrate more on how they feel and what their needs are.

Since our favorite teacher left for Thanksgiving break last week we have had a lot of subs which gave us the chance to teach a lot of different people which was really cool. One was the first time we have even taught a girl and our sub was playing a 16-year-old girl and I was thinking it was a little weird all throughout our lesson with her. Finally I realized that it's probably really bad to teach a 16-year-old girl with no one else around. I guess we all failed that test.



Sunday Elder Vrska was sick so I just hung tight in our room giving him some rest and studying. I don't know why really but after that we have been doing a lot better as a companionship after that. Maybe it was because I did such a good job being his mom and taking care of him haha.
So also on Sunday we took a fun temple walk in the rain and saw a double rainbow go behind the temple. WHOAH!!! Ha you know I had to get a picture. That night for our Sunday movie we watch an awesome movie called Mountain of the Lord about President Wilford Wildruff (not the real one) telling the story of the building of the Salt Lake temple to a news reporter. It was so cool to see how much time and work went into building the the temple and made me really interested in pretty much all church history. I actually want to read books about old prophets and the history of the church and temples and stuff now.

Oh and by the way November 26 is the day the best mom in the whole world was born and that mom is MY MOM! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Thanks you for all your work and support you gave me so that I'm able to be here right now. I love you so much!!!

Now for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was actually really fun here at the MTC and definitely not one I'm going to forget any time soon. First of all we were blessed by the presence of my favorite apostle of the church, ELDER JEFFREY R. HOLLAND. It was literally the best day in the MTC just from that Devotional alone. He had a lot of his family there to do a little musical program for us and he said that, "For today me and Sister Holland have adopted all of you into our family. And just like the rest of our family, you have no agency in this". Haha it was the best. I wish I had more time to tell you what he talked about, but I will say that he gave the best Thanksgiving "I'm Thankful for.." speeches I have ever heard. He talked so passionately about the blessing we all have to live in the Final Dispensation with the fulness of the Gospel on the Earth. A lot of the time we really take this for granted and I'm going to live up the reputation of being chosen to live in these Latter Days. So to end an my awesome Thanksgiving day, we were all gathered in the big conference center and they started throwing out bags of kettle corn at everybody and we watched 17 Miracles for my first time. That was really really cool and made me even more thankful for what the pioneers did for us.

I'll wrap this blog post up with some exciting district news. Elder Fullmer was able to get his wrist cast off a lot sooner than the doctors told him he would and so now he is able to leave with us when we get to leave. Still no news about our visas, but a lot of Elders that are called to Mexico are getting reassigned to places like California, Vegas, and Idaho so I'll keep you posted. Elder Aiono (the one that was supposed to get his visa 5 weeks ago) finally got reassigned to Alabama which is really exciting. Yup, it's Spanish speaking too haha it's weird but it's where the Lord needs him.

Well, that's about it. I hope you all have an awesome week and stay safe and warm!
Read the Book of Mormon and THE CHURCH IS TRUE.

Love,
       Elder Shurtliff