What a week!! So I'll just start off with our devotional this last Sunday night. All the missionaries were all together for it and we sang the opening hymn. The MTC president got up and said that for this devotional we were going to watch "Character of Christ" which was a talk given by Elder David A. Bednar (of the twelve Apostles) to the MTC like 5 years ago on Christmas morning. It is such a good talk and was the second time watching it since ive been here. But the coolest part was right after the video ended the lights came on and the organ started blasting and in came Elder Bednar. Everyone stood up and everyone was like loudly whispering cause from a far it would be hard to recognize who it was. I was like in the middlish. Anyway for the next hour he just held a Q & A with all the missionaries. Honestly was one of the coolest experiences I have been apart of. Ill share some of the things he said that I loved. Concerning spiritual gifts, "Spiritual gifts come when God trusts you and me to be in the right place. The self-centered mid-set of doing something good to get spiritual gifts only guarantees that you wont receive them." Also a missionary asked what we can do to be more charitable and practice having charity. Elder Bednar responded, "First off you cant practice having Charity. Because that implies an action. Charity isn't something we DO, it is something we have to become...it is more of a spiritual instinct than saying "Oh im going to be charitable today" ". I loved that because I think that being Charitable can fix the worlds problems because Charity is "the pure love of Christ." One thing that he actually says in the Character of Christ video is that "If you lose yourself in the service of others, somewhere you will find yourself... and you wont be looking for it." Also another than that I liked that he said is that, "We cant live off of borrowed light." I think that applies to a lot of missionaries here because a lot of them this is their first time away from home and the first time they are having to rely on their own testimony. And it will be even harder after they get back. Concerning prayer Bednar said, "If you pray, ask, and wait...you could be waiting for a long time." Ill let you guys read that the way you want. BUT FOR THE COOLEST part was after he left. We went back to our classrooms in 8m which is literally right infront of the entrance to the MTC. I told my companions that we should go and see if we can watch Elder Bednar drive away. So we went to the front and there were like 30-40 other missionaries who had the same idea as me. And like 2 minutes after we had got out front. He and his wife drove by slowly in their Toyota and gave us all high fives as he drove by. So I got to give a member of the quorum of the twelve a high five this week. I actually got a video of it too that Ill send. So that was awesome!!
Anyways this week was cool too because yesterday we got to do a Skype lesson with a member of the church in Argentina. His name was Victor and we just talked/taught him for 30 minutes. For studying Spanish for only four weeks I was actually able to understand like 75% of what was said and got to share some thoughts with him. I told him that I played football and Lacrosse in high school. I wasnt sure if he knew what lacrosse was so I asked him and did... so Im hoping at least once while im down there ill see some kids playing lacrosse or passing. Anyways it was awesome, our teacher, Sister Richards was watching us giving our lesson and stuff and i looked at her right before we were going to say closing prayer and she was crying. Afterwards she said that she felt the spirit really strong and that was why. I also think that she just misses her mission because been back for like a year from Uraguay. But anyway I loved the skype session and I think we will have at least one more before we leave in like 13 days.
So I think about you guys a lot and I love hearing what you are all doing. I think thats hilarious that you lost Franklin. That turtle is literally going to end his life on a high thats for sure. Asher looks totally different from 4 weeks ago. I sure do miss him. Elder Morris got a hair cut today and it is right next to the health clinic so I thought I could just go in there real quick cause I have some warts on my left foot. And it ended up being like a 20 minute thing of insurance and I will need to go see like a wart specialist Friday. So Ill get to go on another field trip away from the MTC. The first one was actually today. A BYU officer came and took me to campus and had to redo my fingerprints. It was kinda fun cause I got to do something different. and then Friday Ill get shuttled somewhere to get the warts removed. So thatll be fun. The Gym was just closed last week cause they were refinishing the floor. But it was open and thats where we have the devotionals. It holds like 2200 people in it so its good size. I did get the DEARELDER packages and Kenzies package. I loved them. I didnt eat the cinnamon rolls though because Im not huge into sweets but I set them out one morning for missionaries to eat that didnt want to dress up to go to the cafeteria. And Idk about Ensigns. I dont have time to ready them now but I will on the 11 hour flight to Buenos Ares. A couple things I do want is some Cologne to out on now and then. Not an everyday thing but it would be nice to have. I kinda want some nutraul color Stance socks. Just like 2 pairs of Grey or black mix. Kenzie should pick them out. I would like some banana bars if you want to send that. OH and Im going to send a package back with some long sleeves and other things I wont need and Im going to include my suit pants. Dad should know why but there is a thread that it sticking out that I can fix and I acciedently popped a stitch on the left pocket and instead of sowing it up... since we have another pair of the grew suit pants, just send those please. I put my suit in today for dry cleaning.
Anyway this week was awesome and even tuesdays night devotional was awesome but Ill just throw som speratic quotes down cause Im running out of time. "Dont let others setermine your happiness"
"Your success in ANYTHING you do is based of of your diligence NOT your intelligence."
"Close your ears and hearts to anything negative in life."
Loved all of those and thought I would share those. I love you all and hope you can enjoy your week.
Love,
Elder Keicher
I forgot to mention that I saw clint this week. I saw a kid from his zone in the cafiteria and he took me to see him. I only talked to him for like 3 minutes
