Hey! It is going great here at the MTC. I think it just hit me that we only have a little while left in here, but it may just be because it's p-day. Anyways, last week we had a great week, our real teacher just got back so we haven't had to have our sub anymore.  We all missed him. He went down to Texas to visit some families that he taught. This week I have learned a lot.

My personal study subject has been on teaching with the spirit and being positive. Lately we as a district hadn't been really 'feeling the love'.  Our solo sister was given to a companion in another district, so we didn't have to take her everywhere. I think that might have helped her realize that she needed to be nicer if she wanted to hang out with us. :) It definitely worked, she has been a lot nicer, and in turn, the mood of our whole district has improved. That made me super happy. So over all this has been a great week.

My companion and I are also doing much better. We had a companionship inventory and I told him that being negative affects all of us and that when he makes the decision to be negative there is only one person who can change that, and that's him. I also told him to be more open in our discussions and he is going to try working on that. He had been having a hard time because he just didn't feel comfortable. Soo, also yesterday we weren't having a great lesson because he was kinda just pouting for no reason (I didn't know why) but it kinda just affected the general mood of the lesson. So we stopped the lesson and we all went outside kinda just to restart. I took this chance to kinda explain to everybody that we are all here because we love the Lord and we are here to serve him, not to sit around moping. Then we read something from the first chapter of PMG on like page 10 and I read the sentence that talked about how we need to not compare ourselves to others and how we also need to not become discouraged because it weakens our faith. Our faith is the only thing we have out here.  If we don't have a strong foundation of the gospel, and a solid testimony, what will happen that one time we do something that tries our faith? For example what if we follow the spirit in a lesson and it offends the person, and that causes us to lose our investigator?  Things like that will come up and, without our testimonies being sturdy, they could be shaken. Anyways that was the first thing that helped us out.

I think people are starting to take it a little more maturely now and that has been helping us out a loooot more.  Also I shared that we need to invite the spirit in, and that we need to get past pride, lack of trust, and fears of saying the wrong thing, and follow the promptings of the spirit more readily. I think that I am having no problem with being open, but I need to use more doctrine so that is what I'm going to be working on this week. This week has been such a great learning experience for us and I'm glad we have finally started taking down those barriers that were in our way.

Hey, mom I am soo glad for the package, tell Grandma and Grandpa thank-you. Which reminds me, I finally found those thank-you cards and sent them out.  I made sure to make them much more personal for each family, so they should be worth the wait. I also got an awesome care package from J, she is amazing! She got me some new shorts and two athletic t-shirts that work great.

I totally know what you mean about getting another suitcase, I might have to get a cheap carry-on or something that I could split my things in.  I have sooo much food. We are really practicing this food storage thing pretty well, the prophet would be proud.

I am soo happy you guys got to shoot the gun! I told you it was the coolest experience ever!

Britton had some HUGE fish.  That is remarkable!

I'm glad you're seeing the blessings coming in mom, you will probably have no problem finding some people to keep you company.

Good-luck to all of you in school.

Britton keep your chin up, follow the spirit, be as bold as you are loving, continue to find the blessings of every day, don't dwell on the negative and don't let your companions either. Positivity is the higher road and they came on a mission to be truly converted - that is one of the biggest steps of conversion. Positive thinking also has another name, FAITH. So keep them straight!

Love all of you and I'm thinking of you.

Elder Winterrose

PS I didn't get that SD card because I didn't know it was in that package and I also double checked the box. I don't know where it is but I hope you backed up everything on the computer.  If you can please send me another 2 gig or something? Muchos gracias. Also I got the krispy cremes....... and the 80 candles.... I got a picture of the candles in them, but we didn't really have anything to light them with.... anyways I gotta go! Bye!