Half-Way Through the MTC

This last Saturday was our half-way point at the MTC! It feels like we've been here forever but at the same time it feels as if we just got here. It's scary to think we only have about 4 weeks left till we're flying to Taiwan. I know I won't be ready at all with the language, but I'm so excited to finally get out there. 

This week is the new Mission President's seminar at the MTC so the whole place has been sort of on a frenzie because EVERY one of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles are here and the counselors in the First Presidency for the training. I was asked to help pass the sacrament to all of them at their sacrament meeting but then the day of it turned out that they didn't need my help anymore. I was slightly bummed to say the least... but oh well! 

This week we've been focusing on lessons that we haven't really ever taught like the Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity, and Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy.  It's stressful because of all the new vocabulary we have to learn for it, but at the same time it's good because we need to expand what we can teach about. I'm super solid on the first 3 discussions but then after that it gets pretty iffy. At TRC this week we taught members about the Christ-like Attribute of humility. This was also a new experience for us because it was the first time we didn't just teach one of the missionary discussions for TRC.  It was a lot more stressful but in the end helped us a lot with developing our teaching skills and expanding our lesson repertoire.

 Every single day seems the same at the MTC, sort of like we're in the movie "Groundhog Day", but every day is amazing at the same time. There are so many spiritual experience everyday, it's hard to remember them all. I heard a quote from an Elder Holland talk this week that had a big impression on me. In talking about the Book of Mormon he said something along the lines of, "An evil man couldn't write this book, and a righteous man wouldn't write it...if it weren't true". I know through reading the Book of Mormon we can feel of this truth.

Elder Smith (Shi Zhang Lao)