fourth of July in the MTC

Ok, so this week had some rather funny things happen in it. First of all, it was the fourth of July, which actually was exactly like any other day, except it was a fast sunday, which makes it a little worse. haha. I tend to struggle a bit with fast sundays here because you have no option other than fasting a full 24 hours, which is a bit difficult, especially since we take a walk up to the temple in the afternoon and it's always super hot and I want to faint. Other than that, it was good though.

The third of july though, wow. That was an experience. We had a special fireside that night about the restoration of the gospel. This was no normal fireside. It involved several senior missionaires dressed up as various historic figures filmed in front of green screens. Aka I saw Paul, Martin Luther, ben franklin, george washington and thomas jefferson. not to mention that after all of that they had several missionaries dressed as joseph smith and other people, but unfortunately i think they were chosen at random without consideration of their skills or experience in acting. Let's just say the elder who played joseph smith could not have been more expressionless. It was still a cool fireside though because it showed how the restoration was in the process clear back in the start of the apostasy. It all culminated with the MTC president, President Smith (a rather stern looking man) dressed as Moroni exhorting us to be better missionaries. it was good, but also the funniest thing i'd ever seen, because he was dressed in essentially a white toga.

After that we got to watch the fireworks from the stadium of fire, which was way fun. Our district is super funny and I'll have to try to get some of the photos from that night from elder Rowan.

We had two funny experiences with speaking spanish this week. 1. Hna C y yo were teaching in the TEC (where you teach teachers who pretend to be investigators) and she was trying to say that the gospel is very simple, or "el evangelio es muy sencillo", but she actually said "el evancelio is muy sucio" or the gospel is very dirty. hahahahaa it was super funny. Especially since the man we were teaching was a sub and didn't actually speak spanish so we had to translate for each other. it was pretty great. Then later in the TRC Elder Rowan was trying to say that God speaks to prophets face to face, but he said "vaca a vaca" or cow to cow. Also very funny.

Last Tuesday Sis. Dalton spoke at the devotional. She did a great job. She talked about virtue of course and how through having faith and virtue we can have confidence because the holy ghost will always be with us to guide us. She also related some things to running and she said "never make the decision to quit while you are running up the hill." having run up many hills, i find this to be a very insightful statement that can easily be applied to life. Just thought it was worth repeating.

Today i finished reading the gospels, so that's exciting. I started with Luke, then read John, matthew, and Mark, so i finished Mark today. I woud highly recommend reading them if you want to know more about Christ. Good suggestion dad. : )

sometime during the week (everything blurrs together) Hna C, yo, Elder self y duncan were chilling in the classroom aka studying, when someone came on the intercom asking for elder corbit. elder corbit is going to spain and waiting on his visa so we thought this meant he had his visa, so we spent about 45 minutes searching the whole mtc for him and elder rowan. It turns out they were just chilling in a different classroom and we somehow missed them. But eventually they came back to class and we told him he needed to go to the travel office, and the we were all going to go with him cause we were soooo excited. We all go there and it turns out they were just calling him in to let him know he still didn't have a visa. hahaha. we were all way disappointed so the ladies working there gave us each an otter pop. hahahaha. it was pretty funny, but also worked out well for everyone except elder corbit, though he did stillg et an otter pop.

This week Anna Goode sent me some delicious concoction similar to a dream bar at potbelly's. i recommend someone contacting her and getting the recipe. they were a great hit in the mtc.

oh, also this week, we got a new teacher because hno vance abandoned us. his name is Hno Ah Suh. He's polynesian, so that's cool. He's kind of funny, but mostly serious, but we still have a good time in his class.

Well, that's most of what I can remember about this week. It's always hard to remember anything that happens here because every day feels like a year, so yeah, I usually can't even remember what i ate for breakfast by lunchtime.

mom- good luck with getting everything ready for camp! i'm sure it will be awesome this year!!!

dad- congrats on rocking the BoM - everyone else should try to read as fast as him.

greg- you should write me sometime so i know you are still alive

megan- thanks for the invite to your bday party, unfortunately i have to RSVP no because the MTC won't let me leave. haha. It sounds like it will be way fun. What movie is that that you are going to see?

mateo- write me sometime and tell me about YC/scout camp/high adventure

emilita- you are the cutest! thank you for your cards!!! i love them!!!!!! and keep taking good care of joey for me! maybe can you send me a pic of you and him?

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!

love,
hna Livingston