Week 5

Yo yoo whats good at home? i cant wait to be blasting out of this place on monday. we got our flight info and i bounce monday night at 11:50 and it is a 6 hour flight to lima haha it is gonna be so bad. Idk what they are planning on having us doing all of tuesday just chilling at the mission home, i guess ill find out. We have been packing today because they make us weigh the luggage here because if we are a kilo over it is like $150 so hopefully i am alright. Monday afternoon we wont have any classes or anything so ill probably be online again sometime. we have to be on the buses at 8 P.M. and i am so pumped to leave this place haha.

anyway there isnt a ton to say anymore because we dont do anything different here. i have been trying to go solo español and it is difficult but i have done much better than i expected. not nearly well enough but its hard to continue learning when all i learn is from books and im surrounded by white people. i need to get out there. 

we had a devotional this week on some really cool things i thought that id share. We talked about questions of the soul vs questions of just knowledge. there is a full page on this in predicad me evangelio (Preach My Gospel) in the book of mormon section. it talks about how investigators are likely to ask us questions just because they are curious about things for example polygamy. but the questions of knowledge dont really matter because through the spirit all things can be brought unto our remembrance-such as things learned in the premortal existence. We had a long discussion about it and decided that the only thing that the investigator is having trouble with if he has a question like that is revelation. if they dont have a testimony that God really does reveal his truth for his own purposes often unknown to us, then they cant believe that it was wisdom in God and revelation through the prophet.

in another devotional we talked about specific prayers. as missionaries we pray like infinity times a day but are they specific? the mtc pres gave us an example of a missionary that was 23 months out in some part of mexico and who had left his backpack in a taxi on his way home. the backpack had every sim card from his whole mission  and tons of other important stuff in it. he prayed that if he sat outside by some 7 eleven for exactly one hour with signs that said "looking for backpack" and that the taxi driver would bring it back and he wouldnt have stolen anything. They sat outside the 7 eleven for 58 minutes until they were just about to give up when the driver pulled up and hung the backpack out the window and yelled "its ok im christian i didnt steal anything!" and the mtc pres told us how if we wanted answers to prayers they needed to be specific with times and everything. 

here in mexico they dont have cholula so that has been a sad ride because i love that stuff. 

it has been weird meeting dudes from utah here because they have cheered against me usually in both football and basketball and have layed eyes on me before and who wouldve known? its kinda cool though because literally everyone knows someone that you know from another school so it kinda keeps us all connected. 

 

something funny that happened last night at devotional night during the live broadcast of elder christopherson from provo a kid volunteered to answer a question and the camera turned on him and there sits Chad P. trying to hold back his laughs. all my guys here from CV thought it was funny. 

i have a couple more thoughts about like scriptures and whatnot- i heard a quote from elder bednar that said "if all you know is what you see with your natural eyes or what you hear with your natural ears, you wont know much."

during personal study the other day i was reading in alma 42 and i would encourage you all to really study that chapter about christ and mercy vs. justice. It is amazing that through Jesus, the mediator that the demands of both mercy and justice can be met on our part if we just try do our best. a quote that was in the McRazor´s last email said that "the celestial kingdom will be filled with imperfect people who know how to use the atonement perfectly." and that was cool. 

anyway i am still doing well just trying to get out of here!

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Much Love,

Elder Mortenson