Week One: I'm already afraid this is going to end too soon!

Hi Everyone!

I am loving the MTC.  Sorry it’s taken so long for you to hear from me.  I have the latest possible P-day, but from now on you will get my emails every Friday.  The MTC is an amazing place....these last 10 days have been pretty intense. I'll walk you through them:

Wednesday: Clad with my freshly minted Nametag with a special edition orange dot that tells everybody I'm clueless I started my mission. I met my companion, Elder Scott (he is a cool guy and really easy to get along with) We had a meeting with the MTC presidency which was pretty good.  My favorite part was singing Called To Serve, We'll Bring The World His Truth, and Hark All Ye Nations with all 500 of the new missionaries.  Then we had some smaller meetings with about 30 missionaries where we went to different classrooms teaching investigators.

Thursday: We really got going.  On Thursday we had a lesson with our teacher, Hermano Miller.  He taught some basic Spanish but mostly we talked about our purpose.  This is (FYI) to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through Faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. We also learned about our first investigator, Gabi Garcia.

Friday: We taught our first lesson...in Spanish.  They really throw you into the thick of it here.  I was surprised that they had us teaching in our language so quickly.  But I was even more surprised to see that our lesson went well and we could understand, and say most of the stuff we wanted to say. 

I don't actually have enough time to go through the rest of the days but they were busy and fun!  Sunday was awesome: our Branch President is totally awesome and he taught us a very good lesson in our priesthood meeting. Sacrament was a bit frightening because everyone has to prepare a talk in Spanish and then they call on you from the pulpit right before your talk.  I wasn't chosen to show off my 3 days worth of Spanish knowledge...but I was asked to play the piano.  Later that night we listened to a recorded talk by Jeffrey R. Holland called "Missions are forever!"   I love to listen to him.  He had some pretty good lines in there, I'm not sure if you can see/read it, it might just be an MTC thing.  In case you can't here are some of the highlights: He talked about Ammon starting to astonish the King's men and the King and talked about how we have the same authority he did and that we can have the same power.  Then in his classic stern manner he commanded us, "Elders and Sisters astonish somebody!"  It was powerful stuff. 

Then on Tuesday Elder Anderson came to talk to us. I got to sing in the choir which was super cool. We sang "Behold The Wounds In Jesus’ Hands" which is an incredible song. Elder Anderson bore powerful witness of the Savior that I hope I will never forget.  In fact, pretty much every day here I experience something I hope I will never forget.

To answer dad's questions there were 5 missionaries on the flight and one of them was a returning missionary.  In my defense though, there was a flight to SLC that left an hour earlier that had more missionaries on it. I did get to see Lambert and that was totally awesome! He seems to be doing really well and he seemed to speak to me with ease.  Spanish is going well, I am beyond my high school abilities already.

I'm running out of time here but I just want to say thanks for your letters. Thanks to AD, R, B, and L for their packages. Those cookies were sooo good. I love you all, Thanks for your letters.  Sorry I don't have more time...I have much more to say.

This has been an amazing week and each day just gets better.  I know this gospel is true and I love to share it. In 1 Nephi 20 it talks about the gentiles carrying the house of Israel in their arms and on their shoulders.  I can't wait to do that!

I love you all,

Elder Clark Roth