Week 5 - livin', lovin', preachin'

So first of all you have to forgive my typos and errors - I pretty much just go at it and never have time to read my emails before I send them.  I'm not district president...that would be really intense.  I'm district leader.  And I'm sure I gave some other false information in my last emails too - so I guess you'll just have to rely on the Spirit to know if what I am saying is true. Sorry about that.

 

I'm trying to figure out how to send pictures but I can't figure it out. It's bascially impossible to do anything on these computers.

 

Um. Things are going well here in beautiful Provo!  One day I saw one of my friends from the real world while I was out playing playing soccer - that was exciting.  I hope I didn't make it sound like I didn't like it here in my last email.  I love it!  I stand by my assessment that this is pretty much spirit prison though. haha.  Um I don't really know what to say, everything is pretty much the same as it was last week.

 

These week for our devotional we sang an arrangement of Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer and it was awesome.

I sang tenor.  There was one part where it was fortissimo and we had 4 high f#s in a row - exciting stuff.  Anyway, my spiritual thought of the week comes from that song as well as Master, the Tempest Is Raging.  Its interesting that the apostles were fearing imminent death but the Savior slept soundly. When they woke him up, the Savior just calms the seas and all is well - leading them to say, "what matter of man is this!?" So, the thought really is so long as Jesus Christ is in the boat, its not going to sink - it may get beaten by the waves but its not going down. Similarly if we have the Savior in our lives, and I mean really in our lives, we will not sink.  We may still get beaten about by trials and fear that we will go down, but we have the Master of oceans and earth and skies on our team, and he won't let us lose.  And we can have the assurance, "Be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side."

 

So Spanish is coming along, I am starting to say things somewhat naturally - meaning I don't really have to think about how to conjugate the verbs. That said I still look back on everything I say to see if I did it right so I'm not really any faster. And I'm still making a bunch of mistakes and little gringoisms but its all good fun. You learn not to be too hard on yourself pretty quick - just try your best and don't be afraid to make mistakes.

 

So this week in my gym time I've started rowing - its so awesome.  I did a 5000m row yesterday and thought the skin on my forearms was going to rip.  It was great!  haha.

 

Well I don't really have too much more to report.  Tragic to hear that BYU lost but if you are going to miss 2 field goals in a row you kinda deserve it.  Thanks for the letters this week, they are a tender mercy.  Oh, I just remembered to tell you my biggest complaint about the MTC ever since day one.  Ready for this...I'm so thirsty.  Seriously all the time. haha.  Life is pretty hard : ).

 

I hope you have a great week and really hope the Jerusalem trip works out.  Thanks for being so supportive!  Sorry I've spent a good amount of time trying to send pictures and I can't figure it out...

 

I love you!

 

Elder Clark Roth