MTC Week Dos!!!

Hola mi familia y amigos!

I have officially made it 2 weeks here in the MTC, and it just keeps getting better and better. I've so much to tell so I guess I'll just go chronologically...

Christmas was incredible. I was a little worried that I'd be bummed out about not being home with my family, but our Navidad was definitely one that I'll never forget. All the Elders in our Zone woke up and opened presents and packages from home in our dorm lobby. We made a Christmas Tree the night before out of empty cardboard boxes so it was pretty legit, a good ol' traditional Christmas.

When we went outside, we were surprised by everything in white! It snowed overnight so we had a white Christmas! This AZ boy couldn't have been more happy. I gave my camera to my companion to take a picture of me out in the snow, and I completely ate it! I slipped on the concrete and banged up my knee pretty bad, haha he got a picture of it.

umm yes, he's barefoot

The rest of the day was great. Continental breakfast, gifts for all the missionaries, a talent show, movies, and a few cool devotionals. Our guest speaker for the devotional was Elder Russel M. Nelson and his wife! Wow that was such a cool experience. He talked about how we as missionaries have gifts to give to the people we serve, just like the Lord's gift to us. He then went on to liken the Doctrine of Christ to a diamond ring. The doctrine is the main diamond, and all of the gospel principles are the extra little diamonds and other accents of the ring to make the whole thing shinning and beautiful. The talent show was crazy fun, and no I did not do it. I was tempted to go up and do my Mr. Spartan interpretive dance, but the spirit told me I probably shouldn't ;)

This week has gotten so easy and we are finally starting to settle into a set schedule. 6:30- wake up   7:00- personal study   7:30- breakfast   8:15-12:30- spanish/gospel class   12:30- lunch   1:15-4:30- more class   4:30-GYM TIME!!!   5:30- dinner   6:15-9:30- moooore class   9:30-10:30 personal time.... thats my day! Its so packed and it seems like we don't have time for anything, but it also feels like I've been here forever because I've done/accomplished so much already. It's kinda hard for a guy who's used to waking up at noon and doing nothing all day to have such a set schedule, but I can feel that it's helping me so much.

Spanish is awesome! Yo soy mucho agradecido por el don del lenguas! Seriously its crazy how easily the language comes with help from the Lord. Crazy story about our investigator Gilberto... we started teaching him on our 3rd day here. We started out with really crappy broken Spanish, but each lesson kept getting better and better. Well about our 3rd lesson with him, I felt inclined to ask him to be baptized. He said he wasn't ready yet so we challenged Gilberto to pray to our Heavenly Father and ask Him to him with the decision to be baptized. Well the next day, our teacher showed us a video in class that Gilberto made for us thanking us for the time that we took to teach him more about the gospel... COMPLETELY IN ENGLISH!!! haha he's totally a Member of the Church and speaks perfect English. He was a fake investigator placed with us just for practice. And get this... he's actually our new teacher! Even though it was all staged, my companion Elder Watson and I really did feel the spirit in our lessons. We have two new investigators now, Gabriel (from Chile), and Madi (from Spain). Madi is actually our teahcer Hermana Daly, acting as an investigator. Only now we know she's acting haha.

We had a devotional on Sunday night and you'll never guess who the guest speaker was... David Archuleta! He was accompanied by Richard Elliot (the organist for The Mormon Tabernacle Choir). They both spoke and did a lot of musical numbers for all us missionaries. It was really cool.

Well I know there's a ton that I've left out but my time is limited and I can't really think of anything else right now. I've included some pictures this week that cover this week and last week which I forgot . I love you all and I miss you, but there is no place I'd rather be than in the hands of our Heavenly Father doing his work and spreading the Gospel of his son and my brother Jesus Christ. Yo sé que la Iglesia de Jesucristo es verdadera. Yo amo mi hermano, Jesucristo, con mi corazon todo. Él Dios bendice nosotros siempre con Espiritu Santo. I can't wait to talk to you all again and let you know how God is using me as his tool to perform his work.

Keep on keepin' on...

~Elder Willis