Thursday, February 19, 2015

MTC week 3 - Feb. 10. 2015



This week has been good! Seems like its been an eternity, but it really hasn't been that long
This week I had the opportunity to give a blessing to a Sister in our district who had been sick for about a week or so. Maybe it just felt like a week... not really sure. But anyway, that was a cool experience. Our whole district (all the Elders, I mean) participated in the blessing, but I got to give it. It was a cool experience, and I definitely felt the Spirit working through me. And she is feeling better now, so that's good too.
Like I said, we got to welcome 2 new districts this week, with a combined 20 new missionaries - 10 new Elders and 10 Sisters. It's nice to be zone leader and be able to get to know them a little better. They seem to be doing well right now.
This week was the first time we taught TRC (I actually forget what that stands for). But it is really cool because you have people come from BYU or UVU or something that speak Portuguese and they don't try to act like an investigator, you just teach them like real people. They have real problems, and you try to help them with what you can. You teach twice, for 20 minutes each, and it was cool. Elder Lowe and I taught about trying to invite the Spirit more into our lives, and how we recognize it when we do that. It went fairly well. Those two lessons were half of the 4 lessons that we taught on Friday. It wasn't a normal day because some schedules had been thrown off, but that was lots of teaching for one day. But overall, it went well.
The teachers at the MTC are crazy good and definitely inspired. I love our teachers a lot. Irmao (brother) Sears and Irma (sister) Wells are both super great, and always tell us that they love us. And we love them. Another really cool thing is that when we teach them, they pretend to be investigators. It's kinda strange, but cool. And yesterday Irmao Sears told us that the people he pretends to be are real people that he knows from Brazil. And if in our lessons he feels the Spirit and feels there is something that the real people could do to strengthen and deepen their own conversions, he emails them and tells them. So even though it's a member and our teacher that we know isn't an investigator, we are kinda teaching real people through him. I thought that was really cool.
 Elder Harris - left for Fiji yesterday. I saw him at breakfast I think, or lunch, and had to say goodbye for two years. It was sad, but I'm really excited for him. He will do great. I've also seen a few other guys from BYU here, and that is kinda fun. A lot of my friends from BYU are getting mission calls right now.. Missions are pretty cool, I think haha..
I will finish this email with a little taste of our devotional from Sunday night. Brother Kelly Mills, the director of all international MTCs, spoke. He talked about how important it is to lose yourself in the service of others. He told a cool story about one time in woodshop class or something when he was sanding a piece of wood. He was kinda daydreaming, and was only sanding the middle of it. His teacher, who was also his bishop or something like that, came over and told him that "if you focus on the edges, the middle takes care of itself" (because logically, on a small piece of wood, if you sand the edges, you are also sanding the middle. If you only sand the middle, you still have all the edges to do). So if you focus on other people and not on yourself, everything will work out for you too. It was a good reminder to forget ourselves and get to work serving others.
Anyway, I love you all and appreciate all the love and support you give me!!
Love,
Elder Baldridge
Saying goodbye to Elder Harris, BYU friend, before he left the MTC to serve in Fiji

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