I gave my first talk in Spanish!

This week has been so awesome. But so hard at the same time. I love being here at the MTC, but at the same time it´s really horrible. Haha it´s a love-hate relationship. But it´s mostly love! :)

First of all, I want to tell you all how amazing my companion is. As I told you before, it takes him quite a bit longer to learn Spanish than most. The concepts just take a while to stick in his brain. But he works SO HARD. Every time I look at him when we´re not doing anything, he´s flipping through flashcards trying to get this language down. I admire him so much, and I hope I can be as hard of a worker as he is.

I LOVE the Latinos here! They´re all so awesome. They all left to their missions yesterday, so that was really sad. But I can´t wait to meet more that are coming in tomorrow! One of my best Latino friends was Elder Santos. He loves to sing, so he asked me one day after dinner if I could go play hymns on the piano after dinner so he could sing along. We started singing, and then a ton of elders joined us and we all sang together! We sang Ye Elders of Israel and it was so loud and powerful. The spirit was so strong. We may have also sung Sisters in Zion like women...so there´s that. Hahaha.

Saturday was a really tough day. We gave a bunch of practice lessons and we were just really struggling. Every lesson was awful, and I was getting so down on myself. But at the end of the day, we had a lesson with a new "investigator" we got named Lucia. The spirit was so strong in that lesson, and even though she wasn´t a real investigator, I felt love for her as my sister and I wanted to bring her to Christ. Little tender mercies like that remind me why I´m out here.

So on Sundays here, they tell everyone to prepare a five minute talk and then they just call the elders who will be speaking in sacrament meeting right before they need to talk. I was prepared, but no one thought any of the new guys would be called since it was our first week. But guess what. I was called!!! So I gave my first talk in Spanish when I´ve only been here for two weeks. It was the hardest talk ever, but I´m proud to say I did it!

As I said before, a bunch of elders left for their missions. The night before they left, we all sang Called to Serve and God Be With You Till We Meet Again in the hallway. It was so spiritual, and it was so good. I will miss them a ton!

So on December 2, they´re having a big dinner at the MTC for a bunch of Guatemalan government leaders. And I´m in charge of putting together a choir for it! So that should be fun! I´m so excited for that.

That´s about all I have to report on this week! I wish I could tell you all every detail, but there just isn´t nearly enough time. But I love you all! The Church is true!

-Elder Thomas :)