Week 2!

Greetings all!  I'm doing great here at the MTC!  I'm growing more than I ever have in my life and, even though I'm FAR from perfect, each day I can feel myself become a little more like the Savior.  What a wonderful opportunity it is to be able to serve Him everyday with all my might, mind, and strength.

This past week my companion had to go home due to some personal issues.  It was sad, but before he left our district gave him so presents and let him know that we really appreciate the contribution he was to our district.  Since my companion left I've moved into a tripanionship and have had to relocate to the room with the rest of my district.  At first I was a little frustrated that I would lose my quiet room and closet space, but it's been a huge blessing to be with the rest of my district!  They're some of the best elders you could ever meet and I have so much fun sharing a room with them.  Also, we all help each other get up on time, because it's not easy getting up at 6:00 every morning.

My district has taken up playing beach volleyball on the sand courts.  It's a lot of fun and our district is really good and has some great players.  The only problem is that I absolutely stink at it, haha.  Oh well, I guess volleyball isn't one of my gifts, and I'm okay with that, haha.

I enjoy learning the language and it's been coming fairly easily to me.  It's such a cool experience to read the scriptures in a foreign tongue.  It's like reading them for the first time all over again and I gain new insights every day from reading in Portuguese.  The gift of tongues is a real thing, especially when you're out on a mission, and I can feel the Lord blessing me with it everyday.

We have the privilege of walking around the Provo Temple grounds every Sunday and of attending a Temple session every Tuesday morning.  Both days there has been an anti-Mormon protester with a big cross who's been shouting various things at us as we walk by.  It's a really interesting experience to see someone so vehemently opposed to the Church.  It was actually pretty funny because he kept shouting at us things like, "Jesus is the only way to salvation!" and we all wanted to shout back, "Yes, we agree with you!  Why are you yelling at us?"  Haha.  He's mostly harmless though, and if anything it adds a little adventure to the day.  The other day he brought a friend along with him who was really nice and didn't seem that into it.  We joked that he was probably the junior companion, haha.  There's just something funny about seeing a guy do the least effective proselyting to one of the most effective proselyting groups in the world, haha.

Everyone here is a little antsy about the devotional tonight because the choir was told that it would be broadcast to every MTC in the world, making us pretty sure that a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will be addressing us tonight.  Everyone's excited and silently hoping that it's Elder Holland, haha.

Well, email time is limited on P-Day and I've got a lot of chores to do so I can't write too much.  Before I sign off I just want to say that the Gospel is absolutely true.  I can feel it more than I've ever felt it before.  I know for a surety that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer and that He suffered for our sins so that we could return to live with our Heavenly Father.  I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is His true church and that He stands at the head of it today.  I know that he restored His gospel through a latter-day prophet, Joseph Smith, and that He continues to call prophets and that Thomas S. Monson is the prophet today.  I know that The Book of Mormon is true and that we can learn more from it than from any other book on Earth.  I miss you all, but this work is far too important to even think about going home now.

Your friend,

Elder Carter Morgan