3 Weeks Away to L.A.!

Hey Family,

        Thanks for the letters for this week and I was glad to hear you had a great weekend. The caucus sounded like you had a lot of "fun." At this point, I'm really glad that I don't have to fluster over that, and leave the world to preoccupy on politics. Keep being involved, and I love hearing about what is going on. Give my best to Grandma and Grandpa, and I hope that they will be feeling better. I hope you enjoyed Elder Bednar! He's the best! I CALLED IT! I knew he was going to talk about the character of Christ. That talk truly gave me some reassurance that as long as I am diligent in doing what Christ would do, I will never fall away. It was one of my first spiritual moments I had here at the MTC. Also Mom and Dad keep telling me about this awesome experience Aubrie had with Elder Bednar. I'm getting a little anxious to find out what happened. I'll be expecting an email soon from you Aubrie! Some exciting things happened at the MTC this week. A large portion of the district that left our zone 3 weeks ago for Fresno came back on Monday! It includes 3 of the favorite Elders I've come to love the most. They finally got their visas and they were here til this morning before they left again for Mexico. I can't express how awesome it was to see 7 elders fresh from the mission, and to see how much they changed. Their testimonies and love for the gospel and people have grown so much. Last night, I had the greatest spiritual experience I've had in my entire life. It's so sacred to me that I'll wait until we have a chance to talk either on Mother's Day or when I come home. I'll just say I got question answered that I've had since Elder Carter left for home. It has definitely got me totally pumped up to go to Los Angeles right now. I only have have 19 more days/3 more weeks left, but it seems like it will take forever. The Spanish is coming alright, and I need to practice more. I can read and understand Spanish, the only difficulty is speaking it fluently and doing all the fun verb conjugations in my head. But I'm really not concerned about it. In D&C 84:85 it says how I should treasure the words of the gospel in my heart, and if I do, the words will come at the needed time. I'm putting my faith on the Lord to helping me with speaking, and I hope once I get in the field it will come faster and faster each day. Also on Tuesday, Elder Oaks and his wife came to speak to us. Elder Oaks spoke on how we can obtain and keep the spirit with us throughout our missions. He said the main key to having the spirit is to partake of the sacrament each Sunday, and we prepare for each Sunday to be determined to do what the sacrament prayer asks; take his name upon us, keep his commandments, and always remember him. Only through this can we be promised formally each we that we will have the spirit to be with us. It is a great blessing to have an apostle come and speak on the simple truths of the gospel. All Elder Oaks does is teach straight from the scriptures, and I come to appreciate the fact that I can study from them everyday, and receive counsel from them just as I would if it was General Conference. Speaking of General Conference, it's coming up, and the MTC choir will be singing on one of the session on Saturday. However, I will not be part of the choir. It's kind of sad because basically everyone in my district will be going,.....but me. I had a hard time at first. But I will be a blessing because I won't have my obnoxious companions to distract me from listening to each talk. However, It would have been nice to be on the stand with all the apostles and President Monson. Ahhh....oh well. Thanks for offering to put Elder Carter's name in the temple. From what I know he had surgery this past week and I let you know how it went when I find out. There's Sister right now that has started to struggle with migraines and stresses similar to what Aubrie has gone through. Her name is Hermana Reyes, and if you could put her on the prayer roll too I'd be grateful. It's been so crazy how there's so many people that I've known recently struggling with headaches. There's definitely something I need to learn from this. Well I be off to the temple today, too. I will look forward to that. Give my best to everyone, I hope I can hear from all of you. Until next time!

Love

Elder Marrott