Buenas dias!
Well, another week has gone by. Thank you so much for all of your letters! I really have been so blessed this week. Every day I had at least 2 letters, I got 3 packages...you are all the best! Just know I am so happy out here and I appreciate it so much. Special shout-out to Alex Inman, Chad Etchison for letters and Bryce for a package! I saw a box of cupcakes and I was like "Oh, Mary sent me cupcakes!" No....just my college roommate. Love you man. I will get letters out to you guys today, so expect some next week. Duddy, Burt, RYAN SANTORE, talk to me you losers. I want to know what's going on in your lives!
So, I am on my 4th week! And its august! Haha that was such a big day when it hit the next month. The days all kind of blur together here, but it is nice when you look back and realize that it has almost been a month on your mission already.
So...things for this past week. I got made District Leader! So....I get everyone's mail. That's about my only responsibility. Haha I obviously do a little bit more than that, I teach a little bit on Sunday and other stuff, but basically I get mail. Its pretty sweet. We have a district only of 5 now, because 3 of the 8 left for the Guatemala MTC for the remainder of their MTC stay. Which means that I am now in a trio, so Elder Long from Las Vegas, Elder Watt, and I are always together. It has definitely taken a bit to get used to so far. Its like trying to get all the tengbergs to church on time - one person is always ready, one always has to go to the bathroom, the other is talking. Its a disaster. We are late everywhere, we usually forget one of us somewhere...but its hilarious. Elder Long is super funny, so he has just added more of a dynamic to our companionship. Its great stuff! The worst one so far was during our Service time (oh THAT will be later on in this letter, this is so ridiculous), Elder Watt and i were assigned one thing and Elder long was assigned another. So, we finished an hour and a half later, went back to the room, changed, went up to gym time....and realized we didn't have Elder Long. Hahaha so we ran all the way back to the building, this cleaning lady said that he had waited for a bit but he just left. So we should have gone to find him. but, gym time started soon. Gym time is PRECIOUS here. Its 50 minutes of freedom. We kind of just figured he would find someone (he found our other district members) so we just left. We're terrible. Hahaha it was hilarious though!
So Service here. Every week we have an hour and a half of "service" time. That's what they call it. ITS FREE LABOR. Elder Watt and I cleaned bathrooms last week, while the people who actually get paid to work at the MTC assigned us out to do the tasks and supervised us. how does that work?!? They make us clean the bathrooms and call it service?!? There is not enough Purell in the WORLD to justify that in my head. I'm still trying to figure that one out. Needless to say, we finished very quickly, quality definitely lacked, and we moved on. Our next task was to unpack the toilet paper from boxes in this basement, so we spent an hour doing that. We created a full-on two-tiered castle out of this toilet paper. It was about 10 rolls high, had different spires on each side, and was beautiful. Just working my hardest wherever its needed. All in a days work.
I MISS THE OLYMPICS SO MUCH. haha we hear little bits and pieces of what happens every now and then, but I am dying. I live for the Olympics. So PLEASE, give me updates on that through DearElder! Keep me in the loop! I heard the basketball DreamTeam like doubled someone's score last week? And the women gymnastics won? Such great stuff. USA first....Chile second.
This week has also been really great spiritually. I have grown so much. I have started to truly appreciate the blessing it is to be here and grow. We get so much time every single day to just study the gospel, in whatever way we want. I have been reading the Book of Mormon straight through, and it is a HUGE blessing. Since I have so much time to study and its impossible NOT to feel the spirit here, my understanding of the scriptures has shot up so much. One really cool thing I read this week was in 1 Nephi 20, and also in D&C 1:34. 1 Nephi talked about the Lord not teaching in secret, and i had no idea what it meant. So I followed it to D&C, and it talked about the Lord being willing to make things known unto ALL flesh. How incredible is that? He is not a secretive person, it isn't like he is playing hide and seek and hiding in the dryer like I always did. He is standing in the dead center of the hallway, WAVING his arms, trying to get us to find him. But, how often do we not even try to look? We just need to show him that we truly want to learn, grow more, and increase our ability to help others, and That's when he can bless us. He can answer any prayer, any problem, any decision. Its such a blessing, that I think we (and I mean ME for all my life) don't use enough. Cool, huh? Just a little something I got from personal study this week!
There wasn't much else that happened this week. I am learning a ton, have really changed my attitude to be positive all the time and view this as an opportunity, and its helping so much. The less we think about ourselves and the more we serve others, the happier we are. Its so weird, but its so true. Even here in the MTC, people struggle, and there are opportunities to serve. Mary said something in her letter this week that was great and inspired me a ton, so I'll pass it on. "Heavenly Father will never forget about me. he will take care of me. Its time I worry about taking care of others!" So true.
I am grateful for this chance to think less of myself. I love you all so much family and friends! You are honestly the best. I think about you all the time, and am grateful for your influence. Love you.
Con Amor,
Elder Tengberg
No comments:
Post a Comment