Week 6 - Veloma MTC!!

Wow my last Pday in the MTC!! I will be honest that first night I was not sure this day would ever come but it has come faster than I could've ever imagined! I have loved the MTC, I have grown so much and learned so much in my 6 weeks here. There is no place on this Earth like the MTC. There is a special spirit here that cannot be described. While I have loved the MTC, I am so excited to get to Madagascar!! We got our flight plans last week! We leave Monday morning to head to the airport, fly from Salt Lake to Dallas, then have a 3 hour layover in Dallas, fly from Dallas to London, 6 hour layover in London, fly from London to South Africa, 3 hour layover, and then fly to Madagascar where I will have about a 23 month layover :) Yep, the MTC hasn't made me lose my humor but my jokes have gotten worse I will admit haha. So all in all from when we leave the MTC to when we get to the mission home in Madagascar it will be about 53 total hours of traveling. Not sure how that is gonna feel but we will find out I guess. This week was a great week! Definitely one of the better weeks in the MTC. Chad Lewis came to the devotional Sunday night! He played football with my dad back in the day so it was awesome to see a familiar face from the outside world! I went and talked to him after the devotional which was nice too. I loved his talk. Mainly because it is from an athlete's perspective and I could relate a lot to what he was saying. One thing I loved that his wife talked about was that she had said when she first met Chad that all he could talk about was jumping over someone in a football game. He said that is all he could think about. Then one day he did it. She said she learned something very special that day, and that is that whatever we put into our thoughts and into our mind that is what we will become and what we will do. I loved that! Chad also said some awesome things! He said, "You missionaries have been blessed with the Spirit of the Lord and his Spirit has no fear!" As I leave to Madagascar in 3 days I loved hearing that. I am so excited to get to Madagascar but have definitely had some fear with how the language is going to be the first little while. I know it is going to be hard to understand people as I know they talk really fast and our teacher has played some recordings for us. I just plan on smiling and nodding and saying Manahoana a lot. Then Chad said this, "The language doesn't matter as much as your love and desire to serve the people does." I needed to hear that! I have such a desire to serve these people! It has been burning in me since I got my call and even more these last 6 weeks! I can't wait to get to work and know that the language will come but it just matters about how much I love the people. Our Tuesday devotional was amazing too! Elder Christofferson came and spoke! I got to hear 2 of the 12 apostles in my time here! He gave a great talk as you could imagine. He talked a lot about the repentance. One thing I loved that he said is this, "It takes faith to repent and repentance brings about greater faith." I love that. We all need to repent everyday! Even missionaries in the MTC have to repent :) The more we repent and come unto Christ for his grace and forgiveness the more faith we will have in him and his Atonement. He also said this, directing it to us as missionaries, "You are bearing the Kingdom of God in your hands, you are saying I can give you access to the Kingdom of God, you are knocking on these people's doors and saying here I am, here is the Kingdom of God." When he said this I had a strong spirit come over me saying so what else could you be doing that is more important?! You are giving people the access to be able to live with their families for eternity! There is nothing more important you could be doing right now!...I am so happy to be here. I am grateful everyday that I get the opportunity to be a missionary and I am grateful to be able to finally get going with helping the people in Madagascar! There are so many things to look forward to and I can't wait to get going. Thank you all for the packages, letters, and prayers! I am so grateful for all of you and you are all in my prayers. I hope you have a great week!! On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday you can think about me and how I have been sitting on an airplane for like 3 days. Prayers that I can get an aisle seat would be appreciated too haha! I hope you all have a great week!! I will attach some pictures. Just a lot of selfies and stuff. Shout out to my mom for getting the district matching ties! Enjoy these pictures as my pictures next week will look a lot different :) I love you all and hope you have a great week!!!! Veloma!! BTW not quite sure what we are doing in half of these pictures.