Week 3 MTC

Hello! This week has flown by oh my goodness! It's true when they say after the first week everything starts going faster. Lots has happened this week. We are really starting to get into the groove of things and it's nice. On Tuesday we had Elder Schwitzer of the seventy come and speak with us and it was such a cool devotional. He taught us so many things about prayer and I really enjoyed it. He said that we need to align our will with God's before and after we pray. That really got me thinking and taught me a lot. He also talked about the "Nephi Principle" which is that God gives us challenges everyday that are meant to strengthen us up to accomplish more as we go on. For example God commanded Nephi to go gets the plates from Laban and a lot of times we look at that story and think of that as the most important story and greatest challenge Nephi faced, but Elder Schwitzer said that God was just preparing Nephi for what was to come. 

The other day I was able to give my first blessing. It was a great experience. I knew hardly anything about the sister who I was giving it to, but when i started giving it so many thoughts started coming to my head. The power of God is real. And that really strengthened my testimony about that. 

This week has also been really hard in a lot of ways. 2 of the elders in my zone had to go home. I was really close with both of them so it was really difficult to see them go. The night after both of them left we had a testimony meeting and the spirit was so strong. I felt such an assurance of the power of the atonement and I was 

super grateful for that. I know God has a plan for them and that they are being watched over. 

The language is coming pretty good actually. We had our first TRC last night which is when you teach some members from the area that speak fijian. This is different from our normal lessons because this isn't role playing. Its more like a home teaching lesson. That makes it more difficult because even though we can still teach basic doctrine it is hard to have the small talk in between. Its more of a discussion than a lesson so its a lot harder. It actually went super well though. We taught two lessons, both to return missionaries who are going to UVU right now. They were such cool guys and just kept telling us how jealous they were of us because we get to go serve the greatest people on earth. He also said after we were done that our fijian is better than his was when he left the MTC so that was comforting I guess.

I love you all so much and am always thankful for your support. 

Keep writing me because I love hearing from all of you!

  

Have a great week. 

Au lomani kemuni.

Elder Hess

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