Semana 5

September 28, 2011

Hola Familia,

Hope you're enjoying the pictures. Notice the light saber pictures. Pretty cool that the MTC would provide such things, huh? The tall, tall guy is Elder Duda - definitely the best friend I've got here. He's legit. The other good friend is Elder Bartlett.

Exciting news this week! The Lord has definitely been dishing out blessings to me. Friday, I got my VISA! There was a note in the mail saying to visit the travel offices ASAP. It was an overwhelming feeling thinking that it finally came. I've heard of people having less than 12 hour notice too, so I was mentally preparing myself to leave the next morning. Luckily, I found out that I don't leave until October 5th so I’ve got some time to mentally prepare and spend more time with the district.

Friday night Elder Duda was talking to someone in line in the cafeteria. They were talking about how 40 Visa's have made progress but only ONE guy has gotten word. That lucky guy is Me. Only downside is I'm traveling solo. I have to be at the travel offices of the MTC by 5:00 Wednesday morning. I fly out of SLC at 8:30 and land in Atlanta Georgia at 2:20. I then fly out of there at 4:40 and land in Lima, Peru at 10:30 p.m. So I think I'll actually be landing at 12:30 a.m. Peru time. It was definitely an answer to my prayers. Then, on Sunday, I was assigned to District Leader. I hadn't had the chance to tell any of the branch presidency about my flight plans so I told them that I only had 10 days left at that point. The 2nd counselor (who is AWESOME by the way – a former mission president in Chile) was a little hesitant at first but that assured me that a call is a call and the Lord had a purpose no matter the time restraint. So I quickly dove in to leading the district.

Man, the spirit here is nuts. One is music. It's amazing how you're away from music for a while and are so desperate for the spirit that once you get to hear an awesome hymn or anything you just get all giddy. At devotional and stuff it's funny when they announce what song we'll be singing for preludes and there's a big buzz of excitement over a hymn! But it's good. And, there is a Sister in the district that just pounds those ivories. We'll go find a piano after meals sometimes and one day she played Clair de Lune, which is what I listened to pretty much every night at BYU-I, and it was awesome. Two is just the study time. I started marking up my scriptures quite a bit more. I’m always finding myself going crazy over an awesome scripture (Alma 8:7 - I think). Just in general, the spirit has been powerful this past week.

Conference this weekend should be a great way to spend my last few days with the district. Look for a new General Authority speaking on the Saturday morning session. He's from Mexico and just so happened to sit next to us at a meal one night. Another gentlemen that was with him told us the news and so we turned to the new GA and congratulated him and greeted him. We're all stoked for it because, of course, as missionaries we're always anxious for more spiritual things to feast on.

We did a temple session today and when we got out, families of new incoming missionaries were everywhere taking pictures. It's weird thinking that 5 weeks ago I was doing the same thing with Brandon, Jaclyn, Mare, and Scott. Every time I see these anxious families dropping off their kids it takes me way back to when I was just a new missionary. Oh wait... I'm only 5 weeks in. I know I’m still a noob, but it is amazing to see how much better I am at Spanish and how far I’ve already come. And now in just 7 days I'll be off to the Peru MTC and then 19 days after that leaving to the field. The next time I write a big letter with probably be from Peru! Exciting.

Hope all is well for everybody!

Love, Elder Farmer