Elder Preston Armstrong : Week Two

Dear Mom and Dad and everyone else who cares about me;)

This has been another great week in the MTC. But big news first. If everything goes as it seems to be going, I will be in India in one week!! We got our flight itinerary and mom you're gonna die. If my visa is truly ready to go I will be flying from Salt Lake to Los Angeles, and then from Los Angeles to Abu Dhabi of the United Arab Emerites, and then from Abu Dhabi to New Delhi! I am so excited!! Hopefully it all goes as planned because the people at the travel office said I won't know for sure if I'm leaving until about two days before the flight whether or not my visa is 100%. Because they can always cancel flights, but they expect us to fly out Tuesday at noon. If I did my math right we would fly for 26 hours and be in the airports for close to 10 or 11 hours. There are five of us out of ten who got flight itineraries, and everyone but me was assigned a temporary mission on their mission portal in case they couldn't go to India right away. And the other five have already been notified that they are going to the states. Out of everyone it looks like I have the best chance of going right away. The other missions that have been assigned are Arizona, San Antonio, and Salt Lake. So if nothing else those will be some pretty cool places to serve. They also said that if you serve state side, once your visa is ready you leave on the next flight no matter what! You don't have to wait until the end of the transfer. The only thing that scares me about all of this is that I will be in charge of getting everyone there, and that's a lot of responsibility for these huge airports. I hope I know what I'm doing. Also if I'm the only one who has a visa the travel office said they will send me alone, and that would be crazy. No matter what though I'll be out serving for real in one week and that pumps me up so much.

So I love writing you and telling you about my week! I guess I'll just start at the beginning from right after I emailed you last. Tuesday we went to the temple, and it was awesome. I loved the Provo Temple and I never thought I would because on the outside it's just not as nice to look at as the others. But the inside is so cool. I also think it helped that it wasn't my first time and I could kind of pay attention to more detail than I did before. But seriously everything about the temple was awesome. Then when we got back we were in the Choir for Elder Bednar. We sang the song he wrote called "One By One" and his whole talk was about how the Savior knows us, loves us, and died for us, One by One. It was so powerful and at the end of the song his grandkids were singing with us. It was amazing. I felt the Spirit stronger than ever the entire meeting, but the time I felt it most was when at the end he stood up, and everyone stood up in unison and he walked out. It was then that I knew he was truly an apostle of the Savior Jesus Christ. It was unreal, he is such an amazing guy and next to Elder Holland I don't know if there has ever been a better speaker. He even walked out and was gone for like 3 minutes and no one moved an inch. No one made a sound. It was dead quiet except for the music playing and we all just stood there and I can't even explain the feelings. The whole event was an International Broadcast to the Worldwide MTC's. The song was performed for the first time by us publicly as well, it will be released next month as well as the talk in the New Era magazine so look for that.

The rest of the week was just missionary business as usual. They keep you so busy that every time you look at the clock it seems like it's either time to eat again or time to go to bed. We finished teaching our first investigators and Bubba who I told you about last week has seriously changed my life. He has a Mormon video called "Gang Member to Good Man" you have to watch it. He's the guy I taught here at the MTC and he is so cool. We knew he was already a member who was just volunteering his time here, but his story was so real. We went in thinking that his literal Eternal Salvation was on the line and we taught him and showed him how much we cared and loved him and when you feel the spirit so strongly, even when he has been changed for so long, and it still brings a grown man who used to be in a gang to tears. That's real, that's not an investigator, that's a real person. I honestly love that guy and he comes here to help missionaries become better because he understands the importance of the work and what it did for him.

However, now I think we have a real investigator. He goes to BYU and looks exactly like Gordon Hayward, so you can imagine it wasn't hard for me to show him that I loved him. But we tried all the tricks in the book to see if he was a real member or not and he didn't even have garment lines. Haha! That was another amazing lesson and telling him that he could see his mom again and live together as a family was awesome. We easily take for granted how important the blessings of Eternal Families are.

But through this lesson me and my companion learned a very valuable lesson. At the end of the lesson, we both felt so strongly to invite him to be baptized. But being the first lesson with him we both got scared and pushed it off. I regret that so much, and I felt horrible after the lesson even though it was amazing, we didn't do what we were supposed to do. It felt awful. I promised myself to NEVER ignore the Holy Ghost again, it's something you cannot afford in the mission field, or in life. That could be a real investigator, and even if it's not, they all will be in about 9 days. That could be someones eternal salvation and happiness and the Holy Ghost always knows, he testifies of truth.

Sunday was bittersweet, we had an awesome day and walked to the temple. Sacrament meeting was really good, but it was also Elder Bockenstedt's last day here at the MTC before he went to Arizona. He and his companions Elders Brown, Johnson, and Williams are my newest brothers. They can't compare to all my friends back home, but we all got along so well and someday I hope they could see each other but that's another story! Anyways I love those guys and they truly were so good to me and my companion and we all had such a good time. The MTC is an awesome place and you meet so many people, I'm going to miss it that's for sure! Sunday night Elder Lusvardi came and spoke at the devotional and it was an awesome talk. He talked a lot about obedience and how it is vital in life and the mission field.

It's nothing but a nonstop spiritual high here. I love it!

We just got done doing laundry and playing ball. After we got ready for the day we went to the MTC store, there was a Down Syndrome worker vacuuming the floors really slow. We walked past him and and said Hi and he stopped everything he was doing to take out his temple recommend and show it to us. He was so excited and inside the recommend holder it had a saying that said "Heavenly Father knows my voice." He was so happy to tell us that and it made my whole day! He taught me something as well. He told us that Sunday was Father's Day and that he loves ties. As a district we're going to try and find him and give him a few ties.

Yesterday was the first day I got homesick though, it only lasted about 20 minutes because I checked my email and Styrling (Steelo) had sent me an email about going to Buffalo and I missed everything from back home so much. I miss my friends and I miss you family. I miss SJ. But I was quickly put back in my place when I read in Matthew, the Savior teaching the Sermon on the Mount. There is a verse that says, and I'm paraphrasing, "For where your heart is, that is where your treasure will be also." I realized then that no matter what, this is where my heart is, I'm set on serving the Lord. I miss everything back home, but it can't beat what I'm doing here. But still, send me emails about everything. I can handle it now! I want to know everything that is happening.

Thank you to everyone who has emailed, I'll make sure to email you all today. Thank you grandma for the letter, sad to here about Ervin Simper, he was a good man and he's in a way better place walking and talking now. Joyce has always been so nice to me. I'm glad to hear grandpa had a good time in Yellowstone, I hope he counted all the trees;) And I love all the updates on the Finals. You guys know me so well and it's hard to not be watching sports. If Lebron wins another championship I'll be so mad. Better keep up the good emails once Marsh, BYU, Dallas, and the Jazz start playing again.

Anyways I'm back off to the temple, possibly for the last time in two years. Which scares me because "You're never lost when you can see the temple.";) But I know I won't be lost because like my new friend from the MTC store said, "Heavenly Father knows my voice."

I love you guys.

My heart is here in the mission field, but it thinks about you everyday.

I can email you again once when I find out for sure about flight plans and stuff, so I know what to do on money and I can even call you from the airport.

Price go kill something in the mountains ya hick, Parker go shoot some hoops, lift some weights and quit touching my bedroom. Also, quit kissing girls at Youth Conference.

I'll be sending personal emails throughout the day.

Stay Happy

Love, Elder Armstrong