Week 5 at the MTC

This was the fastest week ever. First off, I've been weighing myself here in the MTC because of all the stories of how you gain tons of weight here, and I've just about gained 10 pounds since I got here and honestly I don't even know where it is. I don't feel or look (well at least I don't think I look) any different than when I left, but when I came I weighed in at 153.7 and I'm now 162.3, so at this pace I'll be over 170 by the time I leave here... I really don't look any different. I'm pretty positive once I get down to Paraguay and actually start moving more than just 50 min for 5 days a week I'll lose the weight again, hopefully not any more than I've gained but you never know.
This week is our first week teaching full lessons in Spanish, and it is pretty intense. We've tried it before but this week we have to do it in the TRC, which is the big test here at the end of the week with the real fake investigator they give us. Our class is going to have a funeral for English, I'm pretty excited about that, but at the same time it is going to be pretty intense. I bought a little cheap English dictionary for the ceremony and everything, but really it'll be a lot of help to really shift the focus to Spanish. We are supposed to now speak as much Spanish as we can, but it is going to be pretty intense to try to not speak English at all. I'm pretty sure we can do it.
A cool thing happened in class this week. Last Saturday my teacher, Bro. Alder, was sharing with us the Christlike attribute we should work on for next week. The attribute is patience. He told us about some of his own personal experiences he was having right now and it was just so cool how what he was saying applied so much to what we as a district needed to do and even cooler was how it applied to me personally. These past couple weeks have been a little frustrating for me because I really felt like I could be doing better than I was and that I wasn't really progressing much, I felt as though I had been really honestly trying as hard as I could and it seemed as though I was dormant and really not reaching where I knew I could be. When Bro. Alder talked about his experiences he was having and how studying patience had helped him it was like it was exactly what I needed and the Spirit was just so strong. I could tell he was being inspired and his life was even being directed in a way that he could personally relate to us. The story gets better, the next day was Sunday and in Priesthood our branch President was teaching us about all different things and then he pulled out his Preach My Gospel and said that he felt like something we really needed to work on and study, he said in his words that we need to "tear it apart studing it," is the section in Preach My Gospel on patience, and it was just so powerful, a second confirmation of what I had already received a witness of. Then in sacrament meeting one of the members of the Branch Presidency talked about Faith in Jesus Christ relating his talk to the talk given in the April General Conference about the 6 destructive D's. On Monday, in Bro. Alders class, we watched the talk in Spanish and really outlined the talk with an emphasis on how our faith in Jesus Christ can keep us out of pattern of the 6destructive D's. It was such a powerful lesson that again just really applied to how I felt and what I needed. I even asked Bro. Alder how often he talks to our presidency and he said he talks to them now and again but he hadn't seen them for a couple weeks and he never goes over lesson plans with them. I know the Lord is watching over us, he knows all of us individually and really is aware and cares about our needs. I see miracles happen all the time in this work, though they be small I cannot deny the presence of them here and I am forever grateful for the Spirit they bring. I know Jesus Christ is real and He is my power, my only hope in bringing souls back to the Father, including my own. I will put my entire trust in Him so I can do the work I have been called to do, because I can't do it without Him.