October 4, 2012

This is my first email from the MTC. Turns out that I will only be able to send two of these before I go into New Zealand. I will be leaving on or very close to the 15th of October. So, I would advise you to send and letters through DearElder up till that point, probably even more than that. It's free to the MTC, as far as I know. But it will get more expensive to send them to New Zealand, so all of you should send letters now, and keep sending them. Like I said, it's free now, so if you can only manage to send a few letters, it would cost you nothing to send them to me now. So do it.

The MTC is kind of stressful at times. We are busy all the time. We basically learn from 8am to 9pm. We wake up, eat and get ready from 6-8. And we get ready for bed, plan, and write in our journals from 9-10:30. It is pretty much that we are on the go all day long. It's pretty intense. So, anyways, my companion is named E. Reese. There are 10 Elder's in my district, including me, and 6 of us are going to Auckland, New Zealand. The remaining 4 are going to Portland, Oregon.

We teach some "investigators" pretty much every day. By investigators, I mean that they are actually usually just people acting like someone that they know and Love. If it is our teachers acting, then it is someone that they had the opportunity to teach on their mission. There is something called the Teaching Resource Center, or TRC, that people volunteer at. These people are generally members that volunteer, but occasionally, they are actual investigators. We just never know. There are 3 types of TRC appointments: Less-Active, Investigators, and Referrals. The referrals can be by anyone. Anyways, at the present time, our district is teaching a man named Arnold. We teach him as a group. It can be tough. Also, Arnold really really really likes to talk. We can barely teach him anything before he interrupts and tells us a story about the spoon he carved, the time he was stuck in the mountains, his wife dying, his children, being in the outdoors, etc. Anywho, he is clearly someone acting, because he tries to give us huge hints about what to teach him all the time. Like, on his spoon, there were these divets that formed because a branch had to be held up. Easily could be related to bearing up  burdens, etc. Anyways, it is still pretty hard to teach him as a group, because we all want to go a certain way, and often times those ways are not the same.

Another investigator, Richie, acted out by one of our teachers, was a Meth addict, and is really receptive to the gospel, especially the Atonement. It really fits with him.

Another one: Cody, is not very receptive, but could be taught the plan of salvation because he is getting married at the end of the Month (also acted out by one of our teachers.)

We have a less-active older couple that know that the gospel is true, and they know that they should be coming to church. We meet the husband on Tuesday, and that should be fun.

We have so many awesome speakers here at the MTC. We have a devotional every Sunday and Tuesday. We also have Church, Mission conference, and other talks on Sundays. Sundays are very spiritual days for all of us. It is pretty nice, I think. Anyways, I am running out of time, because we are only supposed to spend 30 minutes on our emails and only on P-day. So I'm gonna try to stick to that rule, because we are supposed to be obedient to every mission rule, otherwise, we don't get blessed as much. Basically, it's just a better idea to follow the rules.

Anyways, Love you all! Write me lots!

In case you never knew my address, which you should, it is in a million different locations, it is:

 

Elder Cache Franklin Staheli

MTC Mailbox #145

NZE-AUC 1015

2005 N 900 E

Provo, UT, 84604-1793