Week #6 - And I'm Off..............

Here is a picture of my district after our last class with Hermana Corbin. 

48 hours and 20 minutes until I go into the travel office for leaving the MTC. It has really been a blur. It was extremely fast and slow at the same time. "The days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days" is a common quote that you hear. It's quite surreal how I will never be able to live here again. The last 6 weeks here are now in the past.

On last Sunday night, Elder Bednar from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles came into the MTC to do a Q&A. It was really cool because we came during the month of July, which was the month that the general authorities take off as a whole. The first Sunday after that, though, we got to see Bednar. Anyone who is on a mission instantly thinks Bednar is the best apostle. There are some MTC devotional recordings that are by far some of the best talks I have ever heard. 

While he was here though, there were 2 rooms that he went in because there are so many Missionaries here. He left our room and went to the other room to answer questions, and we got it live streamed to us. I wanted to take a picture of the screen while he was in the other room, so I brought my camera up and snapped a photo. Little did I know, my flash was on and the entire room looked at me. It was extremely humiliating, but all of my friends thought it was hilarious. Good thing Elder Bednar wasn't in our room.

Here is the picture that I tried to take of the monitor when David A. Bednar was talking.  I saw the flash and quickly moved the camera.  This was the result.  

We got moved to the first floor this week to be put on display for the tours while we were in class. It is kind of funny how we are put on display like animals at a Zoo here.

My favorite thing that we did this week was listen to the last testimonies at General Conference of the Twelve Apostles and First Presidency before they passed away. My favorite one by far was the final talk by Bruce R. McConkie, titled The Purifying Power of Gethsemane. I recommend watching the video rather than only reading the talk because how he says things is just as important as what he says. My favorite quote was "But I shall not know any better then (referring to when he will soon pass away) than I know now that he is God’s Almighty Son, that he is our Savior and Redeemer, and that salvation comes in and through his atoning blood and in no other way." When writing and speaking this talk, Elder McConkie was dying of cancer. His doctor told him not to go to General Conference and speak because he was in such bad health. He passed away two weeks after giving this talk. His family went on a trip to the Holy Land in Israel/Jerusalem after he passed away, they played it out loud at one of the historical sites there. His family said that when he said his final testimony, a dove flew in for the whole entire thing, then flew away when it was over. His wife says that this is the only talk that Elder McConkie couldn't speak without crying. It is now one of my favorite talks ever given and I recommend everyone to read and watch it. There is also a compilation of every single Apostle's final testimony from 1971-2016 on YouTube. If my parents can find it for me they will link it, I recommend watching that as well.

Thank you to everyone for reading my email, next time you hear from me I will be in Argentina!

Elder Murphy

Here is a picture of Elders Helske, Murphy and Findlay

Another bonus to Collin being into the MTC during the MTC Open House is the fact that he has run into friends that have been on the tour.  

The first person he saw was an old mission friend of Hannah's from the Argentina Posadas mission:

The next person we got a picture from was Mike Hansen.  Collin ran into Reece Hansen!

Last but not least, Collin ran into his cousins.......Michael and Laura Schnell!

As if all of that excitement wasn't enough, he then found one of his good friends from BYUI who happened to enter the MTC this week.  Daniel Tanguilig is headed to the Philippines in a few weeks:

Last but not least, Collin sent a picture of this:

Everybody in the MTC gets these things called "Luego Libros" where people can write in messages for you to remember them after. I thought it would be funny to make this one mine.... 

This is Collin's last week in the MTC.  He is leaving Monday, August 14th for Argentina.  He will fly from SLC to Atlanta.  Then he goes from Atlanta to Buenos Aires.  From Buenos Aires, he thinks he takes a bus to Mendoza.  He is VERY excited to be leaving the MTC and finally get to Argentina!