MTC - Week 8

03/11/09
Hola todo!!

Hope you all had a great week! It sounds like everyone is doing well.
It snowed up here on Sunday! It was awesome. Everyone thinks I'm crazy cuz I've been wishing for snow before we leave.
Whoa, you mean we actually leave this place?! It's week 8 already! We only have one more full week here, and we should be getting our flight plans tomorrow! Yee haw!

All right, la historia de la semana!(story of the week)
Saturday night they came on the speakers and reminded us that we needed to change our clocks cuz of day light savings time. Well we get to our rooms and some elders needed our help with something and we did that until it was time to go to bed.
Sunday morning comes along and I go out in the hallway and nobody is there. Usually there are people hurrying to beat everyone else to the showers but there was nobody.
I go back in the room and tell my companeros that there's nobody awake so either we're an hour early or an hour late.
So we got ready and went to our class...on the way there was nobody around! Elder Israelsen thought we had missed the Second Coming! haha!
We get to the building and we were definitely an hour late! Instead of it being 7 it was 8 am. President Crawford came in and asked "So where were you this morning??" We just kinda looked at each other looking for who was going to tell him first! All I said was "We don't have Day light savings in Arizona!" He laughed at us and asked if we were reminded. We sheepishly said yes then he gave us one of his quotes (he always has some sort of wisdom/cool phrase) "The dullest pencil is better than the sharpest mind" So after he kinda scolded us for being late he called our companionship to be Zone Leaders. He wanted to know why we weren't there because he wanted to call us earlier so we could be at the meeting that we weren't awake for...oops!
So DST is a new adventure for me!
Yesterday Elder James J. Hamula came. He's such a great speaker! He gave this awesome talk on The Creation, The Fall, and the Atonement (The Three Pillars of the Gospel, right?)
...
I just had a whole bunch typed up and it deleted it.
Basically Elder Hamula said we are all going to be resurrected right? Our job is to prepare the investigators f0r that day! We’ll all return to the presence of God, whether we stay there or not is a different story!
It was such an awesome talk. It felt like General Conference!
It made me really think about our purpose and how it really is all about inviting THEM to come unto Christ. If I focus on them I don’t' have to worry about my Spanish or about leaving a commitment and following up and all of that. If we think of Preach My Gospel as a checklist we're missing the point.
This is what our teachers have been telling us about he past week, it's pretty cool! It's mind boggling actually. They told us its going to change missionary work completely. They said the MTC is going to start teaching missionaries to not focus on "How did we do?" when they teach but "How did we bring our investigators to Christ?"

Okay I had a whole bunch typed up and I don’t 'have much time. Lo siento!
Haha, after I emailed you last week I went to shave and my electric shaver broke! No more laziness for me, now I have to actually use a razor! Hey I forgot I wanted to bring some of those magic tricks I have. If you happen to send something up before I leave could you send the little clear stick with the colors on it, and the pen that goes through paper? Sorry I don’t' mean to be demanding I just think it'd be fun to take down there.
About the whole suitcase thing.. Cherisse feels in the dark about it. So here's what I'm going to do, When I leave I'm going to take the suitcase up to the front and leave it there. They told me to make sure when I call you from the airport to pick it up. If I'm overweight I might put some stuff in there,. Can you ask Cherisse if that’s okay? I think she might be going down to AZ and not even be here so if we could work it out that'd be awesome!

I love you all, thanks for the letters! I want to hear more from Mis HERMANOS!! (siblings) I'm sad the recorder erased all of your recordings, sometimes you just have to look for them on the recorder.

Well things are going well here, I'm coming around the corner- we're all ready to head to Mexico!
Se que este iglesia es verdadera, y que Tomas S. Monson es un profeta de Dios. Se que el Libro de Mormon contiene la plenitud del evangelio y respuestas por todos las preguntas! Se que Jesucristo vive y El es mi Salvador y Redentor.

Te quiero!
Elder Rasmussen

Ps- Heads up, I'm going to be writing Josephine and the boys. I have felt like I just need to write them and tell them about what I’m doing out here. I think the spirit has been telling me for the whole time I've been here that I need to share with them my testimony. I think they will come to know this is the true Church if we do our part- I think I’ve thought this because I'm teaching the plan of salvation this week and I keep thinking of them and how they can be with their Dad again. And I read the talk in the New Era by Pres. Eyring? about telling everyone about the gospel. How when we get to the other side they will look at us and say "You knew, why didn't you tell me?" I read that and I knew I had to write Josephine and the boys. I dunno, tell me what do you think! I have four minutes to reply! love ya!