LIFE IN THE MTC - Letter dated October 9, 2009

Dear Family,

My first week is now coming to a close. My companion and I are improving a lot at teaching. When we first had to teach, we got stuck teaching our teacher Brother Tei, who I believe is slightly psychotic. I froze up when my companion started teaching something that was totally different from what we planned. This was the first moment I had home sickness set in. At that moment, I really wanted to be home. Now we are improving drastically. Elder NKruma no longer rants for minutes straight while I'm itching to jump in and I no longer freeze at the unexpected.

I can't begin to write about all of my experiences here. It's a nice life in the MTC where everything is done for us (including most of our laundry.) We also do not have to deal with real people. The real world will be much harder. The poverty here is horrendous. The worst I have ever seen. The food in the MTC is weird, but good. I have heard horror stories about something called a "Bush Cutter" which is a four foot long rat. We are all a little nervous about leaving.

Every day we wake up at 6:30 and get ready for personal study at 7:00. Breakfast is at 8:00 and class runs from 8:30 to 12:30. Lunch is from 12:30 to 1:00. Then we have companion study till 2:00. Class till 3:15, gym time till 4:20 (I don't have enough shirts,) then dinner time at 5:00. Then we have class from 5:45 till 9:00. I then try to write in my journal and get ready for bed at 10:00. We also have to plan with our companion.

The Spirit is strong here and for the first time I feel it everyday, all day. It's the only thing that gets me going and will be the only thing keeping me in the mission field.

One great experience I had was when we watched a devotional by Elder Bednar about the Spirit. He said the number one questions he gets is how do you know if its really the Spirit. He said "Don't worry about it!" Just be a good boy, keep your covenants, obey the commandments. You will be led by the Spirit and you won't even know it! It has changed my whole perspective on my mission and I am a lot more excited to serve.

All right, I love and miss you. Letters go out Fridays, so expect more before you can get one to me :) Good bye for now!!

Elder Harris