Hola Kids!
Tell your wife that I totally share her love of letters. It's like a paper hug.
So. About the MTC (now that I'm on a plane - leaving the place). As an English speaker going to English speaking, I was enrolled in the Super-Duper Accelerated Learning Program of the Lord's University. See, I thought I was converted before I got here, I thought I had a testimony - and I did - but it's NOTHING like it is now. See, first you believe something, then you know something, then you become something. The MTC pushed me from knowing to the road of becoming. I don't know how else to explain it. We study Preach My Gospel a lot - which is, in my opinion, the second "most correct book" available to men. That book is replete with doctrine - the doctrine of God's love for His children. Amazing.
Another cool part of the MTC is the opportunity to practice being super-duper-big-time-ultra-obedient before we go out into the wide world. I didn't "get" exact obedience before now, but now I think I do. God's promises to us are predicated on our obedience to His laws. It's not that He wants us to be boring and mindless, which is how I used to picture exact obedience. The obedience thing has way more to do with the laws of whatever God is. I mean, I know he's a glorified being, and we are in his image. But His power, the Priesthood, and his power to answer prayers, and forgive sins - all of that power is hinged on our obedience to laws. I can't really wrap my brain around it. It's probably complex physics or something. I just know that when I'm obedient I have access to the Power of God in a very real way. As I am about His work, all things I need will be provided - through the Power of God. It's the most incredible feeling! The thing that so surprized me about it, though, is that I had access to his Power all the time - before my mission - and I didn't realize it. You have that access to power, your wife does, even your little boys do. All it takes is obedience to his laws. How'd I miss that before?
Twice while I was at the MTC I was healed. Twice! Once I asked for a priesthood blessing to cast out mt fear, the other was to heal me from a bad sore throat (germs fly around the MTC like no other!). Both times the Elder asked if I had faith in Jesus Christ to be healed, and for the first time in my whole life I could answer with an unwavering "Yes!" That faith came because I got to practice being obedient while in the safety of the MTC. The Spirit is stong there, more intense than any other place I've been, comparable to the temple. I wish you could go there for a month! I miss it a little already, and I've only been gone for 4 hours. We also get to practice teaching, learn how to find people to teach, learn how to prepare lessons by the Spirit, how to teach by the Spirit, how to see people the way God sees them. It's really, really a place of miracles.
Anyway, I love you! Kiss the boys for me, kiss yourselves.
Love you!
Rebecca
