First Letter from Seth-MTC 6/29/09

Today is Monday, our first P-Day. We are able to email for 30 mins on P-days, so you should be able to expect a letter every monday. Dear Elder works well, I got Mom's letter and so tell everyone to write me on that for now. The new mission presidents have been here since Wednesday when we arrived, so the apostles have been here teaching. All of them were here for sacrament meeting on Sunday for sacrament meeting with the mission presidents, but only the mission presidents attended. It's still neat they were here though. Friday night we had a special devotional bc of the mission presidents and Anderson, Christofferson, Perry, Holland, Oaks, Scott, and Bednar were all here. Holland spoke about the divine companionship of the HG and it was a great experience to be able to see all of them in an intimate setting. I also saw Christofferson going into the bathroom yesterday and he waved at my companion and I. My companion is from Orlando Florida, his parents run the church farm down there with like 40,000 cows, he has worked as a cowboy thoughout high school and since high school for them. We don't have much in common, but get along well. There are 12 people in my district and 6 of them are spanish speaking going to calgary. They are all very impressive. Everyond is VERY dedicated so far and it seems from their personalities that they will be. The Lord must need some good missionaries in Calgary. During the day, we have class for about 7-8 hours and one hour of personal study, one hour of companionship study, and one hour of language study. They really stress goal setting and planning each minute of the day. The two teachers I have are good and so days don't seem very long. We've heard a lot of inspiring messages about missionary work, but it really just makes me antsy to get itnto the mission field. Falling asleep at first was a little hard, really more just nerves, but it's gotten better. Everything is doing very well, I enjoy my district and the elders and we really don't have any time to focus on anything then what's important. Everyday really feels like Sunday here. Sundays are just a little more relaxing because we don't have class. We have about an hour of gym everyday which is nice. We go across the street to the fields everyday because it's really the only sun we see during the day. The flu stuff is dying down, but we still can't shake hands and they kept us seperated from the mission presidents except for the devotional by elder holland and they still were roped off from us. Normally we would spend time with our mission president because he's here, but they don't want them getting sick. I've set MTC goals to draw closer to christ, and to accomplish that to read Jesus The Christ, The BOM, and Preach my Gospel while I'm here. The language is coming easy right now, so I'm trying to focus on increasing my personal testimony so I can teach with more power, heart, and feeling. We learn and grow so much everyday, our branch presidents are mostly returned mission presidents and teachers are definently hand picked and selected. We had a testimony meeting the night we got here on WEd. and then again after the devotional on Friday with our district of 12 people. It was amazing to see the elders who struggled to even express a brief testimony on wednesday night share inspirational, powerful, and spirit inspired thoughts on friday night. I can't wait until we leave to see the improvement at that point. Yesterday our Branch president shared a message about commitment in district meeting. He is in banking and business and it seems like commitment and dedication is something he's incredibly passionate about. It's great to hear inspiring messages all day everyday. He encouraged all of us to write commitment letters every year, and anytime we get a new job, get married, get a new calling and to read it regularly. He shared one by Henry B. Eyring that he wrote while he was a missionary that I'm sure you could find online. It is very inspiring. Hope all is well, if anyone wants to send me something, I need a laundry bag, in the bookstore they're 13 dollars and i'm cheap. Also, snack food is always good. I will write next Monday. Love Everyone, Elder Dunlap