Hope you all have had an amazing week!! Glad to be able to talk with
you guys and share some experiences with you this week! So I started a
journal last week and I kinda just wrote most of my experiences in my
e-mail instead so I think I might just be using my e-mail to keep
record of most of my experiences and just write a few things in my
journal more on the personal side but most of everything that is worth
reporting on will be through my e-mail!
The language has been going pretty well, it's difficult but rewarding!
I have memorized the missionary purpose in Spanish, the thing is that
I don't even know it in English but I guess I won't need to understand
it in English as long as I've got it in Spanish! So Zuri (the
investigator me and my companion have been teaching) committed to
baptism! Except just yesterday she comes into the class to tell us
she's already a member and it was just practice and she said she's
gonna be our teacher for the next week or so! But the last discussion
we taught her was about the plan of salvation and we bore our
testimony after and she was crying and she said that the spirit was so
strong and how the lesson was great but it was the testimony that was
key to her conversion during our discussions and she said to use our
testimonies and the spirit as our most crucial tools and to exercise
those blessings we have in the field as much as possible!
It's been a tough few days with a few of the guys in my district
getting sick but thankfully I've been blessed with health so far! The
guys have grown closer and closer! Honestly it's gotten to a point
that we stay up for another hour talking even though we're dead
exhausted but just to laugh and talk to each other about experiences
throughout the day but they've become like my brothers in the way that
were able to just talk to each other about everything and go to each
other for advice and there stellar guys to be able to hangout with!
Btw I just wanted to say that I hate doing laundry, like more then
anything I hate laundry so very much! Just kinda wanted to throw that
out there! But P-days are mostly taken up by just doing laundry and I
feel like I'm wasting my time but yea just wanted you all to know my
frustration!
Thursday night (July 21)-
It's been a hard day for our district! They say that the days feel
like weeks and the weeks feel like days here in the MTC and today was
especially true to that statement! There have been lots of tears of
heart ache with family and tears of frustration and tears of
disappointment from ourselves! I haven't cried yet which is good, just
kinda making sure that's clear! But I think almost everyone else has,
elder Brady was bearing such a powerful testimony to the guys in our
room tonight and he had told us a lot of what he knew to be true and
personal experiences in his past and earlier in the evening after our
fifth discussion we had an elder who was upset with himself about the
language! This elder is easily the most talent in the district when it
comes to the language but he was so upset that he didn't perform to
his expectations and it was very difficult to have to bear with him
and to have to watch him beat himself up over it but also trying
whatever to show support and show our love! It's a mentally and
physically exhausting time here at the MTC! Don't get me wrong, it's
amazing but oh my gosh is it one of the toughest experiences both
spirituality and mentally but at the same time we can see ourselves
and each other building our testimonies and and building each other up
morally and mentally and spiritually gaining an unbelievable amount of
strength through our experiences! It's a whole new experience and I'm
so blessed and fortunate to have the opportunity to go through it and
to serve and prepare to be a tool in the lords hand but it is not easy
in any way! I try to write only positive things and I'm sorry if
sharing this experience isn't totally positive but I think it's
important to write about experiences that have also strengthened us as
missionaries! I love the lord and I love this work and am blessed to
be where I am and with the people I'm with!
Sunday night (July 17)-
Elder David A. Bednar came by the MTC today for part of a fireside.
The fireside was planned to have been a presentation of a previous
talk given by elder Bednar but then unexpectedly he stops by after the
presentation of the video. It was an experience that was beyond
belief, and a spirit felt that was beyond words to emphasize. The
visit was unexpected by both the missionaries and the MTC staff. Elder
Bednar was saying how he had just finished talking and discussing with
training mission presidents and that while he was on his way back to
visit with family that he had decided to pick up his family and to
bring them to be introduced to the missionaries here at the MTC. Elder
Bednar conducted the fireside and was more of a formal question/answer
type of discussion. Some questions applied to part of the talk
presented earlier that evening and other questions were in relation to
the spirit and Christlike attributes along with the development of
becoming effective missionaries. An unbelievable opportunity to
personally strengthen my testimony of the general authorities and to
strengthen my testimony on the special witness that the quorum of the
12 apostles and the first presidency share and the power of the spirit
and testimony shared. Being an elder almost invites a new perspective
of the thoughts shared during the discussion. Having the thought of
the opportunity to go out and preach and serve in the name of the lord
and represent the church brought a spirit that no words could portray.
There was one moment during the devotional that I was left speechless
along with the rest of the congregation. The entrance and announcement
of the arrival of elder Bednar was spectacular in itself but the
moment that elder Bednar had gotten up to leave, the congregation all
stood up and no words were spoken. Not a single sound in the
congregation, right before exiting the room and walking across the
stage elder Bednar had waved to the congregation and still with not a
single word being said all of the missionaries waved in return. One of
the most profound experiences in that moment was that the second that
the door had shut after elder Bednar had left you would think that a
room full of preparing 18 & 19 year old missionaries would erupt into
conversation about the experience of a 2 hour long fireside with an
apostle of the lord. But it was complete silence, not for a quick
second but silence until the MTC president dismissed us after about a
solid minute of silence. A minute of pure spirit, pure silence, pure
bliss. Over 2,000 missionaries who had been sitting through a full day
of meetings, and a 2 hour fireside and they all stay standing in
silence to dwell in the spirit. Profound in every way.
Quotes from Sunday's fireside:
"It's what you are not what you say, investigators are truly converted
by the spirit"
-Elder Bednar
"You teach people not lessons"
-Elder Bednar
"Charity is not something you do, it's something you become."
-Elder Bednar
"Putting off the natural man a portion at a time"
Compares to
"Line upon line, precept upon precept"
-Elder Bednar
The MTC is amazing! I love it, it's incredible the spirit that is on
campus! When teaching discussions to investigators the language
barrier is pretty difficult, but during my second lesson my companion
had said that the spirit had whispered translation to him and my
companion shared those translations with me and then the spirit had
blessed me to know of what words (en espenol) to say to the
investigator and how to answer a few of her questions, I had the
opportunity to bare my testimony to her as well (en espenol) but it
was an unbelievable lesson to have been apart of! (Look at the
scriptures D&C 46:24-25) The investigator had voiced some opinions of
the spirit and how she had not felt the spirit during personal prayer
(because we had challenged her to have a personal prayer that last
night) but she said that she did feel the spirit during our
discussions and so we were able to show her a few scriptures of how
the spirit speaks differently to everyone and how it was more of a
warm feeling and a feeling of comfort and a feeling of blessing and
she then understood and we asked her to say the closing prayer and it
was a very powerful prayer and we asked her to be specific in saying
that she is seeking to understand the feeling of the spirit and asked
for the blessing of being able to partake in that blessing but after
that prayer she had looked up at me and my companion and said that she
had felt the spirit for the first time during prayer and how amazing
it was to share that experience with her! But some amazing
opportunities to be apart of some great lessons!
Con amor (with love),
Elder Tutton
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| Elder Barfuss, myself, and Elder Trendler (This picture was taken before the Elder Bednar fireside) |
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| Not the greatest picture but one of the only ones I have of everyone in my district |
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| Some lunchtime fun with my district |
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| We had the opportunity to go to the Provo Temple and we were fortunate enough to have taken a full afternoon on our P-day to have served in the Temple. |
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| No mind the photo bombers, but from left to right is Elder Call, Elder Oldham (my companion), Elder Goimarac, and myself! 4 of us from our district who will serve in Santa Fe, Argentina. |
