Week 6-Happy P-day

Dear Family, 

Today is my last P-Day at the MTC, next Tuesday morning I depart for the East mission! It's crazy to think I'll finally be going, but I'm glad my stay at the MTC is now commencing, its time to go to work!

So yesterday we went on Splits with Missionaries in the west mission! My companion for the day was Elder Tobierre from a British island here in the Caribbean called Santa Lucia. He is one of three converts in his family and sounds like the only one active in the church. He's been a member for only two years but he has a powerful testimony of the Gospel. He told me Obedience is the Key to Success in the Mission! We bested the Burning sun and an army of mosquitos and contacted Eight people, and taught two lessons. I was able to share one of my favorite scriptures, pray, and testify in my broken Spanish. I understood a little less then half of what was said, maybe, but it was great! The people here are very kind and also enjoy skipping syllables, I'm not sure they even breath between sentences. Anyways, afterwards we returned to the MTC and ate lots of food!

This past Tuesday, Our devotional speaker was Elder Sivic, a member of area presidency. He and he's wife talked about testimony and planting the seed of faith in good soil. Elder Sivic spoke about the parable of the sower and invited us to consider, what type of soil are we planted in? Is it good Earth and are we nourishing our roots? I believe my roots have a lot more growing to do. He and his wife were awesome. I also played the piano for the devotional, may have freaked out a little bit but I made it through, whew. 

Here are a few pictures, Hermana Romney took us up on the roof again to see the Sunset!( Were basically her favorites, Just kidding, but really, anyways) The first one is all my district and the new two sister missionaries.

 This last one is an unfinished sky-scraper!

I love you all, thanks for your prayers!

Love, Elder Call

Week 5-Hola Familia

Santa baca! (that means holy cow)

So here I am in my fifth week here at the MTC! Oh my goodness the time has flown, within the next two weeks I'm going to be in the Campo! Boo-ya. This week has been great, where to begin.

Sunday we had an amazing devotional from Elder Bednar of the quorum of the twelve. It was fantastic! He talked about the importance of knowing of Christ and not just about him. He was super blunt and told us that our mission experience is not about us, period. It's about the Savior and following his example of turning out to others. He's message was so powerful, it made me think about how many times I use the word I, all the time I worry about myself. Yikes, but Elder Bednar reminded us that it is when we lose ourselves in the work, that then we find ourselves, we just can't be looking for ourselves. My brain felt a little fried after his message but I know that Elder Bednar is a prophet of God, and I pray to be able to follow the example of the Savior and turn out in serving others!

Teaching this week has been going very well, We've progressed a long way with our "Investigators" Neiva and Sebastian. I've learned at ton this week about teaching by the Spirit. It's amazing how when we trust in the Spirit and listen to him, inspired teaching takes place. It is truly a wonderful and humbling experience when you feel the spirit work through you to touch the hearts of those being taught. It is a feeling of peace and confidence, not in myself but in my Savior. Agh! Sometimes it's super hard but when I am blessed with these experiences, I always want to be able to teach with the Spirit! Anyways, both our investigators are awesome, Sebastian wants to get baptized so were working on teaching him all the lessons, Neiva is coming to church this Sunday, both of them are!

Planning has been tough, putting together a solid game plan is not something I'm.........skilled at. But Elder Lee and Elder Lester are amazing examples. They are teaching me how important it is to have inspired planning, so we can have inspired lessons. Almost always we don't go according to our plan, but as long as we are teaching by the Spirit then each lesson is a success. We teach the people, not lessons. And we always try to teach by the Spirit!

I am so thankful for this opportunity I have to serve the Lord. I know that when we humble ourselves and trust in the voice of the Holy Spirit, miracles can come to pass. 

Elder Lee (from Spokane area also), (Sister Sheppard) and Ford

Ford's District coming out of the temple

Love, Elder Call

Week 4 Hola Familia

Today is number 23 in the MTC! I'm halfway through my stay here and then on to the field.  I'd like to apologize if I repeat things in these letters, but often each day blends into the other!

I hope you are all well. This week has been packed! Four sisters left Monday to Puerto Rico, they'd been with us since we got here. All the sisters were bawling and the Elders, we were like, yep, cool beans, good luck, you'll do great! The rest of them left Tuesday so for the rest of the day and most of yesterday, our district of seven, where the only missionaries in the MTC! It was awesome. I have eaten cookies or something akin to them every single night which reminds me, mother, I did indeed get not one but two cakes on my Birthday. Hermana Romney made them and I got to go up next to the president and his wife and stand as everybody sang happy birthday in spanish and English. It was great, bit awkward but mom you'd have loved it. I got two slices. Thank you for the Birthday gifts, the pen's are lovely and Abby, thank you so much for the writing pad, I'm chewing through paper like nobody's business! And I'm 19! That was a strange realization, I feel closer to 5 but I suppose we have to grow up sometime. 

My Spanish is improving, this week I've been setting specific language goals, otherwise I don't push myself. I've memorized Joseph Smith's first vision in Spanish and other stuff. Yesterday we received about thirty new missionaries! No more empty halls in this MTC. About ten of them are a lovely Haitian bunch who speak creole and French. I exhausted my knowledge of the french language in less then ten seconds but, they're very happy and are understanding. At least I think so, they could be insulting me and I'd just keep grinning! 15 or so are from around Latin America and three are from the U.S! Utah, Texas, and one from the American Colonies in Mexico! He's a white cowboy fluent in Spanish and yes I am just a pinch envious, I need to repent. I'm going to try sending some pictures, yesterday morning (Wednesday, the 9th) , since it was just our district (in the whole MTC!  This is a small MTC with around 30 missionaries-give and take a few), Hermana Romney may or may not have let us go up to the roof to take pictures! It was bububeautiful! The Ocean here is a dark blue and looked amazing that morning, basically along with everything else!

Ford's MTC District on the MTC's roof; temple in background

Elder.... Ford & Elder Lee; MTC Companions

Ford, Herman Camille Walker and Companion (Camille is a cousin on the Walker side. She just left to a different mission in the Dominican Republic) 

Something else exciting that occurred, last Friday I got my blood drawn, nasty business but it had to be done. Apparently our visas were only good for three months, so first we went to the immigration building and got our fingerprints taken, then we went to the hospital. We went down into this sketchy basement. Each of us got an X-ray, and then got our blood taken and some other stuff. I was okay but it was pretty hard for Elder Lee, he was white as a sheet and got kinda quiet, but by the end of the day he was good to go, may have fallen once or twice, but he was good!

Last Sunday was fast Sunday and we had a great meeting, at the end I got called to give the closing prayer! I think I did okay, it may have been a bit short but it was a good one. The topic for the day was the Book of Mormon and it's importance, we were challenged to read the Book of Mormon again and again. So this week I've been work on the book of Mormon. It never ceases to amaze me how you can read the same words a again and again and still learn something new each time. 

Teaching has been a huge learning experience this week, I'm trying not to get down on myself and just press forward. When I start feeling blue I remind myself that more often than not it actually takes time to learn and progress, and I've made progress, I'm trying to recognize the little fruits of my labors, that's what Elder Ballard told us in the Devotional on Tuesday. I pray for patience, trusting in my Savior!

I love you all, thanks for the prayers!

Week 3- Buenos tardes!

Ford is in the middle and to the right.  Not sure if this is his zone, district, or random missionaries....

It’s already been two weeks since I arrived at the CCM and time seems to be flying! This morning I got to go to the temple! The Utah missionaries say it’s rather small but compared to our little Spokane temple it's huge! We got to do sealings first, which was great and then we went through a session. President and Sister Romney went with us too! It was awesome. It's so wonderful to hear from all of you and I apologize if I don't respond to all of you! 

Soooo this week. Last week a new batch of missionaries arrived and most of them are all Latin. So this week we've had the interesting opportunity of trying to converse with these missionaries in our broken Spanglish. It's kinda rough but I think I'm making progress and the Elders are really good about the whole thing. This past Sunday I played in sacrament meeting, Kinda freaked out a bit but I did my best and the meeting was awesome. The topic of the day was Faith in Christ and we heard some wonderful messages. The rest of church was great and we got ice cream after dinner! President Romney has a bit of a sweet tooth and nobody's complaining.

This Tuesday's devotional the area president came to speak to us! His name is Elder Cornish and he's a member of the second Quorum of the Seventy. He shared with us a beautiful message about the importance of conversion, for ourselves and our investigators. He told us that now that we're here, we need to strengthen our own conversion if we wish to convert others. Also, we don't baptize investigators, we baptize converts! Awesome message and afterward we all got to introduce ourselves and shake his hand. I have decided not to wash my right hand! I'm joking, I'm joking. This week we also started teaching two new investigators. It's been a new challenge for all three in the companionship. We're trying to teach the gospel simply in a language we don't know and it's difficult to communicate what we want to say. I know a bit more Spanish then Elder Lee and Elder Lester so if I don't watch myself I'll start to ramble on with our investigator. We've set a goal to work on communicating and listening to one another, to the spirit and to the investigator. It's hard but we're making progress. In the mornings our investigator is Neiva (Maestra Martinez) and in the night it's Sebastian (Maestro Eve). 

I love our night lessons with Hermano Eve. He's probably my favorite teacher here at the MTC, he always has a huge smile on his face and makes everybody laugh. He's English is really good, this week we taught him the word Health. We repeated it a couple times and start laughing. I don't know what so amused him but it got all of us laughing. He's super spiritual and gives us great feedback for our lessons. Last night we went and walked around the park across the street from the MTC. There was a Zumba party going on but we steered clear of it. The park is beautiful, especially the trees. They make you feel like your stepping into the jungle. We spoke briefly with a wonderful Dominican gentlemen who told us how much he likes President Obama and a lot of other things I could not understand. We just smiled wide and wished him a good night. When we got back Hermano Eve spent some time coaching the sisters and then our companionship. He checked on our progress with the language and the doctrine and challenged us to do better. He says were doing great, so we should push for our best. He read 2 Nephi 31: 20 with us. Press forward. I'm trying to heed his counsel and keep pushing forward. 

I love you all! Thanks again for your love, support and your letters!

Love, Elder Call