Consulado De Mexico

How is everyone going?? My life at the MTC has been so much fun most of the time. There is a lot of classes everyday so days can be long. But at the same time I feel like days go by pretty fast. This week was weird for me because everything finally started to hit me that I would be be out of this wonderful country for two years. I am so excited but at the same time I am nervous and maybe a little homesick. My district has been so good at helping everyone adjust to becoming a missionary though so I am getting better every day. I am still only in English classes so that means it is only going to get harder once I start learning Spanish. Every day is the same. Wake up at 6:15, breakfast at 7:00 then start studying at 7:30. Our first classes start at 8:30 and usually go until 11:30, which is when we have lunch. My morning teach is Brother Tanuvasa. He was inactive in the church growing up, but something happened in his life that made him realize how much God has done for him, so he worked hard and went on a mission. He knows basically every scripture we read, he can tell us the reference. And if we say the reference then he can tell us what the scripture is about. He just has such a wonderful spirit to him. At 12:20 we start companion study which is great, we get to usually plan lessons for a TRC. A TRC is an acting or real "investigator" they do not let us know though so we treat every person like a non member and get to teach and feel the spirit. After TRC that is from 2-2:30 we have more classes. These classes go until 5:00 and are taught by Sister Jacobsen. She is great at bringing the spirit into the room and getting everyone to share about their personal experiences and what they think about the subject. Then we have dinner. After dinner we have exercise time. Which is one of my favorite parts of the day. Usually I go to the fitness center but every once in a while I will go to the gym and play basketball with all sorts of missionaries. Then from 8:00-9:15 we have more study time, this is a great part of the day, because our zone goes on the roof and we really get to start to calm down and breathe in the fresh air. Then lights out are at 10:30. It is hard to fall asleep so early every day but am starting to get used to it and love getting at least 7 hours of sleep a night!

Consulado de Mexico. As many of you may know I am supposed to be in the Mexico City MTC but they changed it to the Provo MTC last second because I did not have my VISA yet. So on Tuesday I went with a bunch of missionaries to the consulate of mexico in Salt Lake City. This trip was such an adventure and it felt so cool being a missionary in that city. We took the front runner from Provo to Salt Lake so it took about 2 hours to get there. The train rides were a lot of fun though. I got to get to know 8 different missionaries I have never met. And I tried talking to so many people on train. I met a lot of cool people and learned a lot of stuff from some wise old men. None of us had companions so we were kind of just a big group of 9 missionaries moving through Utah. At the Consulate all I had to do was sit down and they took a picture of me. Then afterwards they took both my Index Fingers' fingerprints. So it took ten minutes. They told us to eat lunch before we came back, so we walked to city creek from there and ate at Chick FIl A. I do not think Chick Fil A sauce has ever been so heavenly in my entire life. All the other missionaries got caffeinated drinks because they have missed those so much with there being no caffeine at the MTC. After Chick Fil A we walked to the North Temple front-runner station. We got to walk by temple square. It was so cool being able to go by the Salt Lake Temple one last time before its renovation. Once I walked in the grounds and looked at the beautiful temple I could just feel the spirit so strong. We had to run to get to the front runner on time or else we would have had to wait another hour before another train came. So it was a blessing that we made it on time. On the way back, we had the awesome opportunity to share with someone that is not around here, who we are and what we do and what we believe in. The guy we taught wanted to meet with us again and we told him to contact the missionaries in his area. He said he did not feel comfortable with them because they keep calling him so he wanted to meet with us. Unfortunately we do not get the opportunities to teach contacts in the MTC that we meet on the street. But it really was a real taste of missionary work so it made coming back to the MTC kind of sour. I am so excited to go out in the field but know I am not quite ready yet. 

I love all of you so much! Thank you for reading my emails! I love getting replies, it just makes me feel more at home. With such gratitude for each and everyone of you -Elder Stokes