Last Week in the MTC

Tanner & Brandon Wardrop

District

Tanner & Aaron Wheatley

District (only 4 of them go to Arcardia)

Thanksgiving Day--assembling 9,000 humanitarian kits

Elders Crane, Brueggeman, (Tanner) & Reinhardt

He's going to miss this!

Wow, the time here has flown by so fast!  The last six weeks have felt just as long as the first three.  I'm glad to hear that you all had a good Thanksgiving.  Thank you to the Kerr family for all the quick notes from Thanksgiving.  Thanks to Tara, Kenna, Emmy, Mom, Dad, and G&G K for the letters as well! (I apologize if I forgot to shout out to anybody that wrote me a letter.  If I did, send me a DearElder to scold me)  And Sister Jakins, thank you so much for that amazing treat!  That is the first of the treats that I haven't been able to conquer quite as fast :)  Congrats to Tara on her mission call to NYC!  Spanish will be sooo good!  You'll love it.

So this week has been a huge growing experience.  I'm glad that I was studying Hope and Faith, because I ended up needing it.  I haven't been sleeping very well, and my mind always races when I'm low on sleep, so I've needed that Faith and Hope to dispel all negative thoughts that came when my mind would start racing.  Thank you to everybody that gave me their insights into the subject.  Scripture share for this week is 1 Pet 5:2-11 and Moroni 7:31.  For the scripture in Moroni, missionaries are doing the exact same work that angels are doing.  I think that's cool to think about.

I can't think of anything that was super special about this week in particular, so I think I'll just spend the time I have writing about my overall MTC experience for all of you that are headed here in the coming months or years:

I have learned so much here in the MTC.  The MTC has this way of pointing out your weaknesses fast.  But that's okay, because then you have the chance to improve them.  In the first weeks, I realized how much I was lacking in patience with others and in the latter weeks I realized how much I was lacking patience with myself.  I feel like I've grown more in these 2 months spiritually than any other 2 month period of my life.  There are many missionaries that considers this place prison or just some pit stop on the way to the mission field.  It is so much more than that.  I'm sure the following statement will change once I get to California, but right now the MTC is my favorite place in the world.  

The work is hard, the schedule is long.  Satan does everything he can to try and stop you, but you keep going day after day.  The thought of giving up has come into my head dozens of times, but I know that it's not me putting that thought into my head.  It seems like I have felt the Spirit here almost hourly.  I have never had that happen before.  I have found dozens of golden scriptures that I didn't even know existed, and I've just scratched the surface.  Many people come into the MTC thinking that it's all about the language.  In fact, I would say that may be at the bottom of the list of important things to learn here.  More important lessons learned are: learning about yourself, learning how to interact with other people, relearning the Gospel, remembering how great the plan is that God has for us, learning how important yet simple this work is.  And then at the end of that list, learning Spanish.

Thank you all for the support that you have given me throughout these weeks.  I would appreciate your prayers throughout this upcoming week as big changes are heading my way.  I love you all!

Elder Tanner Christensen

P.S.  Two quick notes on letter writing.  I leave Tuesday morning.  If you want to write me using DearElder.com before I leave, it needs to be written by Monday at 11 a.m. for me to receive it.  For writing letters to me in the field, the mission office is no longer able to forward mail due to changes in the Arcadia postal service.  So, for the first week or two, you can email the letter to my sister at emkchristensen@gmail.com and she'll forward it to me through the email available for missionary families. Once I know where I'll be living, my mom will post my address.

P.P.S  I love you all!  Goodbye Utah. Hello California.