My comp ate a Carolina Reaper

 (Elder Putnam)

Whats good??

Ok So we got some Elders on our floor who brought a Carolina Reaper to the MTC. Elder Bastow decides he'll eat it. What a silly guy.

Imma start making these a lot shorter since I got a lot more stuff to do on pdays now. I met a dude from Saudi who’s going Persian speaking. He was in Riyadh tho so we only went to one youth conference together.

The sisters are dope. I feel like I should specify that I don’t actually and never had disliked them, I’m just a funny guy. I met a dude from my first EFY which was dope. Shoutout to Elder Brooks. We got a devotional where Elder Uchtdorf spoke to us and it was powerful. Hope of Israel is a good hype up song but How Firm a Foundation is better. We tried playing it during my peak set on chest day but the dude monitoring the gyms shot it down. what a fool. The Starši (Slovak Elders) have been so good to us and we’ve played soccer with them several times. We found out that Elder Beebe is the goat of soccer. Mans scored 4 goals on the Starši last time we played.

I’m very likely to be a zone leader since elder Beebe and I are the only eligible for the position. Which means Ill have 2 less hours on P-day to help the early arrivals. We spent an entire class the other day just talking about stuff that happens in Latvia, mission lore, food places, pday activities. It was a good day, not productive, but good. I feel like I can say anything I want to in Latvian now, it just takes me 5 minutes to put it all together. Also my vocab is trash. I have good grammar essentially. I played in Sacrament meeting on Sunday and basically had the congregation rapping the first verse cause I was playing so fast.

I’m not really sure what else to say so I might add in some additional notes later. HMU Id love to hear what yall have to say.

Latvian word of the week: bruņurupucis (broo-nyoo-roo-poo-tsis), meaning: turtle,

used in a sentence: man ir bruņurupuča kaklasaite, I have a turtle tie.

Scripture of the week: Alma 17:2-5

"...for they were men of a sound understanding and they had searched the scriptures diligently, that they might know the word of God."

This is taken from my favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon. I have studied the scriptures significantly more since being on my mission. There is so much truth contained in the Book of Mormon and the Bible. The Bible explains so much the character of Christ and establishes Him as the best example for us to follow. The Book of Mormon does the same. I know that the Book of Mormon and the Bible are the word of God. I have obtained a knowledge of it for myself.

 

General Conference Talk of the Week: The Greatest Possession | Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

"To love God with all our heart, might, mind, and strength is the First Great Commandment. But the first great truth of the universe is that God loves us in that exact way."

Lots of people misunderstand our relationship with God. He is our Heavenly Father. He created us and he wants us to return to Him. How can He not love us. He has provided a wonderful opportunity for us to become clean from sin, not just once, through baptism, but over and over again through worthily partaking of the sacrament. Dieter F. Uchtdorf once said, "God loves us just as much when we struggle as when we have success." Just because you have wandered off the covenant path a little, or even a lot, doesn’t mean you cant come back. At the same time, it doesn’t mean coming back is easy. But relying entirely on Christ is not easy. I can only promise that it makes it easier.

Pictures:

1. Mane bruņurupuča kaklasaite

2. Me with Elder Brooks, friend from first efy like 5 years ago

3. Brother Trout visiting us before bedtime

4. The companionship in front of the Paul mural on our floor.

Ok So if You Were in a Room, Roughly the Size of your School Cafeteria, and The Room was Filled like a Maze With Those Walls like in Lasertag, How Long Could You Survive Assuming There's a 400 lb Silverback Gorilla that's trying to kill you?

 (Elder Putnam)

I hate the Estonian Sisters

Let me give just a little backstory. Aight so one of the district goals is to eat meals together in the cafeteria. We’ve been pretty good about that but the conversations are pretty dry between the sisters and the elders. So I ask this gem of a question ^^. Sister House, may she be humbled, says she would whoop this whiny Gorillas booty. What a fool. Sister Reynolds says she could last 5 minutes... BY PRETENDING TO BE THE GORILLAs CHILD. She has until the end of Pday to figure out what a baby gorilla sounds like. Sister Wood (she’s from Australia) just sits there politely but obviously confused about the question. but she acts like I’m wack. Which is somewhat fair, but this is a good question. I discussed it for hours with my cousin like a year ago. Anyways give me your answer and how you intend to survive as long as possible against the gorilla. Anyways, sister House mocks me by asking my Latvian teacher this question. Like I shared that question in confidence what the actual heck.

Sister Chase is the only sister missionary in our district I’m on good terms with. I was asking the people at our table (for whatever reason I was like, you know what I just wanna make sure) if they had a secret twin and sister Reynolds was like oh my gosh I do. I felt incredible. I was like boom called it. That’s modern revelation. So she introduces us to her twin who’s serving somewhere in South America for his mission. I was so happy until she was like, yeah that’s not actually my twin. She led us all on for such a long time. I was at such an emotional high that plummeted so frickin hard. Now I have trust issues.

Sister Wood is Australian.

Ok so my companionship is so frickin great thoughhh. Elder Beebe is mad smart and corrects our grammar and stuff. I’m pretty quick and accurate at translating written sentences from English to Latvian and also recognizing Latvian words we know from like 1 Nephi and stuff where were reading from They’re both so funny in such different ways. They keep me entertained and sane. Were also pretty diligent about being reverent and obedient. So much so that now we have a teaching assignment from President Peterson, our Branch President. We’re getting along so great so far though. We’ve done basketball and weightlifting so far for exercise and that’s been pretty great.

It’s been a week since I last sent an email so I’ll give a quick rundown. also you may notice that I don’t use apostrophes. {Editor: apostrophes added through publishing program automatically) that’s cause I can soften letters using the apostrophe on a Latvian keyboard. Like this: lugšana, meaning prayer. ok anyways, Latvian is harddd. We’ve taught one lesson in Latvian to Olivia (basically our teacher after she put on a disguise) and it was a trainwreck. I literally just read a sentence from Preach my Gospel in Latvian and that was my whole spiel. It was a long sentence too though with a ton of grammar principals I didn’t understand. So I was not feeling great about that, but then Sunday rolled around changing my take on everything. At the MTC literally everything is elevated except the food. I felt the Spirit so strong on Sunday it was pretty great. Ever since then, Latvian has gotten easier. I’ve started my day with prayer and scripture study which helps a ton. Hopefully I don’t fall out of that habit. I saw Chloe (Sister Cloud)! I also saw that she didn’t mention seeing me in her weekly email. I’m a little pressed about that. I just feel the spirit so strong here it’s amazing. I’m trying to cultivate every good attribute before I can go into the field so that I can at least rely on God while I still suck at the language. I didn’t do much daily journaling so I don’t really know what else to say.

I’ll see yell next week I guess.

Scripture of the week: Ether 12:6,

"I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." You will go through trials. Everyone will. In fact most everyone is going through one in the very moment that you speak with them. We are promised a witness of Christ and His love for us after we complete our trial of faith. However, we must continue to be faithful to Him to be able to recognize this witness.

General Conference Talk of the Week: He Heals the Heavy Laden | Dallin H. Oaks

"The Atonement of Jesus Christ and the healing it offers do much more than provide an opportunity for repentance. The Atonement also gives us the strength to endure pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind because our Savior also took upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people." Everyone has challenges. During His ministry, Christ healed physical, mental, and spiritual ailments. He requested all those who were afflicted come to Him.