June 18, 2013

Hola to everyone,

You asked how I'm doing, esta bien mostly. The MTC experience is both cool and old,
it's hard to explain. I guess it's a little like being at home actually, you can't wait to leave and then there's all these things you totally miss when you do leave.

Since my last letter, two of the districts in my zone left, both without visa's and having to be sent state side. In fact, the one right above us, got their reassignments one day after waiting for their visas, and left the next. It was all pretty hectic, and it didn't seem like any of them were emotionally prepared to leave the MTC just on the spot, especially the hermanas. They were crying all over the place.
Oh I don't think I told you, you'll have to ask tanner, but I'm pretty sure that before the age change the sister(hermana) population was relatively small at the MTC, but now the MTC is seriously about half and half. I literally believe that my district is the last all elder district in the whole MTC.
As for me being in a tri companionship and all, it was pretty cool sometimes, and pretty irritating when you had to go wait outside the bathroom twice as many times, but it only actually lasted for about a week.
When the district above us, our MTC "parents" as it were left, one of them who did not receive a reassignment was pushed down into our district until he receives his travel plans. He seems pretty bummed that he got left behind, but has suddenly become the best Spanish speaker in his class, which I'm sure he's not bummed about at all.

What's next what's next...oh yeah spiritual experience right?
Well I'm not sure if this counts as a spiritual experience or just an experience where Elder Low is learning (because he was stupid) but here it goes:

To start off you need to understand that in the MTC they do this weird thing called progressing an investigator, in which one of the hired teachers pretends to be an investigator they taught on their mission and you try and convert them…in Spanish…..on the second day you get here.
Anyways, one of our investigators is a guy named Antonio, and he is played by the hardest teacher pretending to be an investigator on the earth. He's read the Book of Mormon, he's heard the first vision, and was this close to being baptized and dropped off at the last second, and now we have the incredible task of trying to convert someone who knows everything we have to say. Even worse he has all these doubts about the validity of the Book of Mormon, which is hard not because he's right, but because telling someone they're wrong is not a very smart way of showing them that the gospel is all about the love of Christ.
So we've been teaching this guy and start making progress and asked him to go to church and he said he will if he feels up to it, which is a huge step forward, so we were super psyched, maybe a little too psyched because the next lesson we decide to address his doubts.  Now children, who are at home reading this, do not follow this example! People are converted by the Holy Ghost, in spite of the evidences they have, not because of them. The best way to help people is to teach them the everlasting truths of Christ, his atonement, resurrection and restoration, give them these and they will one either solve their doubts themselves, or leave them behind because they feel that God has more to offer to them than they could ever imagine, and that, is more important to them than the logistics they have against him.

Now as you've probably guessed, the lesson did not go so well. I mean we were able to answer a lot of his problems, but there was no spirit, no love about our message that day. And to pour salt on the wound, the teacher told us afterwards that Antonio had gone to church and had a spiritual experience that week that we had forgotten to address. We were heartbroken because we thought we had lost him.
Now in the end we were able to get over that, and continue to teach Antonio who I am proud to say is progressing well, but I will never forget that lesson…for goodness sake Antonio is not even a real convert! Had we converted or not converted him in those lessons, in the end no more or less souls would have been saved, but the love that I felt for this imaginary man, and the loss I felt when I thought that I had failed to help him in his life and open the gates of eternity to him, have been engraved on my soul. As I contemplate this, I recall the words of two men,
one a modern day apostle, who said at a conference here at the MTC,
"we want all men to get to the sacred grove, and eventually the Garden of Gethsemane and Calvary, but before we can do that we must search for them in the highways and byways of their lives."
The other is that of scripture:
"…..if you shall bring but one soul unto me, how great shall your joy be with him in the kingdom of Our Father."
Never before have I felt such resolution.

Elder Low.