Elder Phillip Larsen: Oct 1, 2010 - MTC Week 3

From: Phillip Larsen phillip.larsen@myldsmail.net
Date: Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 5:38 PM
Subject: Week 3

Boa Tarde minha familia!

It seems like just yesterday since the last p-day. Time is weird here like the twilight zone! Its rather strange. General Conference sounds like it'll be quite exciting here at the MTC, we won't have any classes and our schedule will be very different than usual.

That is going to be weird having Conference with so few people at Ruby Tuesday, but I'm sure it will be fun.

I'm glad both Brother Bentall and Brother Henkel are doing well. I hadn't heard about Brother Bentall though but I am glad that everything is good with him. I don't really know what to say this week, kind of lost for words. We hid stuff in our room today in the Narnia Holes that we had found. We only found one secret in our room but we made some clues and left a room roster and $1.12 underneath a carpet square. It was fun!

We have devotionals every week and it is with a General Authority. So far we've only had members of the 70 but their talks have been great!

If you haven't seen the movie Joseph Smith, Prophet of the Restoration, do it. It is a very very good church produced movie of the life of Joseph Smith and we got to watch it last Sunday. Every Sunday we watch a movie, the first week we watched the Testament, and the last week was the Joseph Smith movie. It is very well made and by far my most favorite movie about his life and the lives of the early saints of the church.

Laundry time is quite ridiculous. There are so many missionaries trying to do their laundry that you sometimes have to wait in line for a dryer or washer.

Cool fact, my teacher Irmao Taylor is a direct descendant of John Taylor. John Taylor is his great, great, great, grandfather. Elder Bitner, an elder in my room is also related to Gordon B. Hinckley, and another elder in my district is also related to John Taylor. It was really cool to find that out.

I really like my teachers Irmao Call and Irmao Taylor. They are very good at speaking Portuguese and Irmao Taylor said that when we get back from our missions, we can take a test at BYU for Portuguese and get 16 college credits, so I'm going to look into that! He also said it was very easy to do too.

So that whole worry about me gaining weight at the MTC doesn't apply to me. I have actually lost weight which is weird since we mostly sit around and eat lots of food with 50 minutes of gym time a day. Ah we started playing Volley Ball outside at the MTC field as a district and it is so fun! We get to be barefoot and the sand feels so nice. We have done that several times and we're going to play against another District.

I'm out of tune with the world. What kind of world events are happening?

I love you all so much and miss you. I'll try to have more written for you next week and reply to more questions.

-Elder Phillip Larsen

This is a picture of my district taken during a "Temple Walk." Starting from the left: Elder Harris, Elder Bitner, Elder Jorgenson, Elder Billin, Elder VanWagoner, Elder Iverson, Elder Smith, Elder Larsen, Elder Woolsey, Elder Yorgason, Elder Sharp.