Sunshine in my soul

 Today is the last P-Day I get in the MTC before I leave for Jamaica this upcoming Tuesday. I can't tell if I'm excited or not but in the end it doesn't really matter how I feel. Thine will before mine, whether I like it or not. Recently my social battery has been super dead, so it's been kind of hard to get out and go to class and talk to people and stuff like that. It also doesn't help that when my battery gets low like it has been that I tend to lash out on people that I don't want to. That's probably been the biggest struggle for me is finding the right balance of being social and not yelling at everyone around me. God has really been testing my patience.

Some of the Highlights of the Week:

On Sundays we do this activity called the Go and Do. It's basically just a 2 hour long personal study session. At first I thought I was going to die. At home, getting 30 minutes in was a struggle, and getting an hour in at the actual MTC was a little easier, but not by much. I said a quick prayer before we started that I would be able to have an open mind, contrite spirit, and a willing heart. That prayer ended up being my saving grace and I had probably the best study of my life. I'm excited to do it again tomorrow. 

Right after sacrament meeting on Sunday, my branch president called my comp, Elder McDavitt, aside to talk to him about not wanting to be there, and looking like he wasn't paying attention, etc. Fun Fact about my dear companion is that he's a super quiet guy when he's in public. He doesn't try to draw attention to himself very often, so he was just being his normal self. So during his Go and Do study he studied how to be a better ray of light, and brought up how he studied the song "Sunshine in my Soul Today" and went from there when we talked about the devotional after we were done studying. We all thought it was pretty funny that he did that in the first place. What was even funnier though was the opening song that we sang at the devotional that night. If you're catching along the story you'll be able to guess that it was in fact "Sunshine in my Soul Today".

Ever since we've been calling him Sunshine, or Elder Sunshine if you want to get professional.

All of the Elders gave each other, and the Sisters priesthood blessings the other day. It was a super cool experience for all of us and we felt the spirit super strongly. For some of the Elders it was their first time giving a blessing and it's crazy to see how the spirit works and guides you in blessings.

Spiritual Thought:

This morning I was studying God's Love in my personal study. When I was scrolling through the topical guide to find things that relate I came across 1 Nephi 11. This chapter talks about how Nephi was blessed to see the same dream that his father, Lehi, saw a couple chapters back about the Tree of Life, the Iron Rod, the Great and Spacious building, etc. He also got to see a vision about the virgin Mary and Jesus when He was a baby and stuff like that. The thing that stuck out to me was how much God wants to bless us. He wants to give us blessings, miracles, and visions like he gave to Nephi, but he can only do that to the people that truly believe in and love Him. I promise that if you love Him, even a fraction of the amount that He loves us, we'll be able to see His hand in our own lives. I testify of this through my own experiences here at the MTC. I've learned to love my Savior more in the past 3 weeks than I ever have in my entire life. I've also seen His hand in my life more in the past 3 weeks than I ever have. How will y'all show your love for God this week?