It Doesn't Feel Like Christmas Here at the MTC

December 18, 2013

Wow, it's a week away from Christmas. We'll be having two apostles talk to us that day and I'll be able to probably email for another hour or so, so that will be sweet.

    I got to trade my first tie on Friday. I met an elder from Germany in the cafeteria a couple weeks ago who just learned English and is going to Australia to teach in English. We got to talking and I knew the Germans have sweet ties (common knowledge here) so I told him that we need to get together sometime to trade. He was pretty excited to. Over the weeks it just never seemed to work out because both of us were so busy, but one day (Friday) he just randomly showed up at my residence with all of his ties! So we traded up and I took his brown skinny German tie and he took my fat striped brown and blue tie. Both trades worked out perfectly for each of us, they matched our suits and we were both satisfied customers. He snapped a pic and he's going to send me that soon because he just left for Australia yesterday.

    Sunday we had a really cool devotional. The BYU Men's Chorus came and sang for us. Really awesome and spiritual. After that we got to watch a "movie" of our choice till 9:30 (That's the earliest we can go back to the residence). These "movies" are previous talks given at the MTC. They are usually given by Apostles. We chose to watch Pres. Uchtdorf. He said something in his talk that so many Apostles and Quorum of the Seventy say in their talks, and it finally hit me. They have all said, "Your mission is going to be hard!" Someone even said, "I pray that your mission is hard, so that you will reap all the blessings that come from it" So Apostles telling me that I'm gonna have a hard time and that I'm gonna want to go home, isn't the most pleasant thing to think about, but then they always say that after we push through the hard times we will be blessed abundantly. So heeeerrrrreeeee we go!

   So we are having the Consul General of Romania coming into our classroom on Thursday! Yea, I'm not entirely sure why, but he's the guy who controls who goes in and out of the Country. He's coming to our little classroom with two armed guards, the President of the MTC, and a member of the Quorum of the Seventy! Our teachers says that this NEVER happens. We have to speak Romanian to him and stuff, but just a little bit because he knows English too. It's going to be crazy! I'll update more details next week.

Provo, Utah Temple

   So last week, our sisters prayed that we would be able to attend the Temple, even though it is closed. Guess what happened the next day? We got a service to clean the Temple today! So we woke up today and did our regular service then headed to the Temple to clean. After we were done cleaning, we got to tour the Temple and man it's beautiful. You could feel the spirit just as strong there even though you were cleaning. It was an awesome experience and so glad I got to be able to "attend" the Temple at least once on my mission.

   And there is my week! Love all you guys and thanks for the letters!
     

-Elder Houk

P.S. Almost forgot! All the Italians, Germans, and Romanians gathered together in our class hall and sung "God Be With You Till We Meet Again" in our own mission language. It was really cool.