Elder Samuel Ward: Missouri Independence Mission: #AllTheSpirit

What an amazing week Here at the MTC!! Not too shabby at all! Last Tuesday night we had a devotional, the speaker was Bishop Causse of the First Bishopric and his wife. It was so good!! A lot of his points and quotes were so good and inspiring.. one of my favorites was "We need to be the Missionaries people think we are." That truly hit home. People think missionaries are the kindest and most generous people in the world, we HAVE to live up to that! He then ended the meeting instead of singing a closing hymn, he played an absolutely BEAUTIFUL arrangement of Come, Come Ye Saints on the piano. I had no Idea that he could play so well, and it was definitely one of the most spiritual moments I've had here at the MTC. That has personally been one of the hardest things for me being on a mission, there is no time for beautiful music! But in the field I'll probably have more time and that will go better! We then had a pretty normal week teaching investigators and such. I'll admit, I got a little teary saying goodbye to Catherine and Sydney on Saturday. They are both just wonderful and happy ladies and have helped me and my companions come so far in teaching the restored gospel of Jesus Christ! I can only imagine how hard it will be saying goodbye to people out in the field that I have known for weeks and even months!! Elder Timmreck has been quite sick this week! He missed a couple days of class, luckily for me, Elder Nay was sick as well, so they stayed together while I went to class. Until today he had been getting better; he kept us up coughing last night. He started coughing up blood so we had to take him to the BYU doctor this morning. We spent like 4 hours there this morning, from like 7:30-11:00. So unfortunately we had to miss the temple. :( But I'm glad we could get some antibiotics in him for the mission field. Homesickness has been going away surely but slowly. I asked brother Nielsen (our Teacher) for a blessing last Thursday. It was a beautiful blessing and it said everything that I needed. It made me feel tons better. Elder Timmreck asked me to give HIM a blessing when he started getting sick. I was a little hesitant at first because I had never actually given one before. But I said a little prayer asking to have help saying the right things, and it went pretty well. I blessed that he would feel better as well as receiving comfort for some personal issues he may have. When it was over he stood up and his exact words were, "You have no idea nor can I tell you how inspired that truly was!" So that was cool! The spirit was definitely SO STRONG!! That was truly a blessing for me as well as him. I love being a missionary! It's pretty dang awesome, and the time starts to fly by! I can't believe that I'm already headed to Missouri tomorrow morning! I've seen so many blessings from God just being here in the MTC. I knew my friend Elder Colby Larson was here and I kept looking around for him the first day I got here! I got really sad when I couldn't find him. But then when we got back to our residence hall that night and I found out that HE WAS STAYING IN THE ROOM RIGHT NEXT TO ME!! Out of all the hundreds and hundreds of rooms here at the MTC he was right next door! Or the fact that Sydney was so into Scottish history and bagpipes! It was awesome I could even have someone to talk to that knows about SFU or even just how bagpipes work in general! I also met a cousin of a dear friend\elder of mine that was serving in Boise, it was Elder Stapely's cousin! Elder Stapely was one elder that helped me realize that I truly did want to go on a mission and was very supportive of me! Those are just SOME of the blessings that I've seen! #CountYourBlessings is totally true! I love this gospel so much! I love Christ and am so excited to bring people unto him! Thank for everything! I know this is where I need to be and I love it! Until next week! -Elder Samuel LaVar Ward