Email September 20, 2017

Email September 20, 2017 – Elder Jackson Kunzler Burton

Great week!

Hey everyone!

       It's been another awesome week here at the MTC! This week has gone by so fast! I saw Cole (Elder Kunzler) at the temple this morning. He leaves for the Philippines today! I can't believe it! We weren't able to get a picture but I gave him a big hug. He's going to do so well! I also saw Mckayla (Sister Geddes), a couple times, she seems to be doing really well, and I ran with Joseph (Elder Trotter) and later with Chris (Elder Brown) during excercise time, which brought back some great memories from cross country. I've been running three miles nearly every day, and it feels great! I forgot how much I've missed running. And I've been getting back into shape a lot quicker than I was expecting,  yesterday I ran it in 21:06 which I'm pretty happy with.

     The language is going well. I'm trying to do better at speaking Japanese whenever I can, and it helps. Speaking the language you're learning is by far the best way to get better at it. I think that's the biggest thing I was lacking when I took it in high school. Speaking of school, go Tigers! That's so awesome they beat Bonneville! Good job Sawyer!

     At the devotional yesterday Elder Cook came and spoke! It was so great!  His testimony is so powerful. He talked a lot about the importance of love in missionary work. He mentioned four things specifically. 1. Love your companion and learn from him. I've already felt the truth of that. 2. Love the people. If you're going to serve someone with all your heart, you need to love them with all your heart. 3. Love the mission president and his wife. If you live them, it'll make it so much easier to obey them and learn from them. 4. Love the Savior. This is the most important one of all. Your love for the Savior should be the primary reason why you're on a mission. And if we love him, it's natural for us to do what he asks, and we'll be happy doing it. The Savior has done so much for us, and all he asks in return is that we love him and follow him. I'm so grateful for the Savior.

     We also watched an amazing talk by Elder Bednar on Sunday called Recognizing the Spirit. It's an amazing talk. He said he often gets the question, "How do I tell if it's the Spirit or just me?" Which is a really good question that I've had a lot. And his answer is really funny. He just said, "Stop worrying about it!" And the reason is because any good thing comes from God, so if we have a though that's good, we should act on it. Don't wait to act until the Spirit tells you what to do, just go forward with faith and once you're moving, the Spirit will guide you. He also said that as we become more Christlike, our thoughts will naturally be more like Christ's more often, and so we often don't need a spiritual prompting, because the Lord trusts us to already know the right thing to do. It was an awesome talk. I love it here. I'm learning so much! I love you all! Send me lots of emails!

Love,

バトン長老