Second Week in the MTC

So this week was so eventful and the MTC is flying by seriously! And I am learning the language even faster! I love all the letters I get everyday...except for they stopped showing up at the end of this week  :(  where's the love? So tuesday we went to the Referrel Center and we got to call people who requested a bible or video or something. I was really excited that I could actually start doing some work for the Lord opposed to being a class room all day. We were only there for 30 minutes and it took 29minutes before someone picked up the phone and I was losing faith but I prayed that I would be able to teach someone. And surely the Lord provided  ;)  as he always does. A lady picked up the phone who had ordered a bible she's from Dallas and just recovered from Breast Cancer, so I told her I' d get here another Bible and offered her The Book of Mormon and if she'd like some lessons from the Missionaries. She gladly accepted and I had a REALLY good conversation with her for about 30 minutes. Just talked about life she told me to pray for her so I did over the phone I asked her if I could call her back and see how things were going so I'm overly excited for tomorrow!  Wednesday was just a regular class day and I got to play Sand Volleyball I'm playing with all the Islanders so they are making me pretty good HERE I COME BYU INTERMURALS! haha so kidding. Thursday was Teacher Experience, Where we had to teach an investigator the first discussion which is basically about How God loves everyone, prayer, prophets, the apostacy, the restoration through Joseph Smith, and the book of mormon.  We also had to introduce ourselves in Tagalog and ask questions about him, FORTUNATELY we were the ONLY ones to get a NATIVE Filipino haha So I could hardly understand the words that came out of his mouth, but Elder Saunders and I didn't do to bad we had a semi- tagalog/english introduction and a whole lot of uhhh what does that mean. Friday was such a powerful day we had class with Brother Leslie, we watched in class a talk from an apostle Elder Holland it was entitled "The Miracle of Missionary Work" one of the most important quotes I've ever heard from that talk was "If you dare say that you are a missionary/representative of the Lord Jesus Christ, and don't expect suffer and hardship, you need to grow up" It inspired me and touched my soul. Last week I thought the MTC was hard but now I know that the mission isn't fun and games it's going to be the happiest time in my life, and the lowest and depressing times of my life but I'm not worried I love it! I got your letter this week about the note left outside and it brought me to tears, an interesting story, I had the notion that I really wasn't Called of God i was just another missionary going to the Philippines (since there are 100 of us going right now) and I really couldn't inspire people that much. I prayed and asked the Lord to give me faith. Let me give some background info on the story. My Buddy Elder Erickson and I always have a competition if i get more than X numbers of letters a day he gets me as much Poweraid at lunch as I want, and if i get under X numbers vice versa. Haha so far I'm leading the class with 14 in one day! Thanks mom! So elder erickson decideed to hold on to the letter you sent me about the note left outside to try and hide the fact I got so many letters that day. And that was before the talk by Elder Holland. So I prayed to the Lord to give me strength and answer my prayers to see if I am actually called of God and if i can make an impression in someones life or if i'm just another missionary. So once I listened to Hollands talk I felt the Lord inspired me that I was called of God. And then when I returned to my room I had the letter on my desk that brought me to tears. I can't believe someone could say something that nice about me. I'm so grateful the Lord could work through me to inspire them. It was incredible. We went to the Temple today and I had another amazing experience being in the Celestrial Room and asking the Lord to pour out his love upon me. I love where I am at and wouldn't trade it for anything even a silver corvette with really lame flower stickers on it! I learned again that the power of prayer is incredible, and I challenge all you guys to try it out. Read Zach's letter it kind of talks about it! I love you all so much! Keep the letters coming they make me feel great! and full of poweraid!

Pertaining to the Box your sending me.

Could you send some beef jerky, some shirts, basketball shorts, gummy worms, I'm not that huge into Chocolate and I still have a TON LEFT , I gained like 3lbs haha I need to watch out how much I'm eating, oh well I'll lose it all in the MTC

BTW the blog sounds really cool and i'll send you a letter with all the stuff you asked me about it. OH and don't mind sending me anymore theology stuff I have enough to read! Thank you guys so much for given me the opportunity to serve a mission I am forever grateful and for always supporting me in what I wanted to do! I wanna hear from all the kids and puppies! thanks for the letter curt!

nagpapasalamat at mahal ko na paamily ang  araw araw ko!

mahal kita

Elder Gonzalez