Elder Acor: 7/23/22

 ¡Hola mi familia y a mis amigos!

First week of online MTC was a major success! I really did not know what to expect from online MTC like how it was going to work, how I would feel about it but this week was truly amazing.

Our first day we started off with an amazing workshop where they talked to 300+ missionaries about how online MTC would work and how we are going to utilize it. This really put me into the mood and got me excited to start to learn. We then got to go into our first morning class where I met my teachers Hermano Santiago and Hermano Mendez. They are both such amazing teachers and they truly have the spirit with them and teach directly from it. This is the time that I was also able to meet my district. There are twelve Elders in our district and half of us are going to Paraguay and the other half are going to Texas. Everyone works well together and we all have been working hard this week. I then had the opportunity to meet my companion Elder Allred. He truly is a blessing. We work so great together and we just hit it off really well and I can not wait to continue being his companion throughout my MTC experience. We then had our lunch break then we went to our afternoon class and our teacher is Hermana Sanchez. She is also an amazing teacher and she makes learning Spanish a much less daunting task. She really pushes us to do better and lets us know that we have to learn Spanish for ourselves and that she is not going to do it for us.

Connect then Convert

With the outline that we got the first day, that is how the rest of the week went. Everything is pushed an hour earlier for me because all the times and scheduling are based on Mexico city time so I wake up at 5:30 and go to bed at 9:30. Wake up and go to morning class at 8 then finish at 1 have our lunch break. Go back to it at 3:30 then end the day usually around 7-7:30. I thought that I was going to have a hard time sitting in front of a computer for that long. The days go by so fast though because I am learning so much and I am having a great time with my district. We have big workshops with all the missionaries after our morning class where we have something specific about missionary work that we talk about and go over. Sometimes it is in Spanish, sometimes it is in English. I have been learning Spanish slowly but surely. The little bit that I learned in high school has helped me through this first week.

I won't go through every little step of each day because that can get boring but I will share some highlights and inspiration that I have received throughout the week. As it says in the title of my email something that truly stood out to me was the idea of connecting then converting. In Matthew 5:14-16 it talks about letting our light shine and giving to others. I love this because I don't just want to go out into my mission thinking about how many people I can Baptize or how many people I can bring back to church. I want to go into my mission thinking about how I can shine my light onto others. How I can increase their light and have a relationship with them. Let them know that they are loved not only by me but their Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. That is what I will be thinking throughout my whole mission is loving people. If all I can accomplish on my mission is loving one person then it was a success. I want all of you to go out this week and try and be someone's light. Try and just show love to someone. Maybe it is someone you have not connected with for a while. Maybe it is making an extra effort to a spouse or sibling to show how much they mean to you. It will really lighten up someone's whole week.

I have truly fallen in love with missionary work. I can not wait to continue my online MTC this next week and learn more about the gospel. I also can not wait to increase my Spanish abilities. I love you all and I hope that you know that Jesus loves you. Have a great week everyone!

Adios!

Love Elder Acor