Last Week in the MTC

Hola everyone!!! It's good to hear from everyone. This is the last week in the MTC, and it has flown by so fast! We got some information about our flights this week. Elder Norton, Elder Stott, Elder Sessions, and I (the Trinidad boys) are leaving early on Monday morning. We will fly to Atlanta, then to Trinidad, and stay the night in the mission home. The next day Elder Stott and I fly to Georgetown Guyana, where I'm assuming our first area will be. One of the members here at the MTC just got back from the Trinidad mission and he has been telling us all about it. He said that Guyana was his favorite part of the mission because the people there are SO nice, but it isn't really a nice area. He said we likely will have an apartment with no shower and no washer and dryer. And it is going to be HOT like right on the Equator hot, depending on where in Guyana our area is. I am sure going to miss some things here at the MTC, like the AC haha. Most of the missionaries I have got to know really well are going to the Santiago DR mission. I am going to miss those guys for sure.

So on Friday, (and we will do it again tomorrow) we went on splits with the missionaries from the DR west mission. My new companion was Elder Incu from England. He had been out for 18 months. Holy cow that was a crazy experience no doubt. We all met at a stake center and split off from there. The missionaries don't have cars there. So how they get around is riding in a "Carrito" which is like a really cheap taxi. It is usually a 70's, rundown, gutted out, runs on a propane tank, car that they squeeze as many people in as possible. Just imagine a small 4 door sedan with 3 people in the front and 5 more in the back. It is SO uncomfortable, hot, and unsafe, but it is the cheapest way to get around from place to place. So we rode in one to Elder Incu's area and back at the end, we had two appointments lined up to teach lessons. We walked to one house to teach a 13 year old girl who was going to be baptized the next day. That neighborhood was kinda scary and VERY run down. My companion taught basically the whole lesson and I could only understand what he said really because Dominicans talk So fast it's ridiculous. We also taught a single woman about the Word of Wisdom, and she seemed to be very receptive of what we said. We walked around a lot, because the lessons were so far away from each other, so we got to kind of see what the city is like. We went to his apartment which didn't look great. All in all though the experience was AWESOME!!! Spanish is going to be a struggle to learn, but I am so excited to get out there and start teaching REAL people. 

We had a really great sacrament meeting on Sunday, and later that day listened to an MTC devotional talk from Elder Holland from 2009. HOLY COW I love Elder Hollands talks. He talked about how ESSENTIAL it is to teach with the Spirit in missionary work. The Spirit is the link that connects the Godhead, the missionaries, and the investigators all together. The Spirit was so strong the whole time he spoke. Also we had another Devotional from Elder Alonzo who spoke about the importance of following Christ and having faith in Him, it was great.

Thank you everyone for the emails. Everything is going great. Good luck to everyone with whatever they are doing this week. The Church is TRUE!!!!!!

Elder Porritt