So i have been in the MTC for 6 days now and it has been a rollercoaster! There are so many firsts for me like having a companion 24/7, studying like 14 hours a day, and having my scriptures open more than they are closed! It is all so fun here though, i know that i have so much more that i need to learn about this church and its gospel! The district i am in is so awesome i feel like i have know them my whole lives! Maybe that's because we all have the same goals in mind haha. Unfortunately last week we had an Elder in our district that went home, he has been struggling with some anxiety and depression for a while and thought that by going on a mission he could overcome it but he ended up getting sent home in an honorable way. Before he left our district he bore is testimony to us and i know that he might not be a missionary wearing name tag but he will definitely help others no matter where he goes or what he does.
So some really fun things that we have done so far is playing basketball during our exercise time and i look forward to it every day! There are some elders who have some mad ball skills here but it so much fun and is a great way for us all to act like normal people for an hour haha. During one of our classes we were doing "stress management" and part of that was doing wall sits, well Sister Taylor in our district broke our teachers all time record by doing a wall sit for 8 minutes! (keep in mind we are in our church attire) It was so nuts! So right after that we were going to run around our building a few times (still in church attire) but i told the teacher that if i piggy backed Elder Wilkerson, our District Leader, around the building once that we would only have to walk around once. Let me paint a picture of Elder
Wilkerson, he is as tall as me and weighs 230lbs, hes a stud haha. So he hopped on and i took off walking around the building we came to the conclusion that the distance around the building was about 1/4 mile, but with some determination and encouragement I was able to make a full lap around the building! I was so exhausted but hey we're making memories here!!! The MTC can be a fun place if you want it to be, from the studying, to the guys in our residence hall walking up and down the hallways listening the follow the prophet on repeat, and the time that we are given to get to know each other better!
Beside all of that my testimony has grown more in the last few days then i thought possible! Sunday was a spiritual freight train coming right at me! We had the opportunity to hear from President Mathew Holland who is the President of UVU and he is the son of Elder Holland. He told us about the story of Joseph Smiths life and i can remember a few things about his actually story, which is so inspirational, but the main thing that i remember from that was that Joseph Smith WAS called of God to restore this as the true church and he stood for what was right! Another great chance i had was to watch a video from Elder Bednar and he talked about how Christ will always turn outwards to help people when we turn in to look at ourselves. It was eye opening and he made me think about charity and the pure love of Christ. I know that if we want to be like Christ we need to look out for others instead of looking at ourselves.
So that's my first week on a mission and i have been loving it! I know this is where i am supposed to be and i cant wait to see where this will take me! I love you all and i would love to hear from you!
Elder Kestner
