Week 1: 1st MTC Letter

Hello Everyone! 

How's everybody doing??! This first week at the MTC has been awesome! I am in a trio companionship, Elder Baum (bomb) and Elder Roberts. Elder Roberts is from Central Utah and Elder Baum is from Texas. There are 9 Elders and Sisters in my zone. My two companions and the other 2 Elders (Elder Bly and Elder Dabel) are all going to Billings Montana! The 4 sisters are all going to Dallas Texas! The first few days here went by extremely slow. Wednesday was a bunch of orientation. We met our teachers too. Brother Welburn is one of my teachers! He is an awesome guy. He served his mission in New Jersey. The spirit is so strong here at the MTC. It's been amazing how fast everyone picks up teaching skills and stuff like that. Thursday night I was called to be the District Leader! I was really nervous at first, but now it's awesome being able to serve those in my district. Our district is so awesome! Friday and Saturday was basically all learning. Learning to be a missionary is hard, but it's well worth it. Sunday has been the best day so far. We had a devotional from this Stake President. He talked about personal influence. Being a representative of Jesus Christ influences those around us. So as missionaries we should always act as if the Savior was with us, because everything we do represents him. After the devotional we watched a talk that Elder Bednar gave at the MTC a while back. It's called the Character of Christ. I think it was the best talk I have ever heard. The Savior always thinks of others and not himself. Elder Bednar said, "This mission is not about you. So get over yourself." That really touched me. Serving others and inviting them to come unto Christ is my main goal and I'm so excited to do that. We were able to go on a walk to the Temple on Sunday. It was really nice being able to get out of the MTC. I went into the MTC with some really low expectations about the food, but it's actually not that bad. Exercise time is a blast!! I play basketball or go to the weight room. It's a good stress reliever!

Elder Roberts, Elder Baum and I started teaching our investigators on Monday! We taught this guy Wyatt. He is really awesome! He really opened up to us about what he wants to learn from our lessons. He's really interested in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. The spirit was really present in that lesson. It's so important to teach by the Spirit, because if you don't have it you CAN NOT teach. So it's been really cool to see my friends here at the MTC! I saw Onias like 5 minutes after arriving on Wednesday. I run into Brother Berrong my companion from Work Crew all the time! I also see Brother Bergeson my DL from Work Crew and Brother Brockbank. It's really awesome to see those guys! They make my day every time I run into them. I love being here a the MTC, but I can't wait to get out to Montana! Being a Missionary is so awesome! Thank you for all the prayers and support, I hope everyone has an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Lester

Moroni 10:32

Montana Billings Mission