Week 5 in the MTC -- 4th of July and Goodbye to New Friends

It's week 5 in the MTC

Lets start off with What's Hot and What's Not

What's hot

-Outside, Last week I was in Washington with Rain Everyday and now Im in Arizona Roasting. Holy Freak, I feel like baking chicken walking to class.
- Tie Trading - very trendy
- Being the Older Russian district (the oldest district left yesterday and today)
- 4th of July fireworks :)
- Jumping Pictures
- The Holy Ghost - also trendy (permanently)

What's Not
- Swine Flu jokes ( although at one time hilarious and the butt of even normal conversation they have died down and are now out of style
- 7 more weeks in the MTC, a tear literally just fell from my right eye.
-Sitting in class for 12 hrs ( my rear has molded to the shape of a chair)

So the 4th of July! Although there were rumors floating around about the MTC celebrating the 4th of July. Our teachers made sure that our spirits were kept focused by destroying our dreams telling us the rumors were simply nonsense. I continued to be sad about this until lunch on 4th of July when I was greeted by people such as George Washington and Joseph Smith in the lunchroom cafeteria. It was crazy. There must have been 40 actors just walking around pretending to be some Hero directly related to either the Independence of the United States or the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They were very professinal and kept in character the whole day. They would ask us how we were doing, and what our day was like and then proceeded to give a descriptive biography of their life. It was definatly an educational and insightful experience. So. after I saw these characters, I knew that something had to be up, and I was right.

At 7:30pm we were dismissed from our independent study to a surprise Devotional / presentation/ Play about how the Lord was influential in the Reformation to the Independence of the United States and then of course the Restoration of his Church. Although the Wigs the actors wore were hilarious and caused an uproar of laughter throughout the congregation of 2000 elders, I was still able to feel the spirit testify just how true this was. After the play, we were then told we were going to be given an hour to watch fireworks which started at 10pm. Now typically, we are expected to be in our Residence Halls at 9:30pm and in our room by 10:15pm. So, to be able to stay outside till 10:45pm was quite the treat. For 30 min, I kinda felt like I was just hanging out with my friends not in the MTC. We took tons of crazy pictures that I will send to those faithful writers reading this ;)

But all in all it was definately one of my favorite 4ths of July ever! And Yes you guessed it. My half way mark is approaching and because of that, the District that was older than us is now gone, making us the older District. To you that might mean nothing, but to us that's crazy. It's an amazing sense of accomplishment. But at the same time, I am pretty sad, because during the past 5 weeks I was able to really gain a love for those guys and a select few I considered really good friends. A couple were even in our workout group, which has now dwindled. But we are still steadily recruiting, so our numbers are going to rise very quickly. One elder from the Older district that recently left I helped beat an MTC record for Push ups. by 34. That was also a great experience!

Typically, every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night thoughout our specific Residence Hall, we hear the hymn "God be with you till we meet again" sung in different languages loudly to the missionaries who are leaving the next day. On Sunday, I asked a few of the Elders if they were interested in doing that for the older district, and although they were interested, there wasn't anyone organizing this "Event" :). So, with my previous experience (as an event planner), I went to each room in our Zone and gathered them together at 10:05pm to sing together God be with you till we meet again in Russian. It was so amazing, and I felt the spirit so strong!

We also had a group of Native Russian Speaking Elders and Sisters Come in. One became my good Friend, Elder Belashov. He was from Ukraine. We all called him Elder Banana, because he literally ate 12 bananas a day! He would sneak them out of the cafeteria and carry them back to his room! It was way funny. Anyway, last night was his last night, and we stayed up a little later than usual and spoke/took pictures with him, as he told us his conversion story in Ukraine. It was way sweet.

Because in the MTC there are literally an endless buffet of desserts at each meal, some other Health Consious elders and I started, a Diet. Although you may think at first we are starving ourselves, it is quite the opposite. We are filling ourselves with healthy foods and being "Nazis" when it comes to desserts and sweets. The plan was to last several weeks and half of the Elders have already dropped out a week into it. I'm still staying strong, although it's really hard when if I wanted to I could eat 14 doughnuts every morning and eat cheese cake until I passed out. So, wish me luck.

Two more things I will briefly touch on.
1) I have been called as our District's District Leader. I was not expecting this at all, but I feel that with the Lord's help I can be a great example to the other elders in my District.

2) I have become enfatuated with Tie Trading. Not that important or intresting, just thought you should know. Just as a disclaimer, I have not traded any ties given to me as a present ;)

Everyone, I want you to know that God lives and that though Him all you problems can be solved. If you have any questions and the faith that God can answer them, I promise you as a representative of Jesus Chirst that he will. I love you all, and I hope that you have a wonderful week!

Till Next week!

Your Fav Missionary ;)

Elder Curran

P.S. Please fwd this to anyone that you think would enjoy reading it