My 1st Week

Family and friends!

It's my first P-Day here at the MTC, it looks like we'll have P-day every Saturday here. Thank you so much for all of the emails everyone!! It's really hard to read them all and write back within 30 minutes, I think I will have a lot longer out in the field. I'm not allowed to email back to friends here at the MTC so I apologize that I'm not able to respond. I really enjoy reading what is happening back in the states and in your guys lives. Well it's crazy how much happens here at the MTC, the days have gone pretty fast but we do soooo much! As I'm writing this email my companion from Ghana has just arrived finally. I have been the only one with no companion these first few days so that has been kind of weird since having a companion is kind of important on the mission haha. We're going to teach our first "investigator" (our teacher) tonight, it's kind of a nerve wracking thing to teach people but we just have to go by the spirit. They really emphasize teaching based on the needs of investigators so that you can build trust, a lot of missionaries struggle with just teaching straight out of PMG which they don't want you to do because there is no sincerity or connection. We are divided up into 3 districts here at the MTC, each district has a different teacher. My teacher, Bro. Reeder is from Johannesburg and has lived here is whole life. He served his mission in Durban and absolutely loved it which makes me even more excited to get there!

I'm still quite jet-lagged, it's crazy to think that you guys are 8 hours behind us. Eventually I'll get onto the correct sleeping schedule here and not feel so tired. We had the first chance to go outside this Heavenly Prison and play some sports. It was so weird to be playing basketball while overlooking the beautiful city of Johannesburg, it's not often that you play an American sport on the African continent. All of the Africans here were playing soccer, lets just say I'm not even going to try and play with them haha. They are so dang good at playing soccer. The African Elder's here are simply awesome, many of them are very quiet but incredibly humble. It is amazing to talk to them individually and hear their different stories, some of them have incredible conversion stories. A lot of the Africans here were only converted within the last 2 to 4 years! I can't even imagine only recently being introduced to the church and already having the strong desire to serve the Lord, they have such strong testimonies of the Gospel. The Kingdom of God truly is touching all corners of the earth and will continue to roll forth.

Sorry if my emails are disorganized, with such limited time I don't really have the luxury of reading back over them!

I love you guys!

Elder Summers