Thursday, September 11, 2014

I Finally Saw Elder Earley

This week has been a lot of the same!!  I finally saw Elder Earley (Doug's cousin) on Sunday and he looked like he was doing great!! It was cool seeing him.  It wasn't until we were about to watch the movie that I saw him.  I didn't have much time to talk but it was really nice to see him.  It lifted my spirit a lot and is nice to have that relationship to him and to see how well he is doing.
Elder Earley

I couldn't imagine being at the MTC for that long!!  I would be at almost 200 pounds if I did that!!  I am already back up to 165 in just a short week which is a little over 15 pounds since I returned from Mexico!!

Not much goes on here.  Just basically school but for nine hours a day everyday.  We even have homework.  With how hard it is it is also very worth it.  You can literally feel yourself coming closer to Christ every day and that's what it is all about!

They feed us anything and everything.  We have lots of potatoes and meat, chocolate chip cookies and lots of ice cream.  You take as much as you want.  It is just really really good school lunch.  I ate a whole Papa John's pizza one night so that was awesome!

Here is everyones Spanish class for the day!  eso si que es!  You literally just spell out "socks" and it basically means "it is what it is"!!  Everyone go crazy with that one!  Now on to a little more spiritual note...during our devotional on Sunday night we sang Armies of Helaman.  Imagine 2200 missionaries singing that at a devotional and imagine how powerful it was when we sang "and we are now the Lord's missionaries"!!  I don't think that there was a dry eye in the entire MTC the spirit was so strong!!  President Eyring was touring BYU on Tuesday and they had talked about how to act if an apostle or member of the First Presidency was there and so we were all excited to hear from him.  Well, it was just a member of the seventy and President Eyring wasn't even there.  How lame!!  I would highly suggest everyone looking up The Character of Christ by Elder Bednar.  It was a really great talk and I think you especially would enjoy it, Dad.  Other than this just keep trekking on and trying to become fluent in Spanish!!
yo sé que la iglesia de jesucristo do los santos de los ultimos dias es verdadera.  tambien you sé que josé smith fue una profeta.  el libro de mormón es la palabra de dios.  y por medio de este libro podemos aprender como podemos volver y vivir con dios.  estoy muy agradacido por mi familia y oro mucho para ustedes.  estoy agradacido por los ejemplos que yo tenia en mi vida.  sin ustedes no estoy aqui para servir. (I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints is true.  I also know that Joseph Smith was a prophet.  The Book of Mormon is the word of God and through this book we can learn how we can return to live with God.  I am very thankful for my family and pray much for you all.  I am grateful for the examples that I have in my life. Without you all I would not be here to serve.)

les amo, (I love you all,)
Elder Orchard

Later that afternoon Douglas walked over to The Downtown Philly where he ran into his Uncle Steve Orchard who works in Orem and eats at that place often.  We were all a little jealous when we got this picture of them but we are so happy he looks so good!

Ran Into Uncle Steve

3 comments:

  1. I loved this, Jenny!! Thanks for sharing. Yay Douglas!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Elder Orchard makes me smile. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. It was so good to read this! He's doing amazing isn't he.

    ReplyDelete