Oí family and friends!! So this week has been pretty good! Nothing too exciting. It wasnt too exciting haha. Portuguese is coming along, slowly but its improving!! The standouts for me were 2 devotionals we had. One was on Sunday. We got a new MTC president last week, his name is President Swensen and he is really funny.
Anyways, on Sunday he talked about the mission age change in October of 2012. The mission age changed for elders from 19 to 18. And for sisters it went from 21 to 19. He said 10 years ago he got a phone call to make a plan to change the age to be able to serve. He presented it and the Quorum of the 12 said it was good, but not now. Then 18 months after that, it happened again. Same thing, they said it was good, but not now. Then in 2011, they asked him again to do the same thing. He said he presented to plan and they said it wasnt good, but it was time. So after the next couple months, he worked with a couple Members of the 12 to change the age. They worked for months to make it perfect before presenting it to all of the Quorum of the 12. All the members of the Quorum of the 12 liked it and wanted to preside it to first presidency. They presented the plan to the first presidency, and President Monson said ´´What about the Sisters??´´ President Swensen said the plan was only to change the age of elders!! I had no idea. So the age change of Sisters was President Monson´s idea. Holy cow, how great is that?? President Swensen got sit front row of the Oct 2012 general conference when President Monson annouced the change. Only the 1st presidency, Qourum of the 12, and a select few of the 70 knew about the change. He said when President Monson annouced the Elders change their was a few quite whispers but when President Monson annouced the Sisters age change, is was going crazy. Every one had their phone out texting each other about the age change! He said bishops all over the world were getting texts to see if they could give interviews between the 2 sessions! That talk was awesome. Then he went on to say, we have 83,000 missionaries out in the world right now!! The Lord´s work is going forward, and there is evidence from that!! He then went to say, 2 days after the mission age change, the mexico area called the church to tell them that the church owned a high school and they could turn it into a MTC. So 6 months after that, the Mexico MTC was finished. From a high school to MTC. Its pretty crazy! Then the church had to open 58 new missions. holy cow.
Then we had one yesterday. Elder Costa was suppose to come but couldnt make it. So we watched a devotional from 2011. Elder Holland spoke so it was awesome. He talked about how missionaries need to convert themselves before converting other people. I love this gospel and im so glad im here! But i know i still have a lot of learning to do. Then he talked about the Apostle Peter. Before Christ died, he had only been an apostle for at max 36 months. Then when Christ died, we know that the new prophet was the Apostle who has been an apostle the longest, just like today. And that was Peter. So Peter was in charge of the church after christ died. He didnt really know what to do. So he went to go back to what he knows how to do, Fishing. After a long night and morning of not catching anything, the apostles saw a man on the beach making a fire. Then the man said cast your nets back into the water, and they did and they couldnt even pull the net back out!! Then John told Peter, ´´its him.´´ The apostles went back to the beach. And Cristo asked Peter, ´´do you love me?´´ peter said yes. Then Christ asked again, Peter said yes. Then Christ asked a 3rd time, ´´Peter, do you love me?´´ Peter looked at him and said ´´Yes, i love you. I would do anything for you.´´ Christ then said well then go out and preach my word! Being a missionary and apostle is every moment of the day. His message was about missionaries going home and continuing to do whats right even when they are off their missions. It was a really strong message.
We got a sister yesterday from the Provo MTC. Her name is sister Marsezzella or something like that. its close to Marstella so i thought that was pretty funny.
Anyways I love all of you and i keep you in my prayers daily!!
Love,
Elder Marstella
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