Living the Dream: Valentine's Day in the MTC

Happy Birthday Daddy! I hope you have a great day! Also, Feliz Dia De San Valentin!! Thank you so so much for the packages. I loved them!!! You are the greatest family in the world. Thank you for sending stuff to Elder Decker for us. It was like watching a little boy at Christmas when he got his packages. He has no idea we in are on it, so thank you! Tiff wrote him a letter too? I didn't even get a letter from her this week! She has some explaining to do...

Please tell Hermana Petire "Gracias por el paquete!!" It was such a fun surprise! Thank you for thinking of me. I try to teach everyone the songs you taught me in second grade, they love it. "Mi Barba tiene 3 pelos" is a real hit! :) Thank you for starting me out early on developing love for this beautiful Spanish Language!

Oh YES!!! I see Hermana Weening all the time! It is so great. She is on the same floor as me, has all her meals and gym at the same time and her class room is right down the hall. I love her to death! I also said hi to Heston Goodrich this week.

So at dinner the other night Elder Whitfield comes up to me and says, "Hey, Hermana Thomas. Have you been asked to the Valentine's dance? (Naturally this is a joke, so I thought it would be fun to play along with it). So I said, "Yeah. Elder Buxton asked me last night." Then Elder Lusk sitting next to me says, "Wait, there is a dance? But we are missionaries... is it just ok for Valentine's day?" then all the Elders tell him that yeah its fine just for that day and that he needs to hurry and ask someone. So Elder Buxton walks by (I hadn't even said anything to him) and another Elder says, "So you are going to the Valentine's dance with Hermana Thomas?" and without hesitation he says, "Oh yeah. I asked her last night." hahaha. Hilarious right? So we all know its a joke, obviously. We are missionaries. Obviously we can't go to a dance. Well not Elder Lusk. He went up to Hermana Jensen and asked her to go with him.....haha. Don't worry, they finally told him it was a joke, like 10 minutes after. So our zone joke the past few days has been about "The MTC Valentine's dance".

Our lesson with Jonathan was SOOO powerful this week! He hadn't really been sharing or doing the things we asked him to so we finally just told him why we are here. We are missionaries and our sole purpose is to invite you to come unto Christ. This is not just a bible class where we talk about God, its a message FROM God! He finally opened up to us and shared about his life, he prayed and started doing commitments and is now getting baptized! The spirit was so strong as we bore testimony of the Savior and his plan for Jonathan.

Mom, every Sunday before Relief Society we get to watch "Music and the Spoken word." I always think of you!

Sunday night for the devotional we had Mark J Lusvardi come. It was by far my favorite devotional yet! He talked about the importance of being sincere and worthy of trust from our investigators. He served in Argentina and flew out some of his best friends that he converted! They spoke in Spanish and it was so powerful!

We got two new roommates this week! They are both going to the Houston South mission speaking English. Dad, what mission is your home? They leave the same day as me and they just got here....haha.

For Tuesday night our devotional was by Gregory Schwitzer of the 70. He talked about the importance of conversion. It is so important for the missionary to be converted first, so that they can convert others through the Lord. He gave us "5 C's of missionary teaching". These are the things we should be teaching. 1) Commandments. 2) Commitments. 3) Consecration. 4 ) Covenant making. 5) Conversion. I have realized a lot in my short month of being a missionary. I am not here to baptize. I am here to invite others to come to Christ and help them gain their own conversion.

Yes, I got my flight plans!! Yahooooooooooooo. I leave the 26th and my flight is at 11:19. So they tell you how many is in your travel group. Everyone else I have heard of has like 27 or around there. I have 3. Me and 2 other Elders haha. Guess Sacramento isn't as popular right now haha. I am so excited to get to the field! Are you a little excited I get to call you? haha.

I love you all and hope you have a great week! Thank you for all the mail, I love hearing from you. I am glad Karissa made it back safe and that Amber's baby is doing well. Te quiero muchisimo!!

Con amor,

Hermana Thomas