First MTC Week and 1 Day!

Hey Everybody,

Well the first week of the MTC has been crazy, hard, and amazing. I guess you might know i have P day on thursday just not the thursday after we arrived. So i had to wait 8 days for a P day. Getting through the first 3 days was the hardest. But I had my companion and others to go through it quickly.

My Companion's name is Elder Campos and he is from Hidalgo, Texas. He first language is Spanish but he will be speaking English with me in the Oakland/San Francisco, CA mission. The others in our room are also going to Oakland. so 4 Elders in our district are going to Oakland and 4 Elders are going to Minnesota. Cool thing, Elder Nielson is in my district, you know the one I went through the temple at the same time with.
We are all crazy in our district. I remember the first day we were thinking the Elders in our dorm were idiots being loud and crazy. but now we are the idiots being loud and crazy every night. We are love to be around each other and it really feels like another family. Honestly, getting up at ^:30 really isn't that hard. Neither is going without video games or a phone. I really am enjoying my time here.

We have investigators to teach but they dont tell us if they are members or investigators but they did say some are real investigators. We are teaching two right now, Dennis and Jack, they both are commited for learning to be baptized and are progressing nicely.

For all the advice i got about the MTC, you are never really ready for sitting in a Classroom for 9 hours a day, teaching a investigator, or freaking out as a district over such little things one thing i was not ready for was the spirit being almost as strong as the temples. I love feeling it around me every where I go.

Another thing I have loved is the Devotionals and videos. on Sunday we got hear the leaving missonaries bear their testimonies and then got to sing their favorite songs at the temple walk then we got to be in the choir that sang at President Holland(Elder Hollands son) talk about Joseph Smith.after that we saw the video Character of Christ by Elder Bednar. That video was amazing and very spiritual. This tuesday we got to have a very awesome experience and sang Happy Birthday to Neil L. Anderson right before he gave us a devotional on how being a missionary is not complex but not easy. so that is awesome. apparently we also get to have a devotional by Elder Holland this next tuesday so that is going to be awesome.

I am going to end that there

from 

Elder Stokes

(P.S. If you have questions send me a DearElder and I will try and answer)

(P.P.S. the order in names in the picture with us standing in a line is this Elders Nielson(Minnesota), Holmes(Minnesota), Hanson(oakland), Little(oakland), Campos(oakland), Me(oakland), Davis(Minnesota), and Miller(Minnesota)

(P.P.P.S. we have 3 sisters who didnt want to be in the picture Sisters Crane, Avila, Rothe)