Week 5: Goodbye MTC!!!

Well that was fast, its my last 5 days here at the CCM, and we leave early for the airport (5am) we beind me and 4 other people I;m in charge of. I was called to be the travel leader over the Costa Rica mission, and there are only 5 people going there (including me). Luckily I'm not in charge of like the Santiago mission or I'd be over like 20 people and have to keep track of all of them their bag weights, etc. I might not have as much time as usual for my email today because I have to track down those 4 missionaries and get them ready to leave. Anyways, here's a few things that happened this week:
On Friday and Saturday, we learned Present and Past Subjunctive, and that was when I started to realize that I really don't know what is going on. But a cool story about Spanish:

This week the topic for our talks was the Restoration, and because I didn't want mine to sound the same as everyone else's, I wrote mine on the power of prayer, which was a huge part of the restoration. And writing it was kind of cool experience. I first wrote it out in English, and started trying to translate it, but it was super hard because I use certain phrases when I speak that lose their emphasis and power when you translate it. Basically I was worried that my talk was going to lose all my personality of how I speak. So I was stumped for about an hour and a half, but finally I started translating word for word, cringing because I know it doesn't make sense in Spanish. But as I started doing it, new phrases popped into my head, and some grammar things made sense, and I was able to finish translating my talk in 20 minutes!!!

On Sunday there was extra time in sacrament meeting, so President Alvarez called on me to give my talk!!!! I was actually really hoping that he would call on me, because this was definitely my best talk yet! Also a tender mercy was that they needed a pianist to play during the transition time, so I got to play some hymns with the quiet pedal!

My spiritual motivation this week was in Alma 34: the whole thing. Its when Amulek testifies right after Alma. This chapter covers sooo many things that I'm not even sure what part to talk about. I love the part where he says to pray everywhere, always (19-27, especially the end of 27 and 28) I also like the part about giving thanks (38). Its cool that it says contend no more against the Holy Ghost, because the truth is if you do it, you will win every time. That's because the spirit doesn't contend. We have to make sure we have room for him in our minds, and that our minds are clean enough for him to be comfortable coming in, and quiet enough for us to hear what he's telling us.

I love you guys and I wish I had more time to tell you all some of the more funny stuff that happened! Don't forget to pray!
Love, Elder Hilton