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2nd Week At The MTC

 This week was so much better! I love it here at the MTC! The guys in my zone are funny, but when it's time to be serious, they are serious. They all try to speak Spanish most of the time so we can learn. They are interesting in a good way. For example, one of the guys in my MTC has eaten kangaroo, which is interesting. Another guy in my zone pointed out that my companion looks like Napoleon Dynamite which I think is funny. But if he is Napoleon, does that make me Pedro? To be honest, I am more of an Uncle Rico or Kip. You haven't lived if you don't know what I am talking about. Napoleon Dynamite is one of the greatest films ever made. If you haven't seen it, I suggest watching it, but to be honest, it's not funny until you watch it three times or whenever you would get in the car with your family.

Anyways you guys are probably wondering what things I learned this week. I learned many things; it's hard to type all I learned because most of them just come with being in the MTC as a missionary. Also, for those of you who are going to serve, I am gonna tell you that you're gonna love it. I am not even out in the field, and it's already one of the best experiences of my life. I am literally at home, not even in Mexico yet, and still, it's one of the best things I've done. Ok, back to what I learned this week. One major thing I learned this week was again in our devotional on Tuesday. A devotional is like a long spiritual TED talk. This week was with Elder Gong and his wife. They talked about how we could use the scriptures to help fulfill our missionary purpose, which is to help others to come unto Christ so that they can enjoy the light that it gives. I thought this was cool because, to be honest, I thought that the scriptures, The Book of Mormon to be precise, weren't that deep. Still, dang, I was wrong there is so much in there that I didn't realize. If you look closely at 2 Nephi Chapter 31, you can find the missionary purpose, which is crazy! Let me tell you; I love Elder Gong. I didn't before; I thought that his talks were kind of boring before, but now that I am on my mission, I think he has become one of my favorite speakers. It's cool how he can bring so many new insights to things that, at first glance, don't seem that deep. The second thing I learned this week was a new way of looking at the word perfection. At first, I thought this word meant like no faults; you are just good at everything and never fail, but that changed for me this week. I won't go into full detail because I am using it in my talk tomorrow, but I will say that I came up with a new meaning, or at least my MTC teacher did, which I liked; he said the perfection definition is putting in effort and work. I think this applies to us as people because I think a lot of times people think that you have to go without failure or else you are just not good. Still, with the new definition, perfection is now just about giving your all and putting in all the effort you can because if you do that, then I am sure you will get the desired outcome.

This week's picture is just some of my adventures with my siblings on my long breaks. We are playing King of the Couch. Yes, it may seem that I am losing right now but trust me, after My mom took that photo, I had all the pillows so they couldn't hit me. They did try other things, but in the end, I guess I was just too good because they gave up 5 minutes later.
The other one is just Andrew and me navigating the church attic I'm not gonna lie it kind of hurt to get up there because my shoes didn't fit.

I love you all and hope you guys have a great week next week!
 
P.S. Next week, I will be in Mexico, so the email will come on Friday instead of Saturday.

Love,
Elder Mergenthaler 






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