One Month!

Well everyone I've officially been here in the MTC for one month now and it still seems super weird to me tungod(because) it seriously seems like it was just yesterday i was saying goodbye to everyone but I've had such an amazing experience here and have learned so much from all the people I've met and from my Zone's and my Branch Presidency and teacher's! I'm doing much better this week( thank goodness) haha but my old zone flew out last week and out in the Philippines! it was hard at first honestly but once we met the new zone that came in after them are super amazing and I'm so glad that i get to serve and be an example for them for the next 3 weeks! :) It's been a long week but we've gotten through it and everything is back to normal and being good :) the language is still a bit hard to get down but i feel like I'm finally starting to get the hang of it kind of... there is just so much to learn and not enough time to learn it all!!!! it seemed like 6 weeks was gonna be forever but time just flies by in here when you're serving the Lord!!! Well i wanna take some time to talk about family today tungod(because) this week I've been pondering about family and have had some pretty amazing talks this week about families and that we need to bury our weapons(sins) if we want to teach our kids to live by the word of god and to have happy families and I've been doing a lot of lesson planning on families this past week because of two of my investigators and its been easy for me i feel like because family is such a big thing in my life and they mean the world to me!!! even the people that aren't technically related to me or are friends i still consider them family and its so amazing to see how much the gospel and our Heavenly Father blesses up by giving us families and to be able to have this amazing opportunity to live with them forever! I know that families are one of the biggest parts of God's plan for us and they're such a blessing even though if at times it gets hard or something wrong happens as long as we Pray with an open mind and a sincere heart that we will know what to do to be able to help our families out and honestly everyone family prayer is sooo important! so i want to challenge you all to have family prayer at least twice a day! but definitely have family prayer at night every night because it helps bring families together so much and it builds bonds with each other and strengthens us so much! I received such an amazing letter this week from my little brother Christopher, I can't begin to tell you how happy i was when i read his letter from him. I was smiling from ear to ear and i was just overpowered with the spirit that i just starting to cry because of how happy i was to hear from him and to know that he is thinking about me and that I'm such a big inspiration to him and when i got his letter i was confused cause it was out of the blue and was in a package from my Aunt but when i read that i just knew instantly how happy he is and that Heavenly Father is looking over him and helping him come over his trials in life and i knew that my whole family was being watched over by Heavenly Father and that Heavenly Father is watching over all of our families and is looking out for all of us and helping every single one of us! I can't tell you how much it means to me to be able to know that i can be with my family for all eternity and to know that all of us can live with our families for eternity. :) Make sure that you're always praying for your family and to thank Heavenly Father for them because they play such a big role in our lives and we need to show them how much we love them even if they can be a pain in the butt sometimes they are everything and this Gospel is true and it helps bring families closer than ever. Sangalan Ni Jesukristo Amen. Palangga Ko Kamo!!!!! ( i love you all) 

Palangga, 

Elder Merrill