Weekly update

Hey guys,
Sorry I didn't send actual letters this past week. I wrote them but I never actually sent them until last night. So family you'll be getting two from me. This past week has been amazing! We had a fireside wherein Brother Costa (Presidency of the Seventy) talked to all of us. He was so animated and alive he's hilarious. He's from Brazil and his accent was really thick but he was such an exciting person. If you get a chance to hear from him at conference or anything, he was probably my favorite speaker so far. Right up there with Brother Holland. He talked about how when he was 12 he was helping the missionaries work on the building of a chapel, and after getting permission from his parents, he asked them to come teach him and his family a lesson. They talked about the importance of family and challenged them to have family home evening once a week. He said they shared a good lesson, but at the end of it, his father thanked them politely and asked them not to come back. He was very disappointed and asked his father why. His father's reply was that they were asking him to be a bad father. "We have a night with are family and read the Bible together every night, and they only want me to do it once a week!" he said. Well those missionaries went home and recorded the visit in the area book. They said that they wanted future missionaries to visit the Costa family because they felt strongly that they would be baptized. That stayed unlooked at in the area book for 10 years! Then after 10 years, two missionaries, fasting and praying, were searching for a family to teach. They looked it up in the area book and decided to try the Costas. Now, Brother Costa's father had a question that he had asked every minister he could find, and it was this: "When I die, what will be my relationship with my family?" The best answer he had gotten was that he would become brothers and sisters with his parents, children and everyone else. He was dissatisfied. So, the Elders knocked on his father's door (Brother Costa had gone away to college). His father answered the door and told them he knew who they were and that he'd heard their message, and told them to leave. The missionaries, unphased, said "well we have a new message for you. We would like to teach you about how you can be with your family forever." His father invited them in. The family was baptized after two weeks, and his father was baptized after two months. Everyone, except brother Costa. When he came home, he refused to take the lessons, he was just uninterested. His dad was the ward mission leader. He was exposed to the missionaries because they taught frequently at his home. One set of sister missionaries were teaching in the room next to him, and quietly came over to his door and cracked it open, speaking loud enough so that he could hear the whole lesson. He left soon thereafter to go to do something with his friends. As he was walking he had the impression that if Joseph Smith was a true prophet, the church must be true. He canceled on his friends and came home, and asked his mom to show him where he could find out more about Joseph Smith. She gave him the Joseph Smith History. He read it that night, praying after Every verse. After 14 hours he was done, and had a testimony of Joseph Smith as a prophet. He went to the home of the two sister missionaries at 9 that morning. They came back for lunch and found him there. He told them that he knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that he couldn't wait one more day not being a member of the church. He said he had to be baptized right then. After talking to several people, he was baptized two days later, and he said he has never doubted his faith since. He said that everything that he was taught in the lessons, he already knew, because the Spirit had witnessed it to him.
I thought that was a really powerful testimony of the value of missionary work and teaching by the spirit. I hope I become that kind of missionary that those missionaries were. I know that the Word of God worked miracles in that man's life as well as mine and others.
So, update on the district: Our district leader is in Quarantine! Yay swine flu! Haha just kidding I feel bad for the guy, Elder Moore, he's really cool. So now his companion is my companion and we have a trio of us: Green, Jackson, and Hatch.
Oh guess what! I've lost like 10 pounds since entering the MTC. Not for lack of good food, I've just been exercising like crazy. I feel so great. Except I've got a runny nose. But that's no big. Oh and the temple today: I had probably the best quiche I've ever had: mushroom, steak, onion and sausage. Amazing! Now I've gotta run that off :)
We're now teaching lesson two, the Plan of Salvation, in the TRC. Don't ask me what that stands for, it's just an evaluation area where we teach church members like investigators.
You know, Satan works really hard against you and those who are doing God's will. Being here isn't always easy, we all have our struggles. But the blessings that others receive and the help we get from God definitely outmatches the power of our trials. I'm still loving the MTC and life here. I'm excited to get in the field though.
I will write everyone separately and I'll actually mail them this week.
Write me everyone, I miss you! That would be the best Christmas present is to hear from all of you.
Se Amo Mucho,
Elder J. Green.