the MTC is my favorite place ever. i want to live here for the rest of my life. do you think they have condos here to rent out?????? i hope. cuz i don't want to leave. really tho, this place is awesome. so much spiritual juice floating around for you to drink up. i bet i could survive on dew and spiritual juice here forever. (if you get that reference i love you.)
btw my mom wants me to tell everyone that last week i was famous for a while. i was picked to go up in a devotional and preach to everyone about the gospel of Christ and the whole MTC knew who i was for a while because i made stupid faces to 1500 missionaries. big deal. and then i cut my hair and nobody knew who i was anymore lol. satisfied mom?? k good.
its freakin week 7!!! i have no idea what to say!!! it’s all the same! just the spiritual stuff is different.
we have egg parties every night and i still get beaten by girls at basketball. i weigh myself after i write emails so i didn't tell you that i hit +20 pounds last week. I’m scared to weigh in this week. super nervous lol.
oh, i am getting a little better at Cambodian. I've just been learning to read for the past couple days. so i read the story of Joseph Smith’s first vision and memorized it real quick. #giftoftongues
this week we started a thing where we skype with real life people in Cambodia and talk to them and share a message with them. so that was super cool. we get to do that again tonight i think.
hot Cheetos are my life right now. Elder Ros is my life right now. I’m going to miss all my homies at the MTC. life is cool. that’s all i have for normal life at the MTC. love you all so much. keep partying.
PS. I've been wearing one tie a week for the whole week for the past 3 weeks lol. nobody ever notices. i love being a missionary!
spiritual shpeel: holy crap. Holy Ghost. i learned a lot of stuff about the Holy Ghost this week. it was really awesome. our devotional yesterday was on that and then we watched a talk by Pres Uchtdorf on it too. really cool stuff. i learned that anyone can feel the power of the Holy Ghost (commonly referred to as the Light of Christ). the gift of the Holy Ghost is a different ball game tho. Elder Bednar says that even when you get the gift of the Holy Ghost it is NOT inherently operative. the last 4 words of the ordination are: receive the Holy Ghost. the word receive does not connote a passive action. to receive something is an action (D&C 88:33). we have to be constantly trying to receive the Holy Ghost for it to be our constant companion like it should be. to receive it you should sincerely desire it, appropriately invite it, and faithfully obey God’s commandments.
something the guy in the devotional said was that a lot of missionaries ask if they are feeling the Holy Ghost or getting prompted by the Holy Ghost all the time. and his answer to their question is: stop worrying about it! if you are being obedient and doing all you can do then you will be guided. i thought that was really awesome. i learned a bunch of other stuff about it too but i forgot.
the gift of tongues is real. especially when you’re trying to learn the language specifically to teach people. i find it 10x harder to learn words when it’s just about food or random stuff not pertaining to the investigators. this week i wanted to learn the first vision to tell a new investigator that we're teaching about the restoration and Joseph Smith. it literally took me like an hour of barely even trying to memorize it. it was so cool. i never could have done that by myself. i speak Cambodian so much better when we're teaching lessons than i do anywhere else. that’s the real gift of tongues i think.
God loves all his children. even the orphans. i know, it’s hard to believe.
love you!
love, elder osborne
