Updates from Elder Bowles: MTC!

Why hello friends and family,

This is my last week at the MTC, and last week has been awesome. So for a start I had to go to the doctor to get my ingrown toenail removed and got to take a field trip and then we rushed back to make our appointments. My toe is fine and healing well.

So our teachers pose as investigators and we teach them to help us and give us feed back so we had been teaching a fake investigator named "Jordan" and we had to teach her in the morning because she was leaving town but that night our other teacher said change of plans she has left but drop by and follow up on commitments, check up and say hi so we knock and her "boyfriend" answers the door and all I had was a pamphlet in my hand and no lesson plan lol so we taught him about prayer. The next day we had another lesson with him and the spirit was in that room and it filled my chest and when I opened my mouth the words that came from me were not my own thoughts it was the spirit and he felt it and we committed him to read pray go to church and be baptized.

My District

This weeks lesson I've learned is always strive to have the spirit in your life always ask God for what you need or want always be specific in your prayers and you will receive specific answers. Also we sang hymn number two the Spirit of God "the spirit of god like a fire is burning" this statement is so true my teacher told us the spirit we had during our pi was real and the feeling I had was literally a fire burning in my chest then we sang this the next day. But any way we have this building where we do what we call TRCs and there are People who either are referred or could be inactive or members but we teach them lessons and sometimes you don't know if they are real or fake. So anyway you get 4 lessons with them and we got new ones yesterday and one of them was this older lady from the south and her mom her sister and daughter all became converts. She started telling us her story how her mom, daughter, brothers, and sisters died in her life time and the spirit kept prompting me to say something about eternal families and so when she had a break I said have you ever heard that families can be together forever and she started to cry and said no but you have no idea that is what I needed to hear and we talked about the plan of salvation, the priesthood, the Book of Mormon, prayer, and baptism. She broke in to tears and shouted yes she would love to be baptized and that she knew what we were telling her was true she said she felt the spirit burning in here and I testify that the spirit was heavy in that room and the words I spoke were not from me. we ended up going way over and she wanted to talk more and she was so excited to read the scriptures she asked where she could get one and we offered her one but she said she would go down to the MTC store to buy here own and then later that day in class one of my teachers who I was sharing this experience with said wow did you know she is an actual investigator and I said no. Also when you commit people to baptism you have to tell the office so they can put them with local missionaries who can do the baptisms and things and we were the first ones to report that for her and she's been doing these appointments for awhile. She had told us why she didn't join with her family and she was very bitter due to life's events and people but because we listened to the spirit we were able to reach her needs to help her grow closer to Christ. I testify to you that god knows us better than our selves and knows what we need to succeed and if we listen to the spirit we can grow immensely and become the best that we can be. Also remember that through helping others and turning outward and to Christ we start to see the change in ourselves. I challenge all of you this week to seek out the spirit to pray and read with full intent to act on those promptings and answers and never ignore them and to also serve someone this week even if its giving someone a call who might need it you never know how a simple hello or how are you doing can change someone's life or day and always allow your self to be a tool in hands of the Lord because he works through people and you could be the answer to someone's prayer. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ amen.

love, Your Elder Bowles

P.S. So I've been doing choir here at the MTC and tonight at the devotional we sing with Lexi Walker and rumor is there is supposed to be a general authority tonight as well!

Pictures from my week