Preparing for San Jose

Hello everyone, This week was the final of the MTC. It was bit sad saying our goodbyes, but I can't wait to get out into the field. In our Monday classes, we mainly practiced teaching the whole Plan of Salvation and discussing the importance of the Book of Mormon for us and for those we teach. During my different breaks, my mom and I played with the dog, and we started playing Ticket to Ride: Europe because we're probably the only ones in our family who enjoy playing that game haha. So far, we've each won two games, so it's been pretty close. On Tuesday, we started practicing Lesson 3: The Gospel of Jesus Christ (i.e. faith, repentance, baptism, gift of the Holy Ghost, enduring to the end), and had a devotional this week where we watched a video about President Ballard and Elder Holland answering questions about missionary work, and they talked for a bit about how essential the Book of Mormon is and why we as missionaries should be disappointed when people don't read it when we have invited them to. Simply put, the Book of Mormon is the word of God and provides a greater understanding of Jesus Christ and His Atonement, so we can gain a greater appreciation for Him as we study its words and want to become more like Him. It was a good testament to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, and it shows how vital it should be to each of our lives. My grandma brought me a gift, and that was really nice and uplifting. I also played several games of foosball with my dad, and he barely beat me 4-5 (but I was making him frustrated with my victories, so I'm the true winner here). On Wednesday, the power went out (I think for my neighborhood as well) during my Tagalog tutoring class, so that was exciting haha. Luckily, it started working again in time for my other classes. Later, my companionship taught the same lady from last week; we planned to teach her more about the Plan of Salvation like we did last week, but she told us that she wasn't sure if she had gotten an answer from God when she prayed about our message like we had asked her to, so we scrapped our plans and talked all about prayer and the different ways we feel the influence of the Holy Ghost. It was really nice, and I think it was probably our best lesson, despite it being in Tagalog. Also, I started to feel sick/headachy right before the lesson, but as we were teaching, I completely forgot about it, and I felt mostly better afterwards. It was a pretty good testament to Mosiah 2:17 and the fact that when we are serving others, we are serving God, and as a result, He will help us to forget about our own troubles/concerns, and He will bless us with strength. We also listened to Elder Uchtdorf's talk in April 2019 called "Missionary Work: Sharing What Is in Your Heart" in one of my classes. It was pretty good; he explains how we can share the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ to others and encourages us to do so. I won't go into every detail about what he said (though I invite you to check it out if you have time), but he gave us 5 steps we can follow if we want to do a better job at sharing the light of Christ with others: 1. Draw close to God 2. Fill your heart with love for others 3. Strive to walk the path of discipleship 4. Share what is in your heart 5. Trust the Lord to work His miracles Thursday was pretty interesting. For one, we had a talent show in class, so I showed a couple videos of me playing the tuba haha. We also played a rigged Tagalog Jeopardy game in one of my classes, and I couldn't get a single answer right for the life of me; each of my Final Answers was about a word or letter off. Serves me right haha. For another, my girlfriend brought me a gift, and I was able to see some of my coworkers before they left, so that was pretty nice. My companionship also taught someone in English today. It went alright. Now that we were in English, we had a lot more to say and explain haha. On Friday, I didn't feel that great, but my classes were good, and we had a lot of fun for our last day in our classes and in our final district meeting with the boys (so sad). Then, we had our final teaching experience. It was also in English like on Thursday, and though our teaching skills have definitely improved and we've flowed a lot more as a trio, I honestly still feel like our Wednesday lesson in Tagalog was our best one because of our decision to follow the Spirit and focus on the concerns of who we were teaching. All in all, it was a pretty good week to end the MTC on, and I'm feeling a bit ready/excited to head out and more fully serve the Lord. I hope life is going well, and I'll send my next email once I get the chance since it'll likely be on a Monday this time (I know I know, it's awful that you won't hear from me for a few more days, I'm as devastated as you are). Best wishes, Elder Enger P.S. Attached are some of the best MTC group photos you'll ever see, courtesy of Elder Sharp. The first one is us visiting the temple, and the other shows us walking out of the MTC as graduates.