From Kent 8/31

Subject: A cerca de media (Close to the middle)

Howdy flammy!!

We are approaching the midway point of our stay at the MTC, it's quite possibly the most bizarre thing in the world to realize we don't have that much more time here. Truly we require the Lord's assistance in all things.

So we greeted, oriented, welcomed, etc. the new district that came in on Wednesday, it was much fun and much work. It's very different having a batch of Elders that don't know you as anyone other than "The Zone Leaders" whereas everyone else has a bit of that "They're some of those new missionaries" attitude still, but they're still good. Part of being the New Zone Leaders is we get the all-knowing binder passed down to us. I was flipping through a few pages of it and there were pictures of all the districts. First picture I saw was of District E which is leaving this week and had a lot of Elders leave earlier to other MTCs. Top left corner is a very bright grin of an Elder Hunter, Jordan Fife. Yup, Jordan and I were in the same Zone, but we never crossed paths because he had to trangle off to the other MTC. Pretty neat though, I was able to talk with a couple of the other Elders that knew him and talk about him.

Provo's been hopping since BYU starts today. BYU starting today has also caused a slew of hiccups among the staff here at the MTC, as all the teachers are required to be students of BYU. Thankfully we get to keep Hna. Scaife as a teacher, but sadly Hno. Harrington is being replaced by Hno. Jessen, who we don't really know that well, so we're hoping for the best.

Sunday came, had ten meetings to attend, more meetings on this day than the week my friend. There are no partings in Heaven, though I hope the meetings will end, life gets wearying, don't it. The meetings weren't as bad as all that though, they were nice. Just in great quantity. There was a bit of a fiasco getting Sacrament Meeting organized though, the leaving district hadn't had a chance to administer the Sacrament yet and really wanted to, so we had to change the program the night before and re-figure out who was doing what. District E (leaving) ended up doing EVERYTHING (oops) for the meeting, (opening and closing prayer, blessing and passing sacrament, pianist, musical number, and closing hymn). But it worked out in the end, so all is well!

Jon might remember the amazing devotional by Elder Holland I think they have every missionary watch, "The Miracle of a Mission." We watched it, and goodness gravy, Elder Holland epitomizes what it means to be "bold, yet not overbearing." Very powerful. We also had Richard G. Scott come for the Tuesday devotional, and he gave a truly amazing talk. Those kinds of talks just can't happen at General Conference or Youth Firesides. Very very spiritual, many sacred stories and some very neat apostollic (sp?) blessings. Yay for truth!

I'm truly learning more each day here, both about the Gospel and in Spanish. Purely amazing, the Spirit is very very strong. For yesterday's Fireside Robert Swenson, director of Missionary Services spoke, and the theme of his talk was "This is The Christ," James E. Faust's song. There was actually a video of some missionaries from earlier this summer singing it to new mission presidents, with a very prominently featured Alyson Harmon. The Church is true, and that's about the end of it.
Liz, you'll be happy to know that I am taking Brandon's advice and taking the work very and extremely seriously.

I hope things start working out better for y'all, it seems the autos have served their time. I pray for you all! The Church is True, Christ lives, Joseph Smith was a prophet, and the Book of Mormon is true. Amen and amen! Recognizing and following the Spirit is fantastic and amazing!

Love ya love ya! Less than three! (<3)

Elder Kent Pimentel.