Missionary Training Center

July 21, 2010

Dear family and friends,

My stay in the MTC has been a little odd, at least at the sense of time passing. It feels like each day takes forever, but now that I look back, the time has passed so quickly. We have one more week before we leave on the 28th.

I wish I could read and respond to every email, but I don't have enough time to do that, hopefully i'll do better when it comes to being out in the field. So I'll just talk about how it's been this past week. Um... So at first I was really struggling because I didn't feel like I was getting the hang of anything and about how others seemed like they were doing so much better. This really hit hard on Friday when we got to go to Manchester and street contact(which is something that is special to our MTC). It was soo hard and it was kind of frightening. Like this is a city with 3 million people in it and they are busy, so why would they want to stop and talk to anyone? I figured that and I'm not one that is very outgoing for that type of thing, so Elder Aubrey and I were struggling. We had a good talk with a Muslim guy who was really nice and accepting of whatever we said because he belives that we should try to learn from others that have information that you don't, so he willing spoke with us and kept talking about beliefs. It was good, but it didn't really go anywhere, other than that we didn't talk to anyone for more than a minutes, except for this one guy. He stopped us near the beginning and asked where we were from and stuff. He said some weird stuff and was talking about his life. Like he told us that he used to be a male nurse in the Irish army until they kicked him out because of epilepse(sp??) and then he told us how he sometimes refers to Jesus as "his nephew" which then started him telling us about his nephew who left him once he saw him drink and how he's been searching for his nephew up in scotland, but he can't find him.

Like Julie gets to do, we get times where we are on chat for mormon.org because there are some people asking questions when the people in provo and temple square are still sleeping. We've had a couple interesting chats, but we really haven't gotten as many to talk to as other guys in our district. Some of them get the funniest stories from the people on it. I'm not a huge fan of chat, but it depends on your experiences with it.

There was a great experience that Elder Aubrey and I had that really gave us the kick we needed to find our excitment and excell in our teaching. One day, during our personal study, Elder Aubrey went to go talk to the MTC President, so I had to go with, at least outside the door. While waiting, I decided I needed to talk to him about my struggles and see if I could get some advise. When I came out, Elder Aubrey(from American Fork btw) was with a teacher here talking to some guy in the lobby. This guy was a guy that came to the MTC asking if we had something that could help him, which is an obvious YES!!! So we went along with Brother Cook and went and spoke to him and teach him. He told us about his life and all of the problems that have happened and that this is really his only choice- to look into the church- and change his life so it can be better. Anyway, it went fantastic and he said he'd come to church. He didn't end up coming to church, but we're pretty sure he'll still come back and keep getting taught. He just said he needed to get rid of all the bad things in his life.

Just to finish up, ever since that, everything has just been getting better and better. Elder Aubrey and I have done really well in our Milestone'(like fake lessons/investigators we prepare for) and we've had great devotionals and everything has just been fantastic. I've been playing lots of soccer here for our exercise.

I have truely grown in my understanding of this chucrh and it's doctrine. I know this is where I'm supposed to be and this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I know that Jesus is our Savior and that he came down and sacrificed himself so that we can have the chance to return back to God. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that he restored Christ's church on the Earth. I love this Church, this gospel. It has truely blessed my life and being able to share that with everyone around me just gets me excited and keeps me going with the work. How could someone not want something that could make their life better? It makes me sad when they aren't interested at all.

I love you guys sooo much!

Elder Hulet

P.S I'm below 200 lbs!!!

P.S.S I'm been working out in the morning with Elder Merrell(from PA) and I'm soooo sore, and that was 2 days ago. I hope to continue and come back semi fit.