January 9, 2008

hey everybody! how are ya'lls doin? things are well here in the MTC and i am super stoked to have a new Neice in the family! Phoebe is it? haha i would love it if that was her name! haha good stuff! Congratulations Amy and Scott and family! you did it! you broke the chain of 3's in our family! now its Kirk and Tricia's turn cuz i know that chap is baby hungry!

first of all, can anyone get me an email address for the following: Kendra, Kevin & Amy's family, and how about for Kirk's family.. i dunno, will you just share this with them? that would be very appreciated!

well i gotta thank all of you who have emailed, deareldered or any of the like this past week! i love to hear from all of you and it makes my life so blessed! i can't even believe how much stuff is going on out there. its like it's the real world or something... ha. thank you Kendra and Seth for the TWO packages! snap we took that queso to town and now we're workin on the Oreos.. p.s. remember that bet we made that you would look better than me when my mission is finished? are you trying to fatten me up or something cuz you are sending my fav foods and i can't stop eating them.. its disgusting and delicious all at once..

i still havent gotten my flight plans yet. i think they are delaying me because we have a cooler in my room full of mountain dew and other tantalizing liquids.. they must know i'm not worthy to go out into the field yet ;) SIKE!!! turns out that they dont take missionaries on the major holiday weeks. Thanksgiving being one of those so lucky me, the planets aligned perfectly (meaning my mission) that the date they needed to take me in to fit with transfers was that exact week. meaning that they took me in a week early, so yours truly gets to be here for 10 stinkin weeks... yeah i thought i was outta here next week, no i got 2+ weeks left here. its all good tho, i'm learning a ton of spanish so i should be complaining! so i 'm set to bounce outta here on the 26th of january. this is a date that has been set apart for me to call YOU!!! woohoo! so if you'd like to hear from your little missionary brudder, send me your phone number i'll give you a shout! i guess since we didn't get to call on x-mas they let us call from the airport! so yeah, that will be exciting!

now to the good spiritual part of my letter! this last week i have gained a testimony of FASTING. suffice it to say that the education system in Utah lacks, therefore i've never been stretched in schooling. that being said i havent had to try really hard to learn anything in my life. can you tell by my poor english grammer? anyways the MTC and spanish have been the hardest things that i've done in my life.. i've struggled for the first month and a half and i've been trying to do well but nothing has really helped. this past fast sunday i decided that it was time to fast for le don de linguas(gift of tongues).. the part that was missing tho was that i didn't really understand fasting. to me it was one of those whack things like the passover.. honestly think about it, kill a lamb and put its blood on your door= your firstborn doesnt die. starve yourself= you get the things that you are asking of God.. it was a cool thing to think about but what i lacked was the FAITH. this week i recieved the faith to actually have my prayers and fasting necessary. i don't know what it was but it finally made sense to me this past week that fasting wasnt just starving yourself.. it is an outward expression of your inward commitment... that one key principle has made everything clear since then.. its amazing. its prob dumb for me to hit on that though because i'm emailing this to a bunch of spiritual giants who probably figured this out years ago but the light finally dawned on me and i wanted to impart with you some of my substance..

well i love you all. hope that things are going well and that you all enjoy thie pics of the new baby like i do.

much love and respect for each and every one of you! i say that as honestly and as i can because you all are heros in my life! i love each and every one of you and your family.. NEVER FORGET THAT! you mean the world to me!

Elder Livingstone