1 month out! Weekly email

HELLO EVERYONE

 

Holy guacamole I do not even know where to begin.  Things are so incredible at the CCM (MTC).  Its absolutely crazy that I have less than two weeks left in here...Things are going to get real so soon and its really starting to hit everyone.

 

Some new things i havent talked about yet are the spanish people have a pretty crazy diet.  They have sweets for breakfast almost every day, very much like the rest of Europe.  The best treat they serve here though is churros with thick hot chocolate.  I´ll send pics in a little bit but it is honestly sooo legendary.  You get a ton of hot churros and just pour some sugar on top, and dip it in the chocolate and its sooooo good.

 

P days here are super super super sweet.  Last week we went to the plaza mayor which is like one of the most famous places in Madrid.  It was super super super sweet.  But today is the day we have been looking forward to for a long time. We are going to visit the real madrid stadium today and everyone is sooooo pumped for that.  Ill send pictures of it next week.

 

I wish I had a little more to write home to everyone this week but i do have one thing i have really learned here that I want to share with you.  THE BOOK OF MORMON IS TRUE.  So every sunday we have an mtc devotional by the mtc president and he shares some doctrinal lessons with us.  But last week, we talked about the Book of MormIon.  So he began by telling us about how he talked to a bishop once that was concerned about how Joseph Smith translated the Book of MOrmon, and how he used different techniques to do so.  HE then proceeded to tell us that these things do not matter and we should never be concerned with those.  When it all breaks down, the Book is true.  We dont know the book of Mormon is true because of factual information and we should never try to prove the Book of Mormon is true with facts.  The bottom line is, we find out that the book of mormon is true through a spiritual experience.  All people can know that joseph smith is a prophet and that the book of mormon is true only by reading and praying with sincere intention to find out that it is true.  I have no doubt in my mind that this is true.  I was in the park teaching people last week, and had some awesome experiences with passing out book of mormons to people.  I wish you all could see it, but it´s incredible to see some people´s eyes light up as you begin testifying of the book of mormon.  They look directly into your eyes and you can tell their heart is touched.  It´s so awesome to see how the spirit works in people, and I know that moroni´s promise in Moroni 10 4 is soo true

 

I wanna leave you all with a challenge.  Wherever you are at with your testimony of the church, read the book of mormon again.  You will notice new things every time and not only will you learn new things each time you read, but the spirit will allow you to have some incredible experiences each time you do.  Im so grateful for this gospel and I wanna bear testimony to all of you that the book of mormon truly was written for us in these latter days.  READ IT! I PROMISE IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE! And if you have already read it, read it again.

 

I say these things in the name of jesus christ Amen

**Notes from Colby in other letters he sent to us:

Learning another language makes English hard sometimes believe it or not.  But things are going pretty good here.

I love a lot about the MTC.  We get the opportunity to go to the temple every Thurs. morning, which is our P-day.

We get to tour the city on P-day which is absolutely awesome as well.  I will be emailing some pics home but we still have a ton left to go see, including the Real Madrid Stadium.  Madrid is unlike anywhere else I have ever been in my entire life.  It doesn’t feel like I’m not in America until we leave the CCM then it really becomes real.

The guys in my room are super awesome.  Everyone here likes to joke that I look like the King of Spain (google it).  There aren’t a ton of people here so it’s kind of sweet because everyone in the MTC knows each other.  There are two missionaries from Temecula:  Elder Downing and Sister Scott.  They are super awesome and I know Elder Dawning knows the Billings but idk about the sister.  She just got here and she is learning Russian.  The guys in my zone and the sisters too are super awesome.  It’s just me and my two companions and a trio of sisters. Seriously, it’s so much fun though.  I have never laughed so hard in my life.  

Oh my lanta, I absolutely love playing soccer here!  They don’t play any soccer on grass hardly.  It’s all on concrete in caged in courts, or this one awesome court that is like a mini concrete hole with a court at the bottom we call the pit.  They don’t let us play everyday , but we try to get them to let us every time we have time for exercise.