Oh my goodness. I do not know where to start. I love you all so much. I guess to tell you about a crazy two days.
Wednesday August 6th (THE DAY)
The day had finally come. I was excited,nervous,crazy emotional etc etc. I had a hard time leaving my family and Brittany. Once i said goodbye and passed security i met up with the other elders. There were three elders on that flight that are going to my mission. I got to know them pretty well. Once we got on the plane i sat next to an Elder going to mexico. His name was Elder Carpenter and he reminded me of my good friend Elder (mitchel) Cordy. When he spoke all i could think of was mitchel and how much i missed him. Elder carpenter and I spoke the whole plane ride and he helped ease my nerves. Once we got to the airport in Salt Lake we went to go find the shuttles to take us to the MTC. On our way there we saw many elders coming home from there missions. The homecomings were crazy. There was probably 50+ family members there for an elder. At that time all i could think about was coming home. Fast forward to arriving at the MTC. We got split up into districts of people who were going to california some in the same missions others not. We got a teacher Brother Dopp. When i grow up i want to be exactly like elder dopp. He teaches with the spirit so well. This man is so humble and you can feel his spirit. One thing he said really calmed me down. He said why are you wanting to serve a mission. Before i could answer he said any reason you are serving is the right reason as long as you stay for the right reason. After class the MTC president greeted us all with a message then we ate dinner and unpacked. WE went to this thing called People and Your Purpose part 1. This was so cool because a group of about 30 of us elders and sisters taught one investigator.After this we met our zone leaders. Elder Andrus one of our zone leaders is my new favorite person. He asked me how i was feeling i said i was okay. I asked him who all he left behind at home. He said his family and a girlfriend. He said they have been dating for two and a half years. He said it was the hardest goodbye ever. ( i could compare ) I showed him the tie brittany got me and we instantly connected. We talked about girls for about 20 minutes. He said that she sent him a care package and it was the sweetest thing ever he showed me. It felt weird being around the girls at the MTC. It felt wrong to even just talk to them because we are Elders haha. That about concluded the day.
Thursday August 7th. (the greatest day yet)
Man what a day. I feel closer to my savior already. If i was to evaluate myself spiritually before my mission i would give myself a 70%. After today and the experiences i am at 100%. After my mission i will probably be at like 100,000% and so on and so forth because we can always continue to grow. So when i got set apart the stake president told me that i would be blessed with health and with that health i would need to use my priesthood authority and heal others. We will get to that amazing experience in a little bit. We woke up at 6:30 got dressed up in our church clothes and went to breakfast. The food at the MTC is alright. After breakfast we went to the classroom. Bro Dopp continues to teach amazingly. We started to roleplay a lot, and focused on how to teach investigators. Next we went to Plan Study Prepare and teach pt 2. Thisi was cool. The brother who taught the lesson shared with us a story at the end of the class. He said that he had taught a man when he was on his mission. The man was interested in the church but didn't want to continue to hear any lessons because his dad was a preacher at another church. The teaching continued no more. Fast forward to his mission 18 months down the road. This man got transferred back to his original location and a sister came up to him and asked if he knew this man. ( the man he taught before). She said that his father had died. The elder smiled because he knew that this man's father was the reason this man didn't want to hear about the church. The missionaries met with this man and they talked to him about Joseph Smith and how he prayed. The next day the elders were driving around and they felt impressed to visit this mans house. They knocked on the door said hi how things were going and then they had to leave. Weird huh. They went over there just to say hi. They had this impression for three days in a row. On the fourth day they returned to his home and asked how things were going and went to go teach another lesson. The man before they started said i have prayed just like joseph smith about which church to join. He said he prayed that there would be a way the lord would show him which was the true representatives of jesus christ. Every Time after he finished the prayer about a minute later you guys showed up at my door step just to come say hi. I knew then that you were the true representatives of the lord. After this class we went back to our classrooms and when we got there a sister in our district wasn't feeling good they day before she had complained about her cold and not feeling well. She came up to me and said "Elder Loertscher i am not feeling well today and i have a doctors appointment later could you please give me a blessing". At this point in time i had never given a blessing so i had butterflies in my stomach so bad but of course i accepted. My companion Elder Rosales anointed and i gave the blessing. I throughout the day at this point was on a spiritual high. I gave the blessing and then i came to the point where i literally could not speak anymore i was at a loss of words and i didn't know why. I sat there for about 20-30 seconds but felt forever and then the words your sickness will be short the lord wants you to return all your focus back unto your mission and get ready for california. Of course i said other things in the beginning of the blessing but the whole thing was from the spirit. I knew nothing about sister jackson and i gave her a blessing. I know now by personal experience how truly powerful the priesthood is. She came up to me today. (friday) and told me thankyou for the blessing she was feeling 100 times better and that everything i said in the blessing was what she needed to hear. I needed to hear that because i didnt know how it went since it was my first blessing bu ti knew it had to have gone great because i had the spirit on my side. Later that night we met with the branch presidency and got callings. After getting to know us somewhat on a personal level they eventually gave us callings. I got the calling to be the district leader. So i am in charge of several people who are going to bakersfield california. I have several responsibilities for our stay at the MTC.
Today Friday August 8th
We were given a little information about an (fake investigator fyi. it was our teacher) investigator and we had to go in and teach them a lesson. We are asked to invite people to baptism even on the first visit. Elder rosales and i went into the lesson and didnt know where to start we were guided by the spirit throughout the lesson and invited him to be baptized. He said yes we talked about meeting with him tomorrow and going to see where this goes. Today as distric leader i get the mail. I went into the mail room and got our districts mail. Seeing people having used Dearelder.com was amazing it is such a cool thing. Thank you to those who wrote to me i loved reading everything. I am sorry if you respond and i dont respond until next P-DAY which is next friday. Our day was cut in half since it was our first pday.
I love you all thank you for your support i know these will be the best two years FOR my life.
To end i would like to invite all of you to go watch the Mormon message because of him. Go to youtube and type in beacause of him. The first couple of seconds should have a bulb. As you are watching this remember what our savior did for us and what we can do because of him.
I am going to change the spelling of my last name to ( LURCHER ) because people are having a hard time pronouncing LOERTSCHER.
SEE PEOPLE NOT AS THEY ARE BUT AS THEY CAN BECOME
LOVE,
Elder Loertscher
if you have questions about dear elder.com ask my mom i would love to hear from each of you everyday.
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