Relying on the lord

This week was pretty good! before I start my letter I'll tell everyone the big news, last Sunday I got appointed Zone Leader (Kind of). The old zone leaders left yesterday, but our branch president wasn't able to come to the MTC during general conference so he told us we would start being zone leaders one saturday since he couldn't be there and we had to check out the old zone leaders district. It was pretty scary and I was terrified at first, but it actually isn't super difficult. I've been Zone leader of Branch 46 for four days, but it feels almost the same as being District leader, just calm down, help everyone as much as you can, try to resolve conflicts as fast as you can, and make sure you know everyone. My favorite part of General Conference (Other than Elder Ballard talk about my dad's mission!) was the quote from Abraham Lincoln. In order to win a man to your cause, you must first make him think you are a sincere friend. I guess leading people isn't always about being someone's friend, but if you know them as a friend it makes it so much easier to help them solve their problems.

Anyways, just like last P-day I'll start with the big plates

Tuesday

So, everything started slowing down. This is the first day i really felt in the groove, which might have been bad because felt a little like I was taking it easy. David Baxton of the 70 spoke at the devotional, but i'll talk more about that later.We played basketball for gym which was a lot of fun and I got a letter from Travis (which was superrr exciting). I wore a crazy tie and everybody loved it, but while i was singing in the choir the camera focused on me for what seemed like 100 years. Everybody made fun of me, and I was a little bit embarrassed, but I can't say that i hated the attention. I really love the choir director. We sang come follow me more about that later though!

Wednesday

Nothing really crazy happened  sadly. I fell asleep in class and i felt super bad about it. I realized that my French is improving though so that's good! We had a mock lesson with our teacher pretending to be an investigator and i felt okay about it, but not as great as I would have liked. I did realize that I need to start losing myself in the work more though!

Thursday

Thursday was amazing, We had TRC which is basically talking to real members and teaching them a lesson in French. The first person we taught (his name was Michael strangely enough) i didn't really understand. He had gone on his mission to Toulouse, but other than that Elder Baldwin did most of the talking (he's pretty good at french). The second lesson we had though was with a lady named sister Woods. She had served a spanish speaking mission, but the MTC didn't need any Spanish volunteers. She wanted to volunteer so badly that she taught herself French. She was amazing and her French wasn't that much better than me and Elder Balwin's (we all spoke like small children), but i felt the spirit really strongly and so I LOVED it! we also shot each other with hornets, which are basically folded up paper shot with rubber bands. It was a lot of fun, but Im pretty sure i have several welts. It reminds me that as much as the spirit oozes out of every corner of the MTC, we're still 18 year old boys who just need to have fun every now and then. We keep each in check though, so there's fun, but we also keep each other in check.

Friday

Friday was also amazing. The first part of the day was a blur, but at the end we did mock street contacting. For one of the scenarios I got to choose what kind of investigators i wanted to be. I chose to be a Frenchman with a girlfriend and a baby. It was really funny, but it was also a little bit sad. After I pretended the teacher told us that we would actually meet a lot of people that had children with girlfriend. It was kind of a sobering moment. It was also sad because we combined with the West-Indies District who were also the zone leaders. I knew it was probably the last time I would really get to talk to them since they would be busy packing up before they left on Monday. It was an awesome day, but it also made me realize that France is going to be full of people who need the gospel, but have a lot of problems and that many of the people I know here in the MTC who are amazing I might never get to see again.

Saturday and Sunday

General Conference all day, it was spiritual, inspired, and amazing, but i don't have time to talk about it all. If you didn't watch it, watch it. It was one of the best ones ever! At the end on Sunday we had a devotional by VOCAL POINT! They were amazing and I'm sure everyone already knows who they are (BYU's amazing singing group). And that about wraps it up

SPIRITUAL STUFF!

Alrighty, spiritually this week was pretty fulfilling, but i don't think anyone could be in the MTC and not think so.

1- Elder Baxters talk on the Godhead was amazing and it actually really cleared up a lot of questions i had. I know that in Europe it will be a tough topic to talk about and so I'm really glad to get as much information on it as possible.

2- Choir. We sang Come Follow Me. I LOVE THE CHOIR DIRECTOR! he's amazing. He always puts a spiritual message to every song we sing and for this one he talked about missionaries singing this song. As much as it sounds like Christ is the narrator, he's not. The song is about missionaries bringing others unto Christ and it is absolutely 100% sweetness to hear about missionary's when you're a full time missionary. I wish i could share the choir directors message as well as he told me, but all i can say is that i know that Christ calls missionaries to bring others to him.

3- Being a leader means relying on the Lord. As difficult as i thought it would be, the lord makes it easy. I kept hearing during conference to cast your burdens on the lord because his burden is easy and his yolk is light. It really is true. regardless of what we do or how hard it is, we can accomplish anything through the lord. I thought that waking up earlier for Sunday meetings or being in charge of a lot of people would be a trial, but really it's been a blessing and I know that through the lord I can only grow stronger and help more people. Missionaries always come home better people than they left, but I'm starting to realize that it's because they don't seek to change themselves, or at least if they do seek to change themselves then it's only so that they can help others. Maybe that's the secret to life, just try to help others and maybe by doing that we help ourselves. Love you guys, keep writing because I've never thought a small piece of paper or a tiny email with two sentences could ever make me so happy.

Love,

Elder Michael Beneamato Bruno