Week 4- Fireworks and Countdowns

Hej everyone!!

This week has been a blast! Saturday night there was a "religious freedom" devotional and we got to watch the Stadium of Fire (a yearly concert and firework show at the BYU Football Stadium) fireworks after the devo, which was pretty cool. We had to watch from the inside of a building so that was kind of a bummer! But with 3,300 missionaries at the MTC.... 

On the 4th we popped open a bottle of Martinelli's to celebrate, but left the real festivities for the 5th. 

On the 5th  we had all the Swedes over and went to town on chips, dip and food.  It's a good time here, every night when class is done at 9 pm, we all come back to the residence and shoot hoops on our Nerf hoop, eat snacks and listen to MoTab. (Mormon Tabernacle, approved missionary music)

As for the language, I can speak faster and can articulate my thoughts better and better every day.  

Nearly every lesson I teach now is at least 20 minutes, starting with a few scriptures I want to talk about. I'm feeling good about being able to contribute to a lesson when I get to Sweden, but as for non-church words, I'm gonna be struggling. Ha, ha! You pretty much learn just gospel/scripture vocab. Oh well, that'll come with time. 

The countdown is on! We get our travel plans tomorrow and leave in 10 days for Sweden. I'm so stoked to have a change of scenery and actually get to the work. I feel like I'm plateauing a bit here with my language progression,  I need the language immersion. 

My testimony grows each day. We spend a decent amount of time each day studying the scriptures and lessons to teach. My thought for this week comes from a scripture I read. It's John 14:27 and it says "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid". Every time I get anxious, or nervous, or bummed out, I read this scripture and picture Christ saying this to me. Christ has experienced every bad feeling/thing we go through and he can truly empathize with each and every one of us. Think about that. 

Love you all! I appreciate the letters and emails and LOVE hearing from all of you! 

-Aldste Gordon

Celebratory Martinellis toast to Independence Day

Snacks with the Swedes

My roomie, Matt Jenson, happened to bump into me at the Provo Temple. :-)

Fireworks from MTC grounds