Labas Everyone!!Ahh - I'm so close to going to Lithuania! 10 days from today (Friday)! Sorry because P-day was on Thursday, and that was Thanksgiving, we couldn't write emails. Hence I am writing today (Friday)Well, to start off I am singing in a choir of 40 missionaries on the fourth of December at a Christmas dinner. It will be with the branch presidencies and also an apostle is coming as well I believe! So that was really cool to be selected for that!So this last week, seven and a half weeks into the MTC, we finally learned how to tell time! There is a reason for that! Just like everything in Lithuanian. Time is really, really hard to do. Our teacher still doesn't fully understand how people do it in Lithuania, but he does know most of it! Numbers are one of the hardest things to do in Lithuanian! Weird right? It's because there are Masculine and Feminine numbers, any number in the teens changes to a different case, 51 for some reason is different (there are a lot of things in Lithuanian that just happen for some reason), and they have to be changed into different cases, to match the verb/whatever its describing. Just know that it's really weird! haha!On Thanksgiving we did a lot of service as you can imagine! As an MTC we packed about 357,900 meals for a charity program! It was the most the MTC has ever done before! It was awesome knowing that we are going to be blessing so many families! Also, Elder Oaks came and spoke to us and we listened to his family all play their instruments. So it was a good Thanksgiving! Elder Oaks gave a great talk about gratitude and the origin of it!
Something I learned was actually during the closing hymn "Because I have been given much." At one part in the song it talks about how we are so grateful because we have been given much, so we will give back. For some reason I just thought about it and realized that we are given so many gifts. However, a lot of the time the gifts we are given... are given to us so we can "share" that gift with others. It reminded me of a Mormon Message I had seen earlier in the week with a mom and her two kids. The mom's sister was in town and she wanted to get stuff done earlier in the day so she could meet with her sister! However, it seemed like random things she hadn't planned kept "popping up", like having to babysit her neighbors daughter or make dinner for a family who just had a new born baby. In the end she wasn't able to meet with her sister. She was really sad about it at first, but then began to realize how much good she had done. She had babysat a child, while her mom went to the doctor and was having a hard time. She had helped a brand new family have food when money was scarce, etc. ... in the end the message was "you never know how much good you do in this world". You bless peoples lives "all the time" in ways you never imagine. So just keep being you! Remember who are, because "who you are" is a blessing to so many others, you just dont realize it! I saw a really cool quote that ties in with this... "Don't feel bad if people only remember you when they need you, feel privileged that you are like a candle that comes to their mind when there is darkness."Sorry this kind of a long email, but I promise this is my last spiritual thought here. My Branch President said something really cool about the spirit this week. He talked about how when you "feel the spirit" it's like the Heavenly Father giving you a pat on the back saying "atta boy" you are on the right track. So anytime you feel the spirit, think about how awesome it was for you to feel that, and then feel good because Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are proud of you!I love you all!! Next P-day is my last P-day here and then I will be flying to Lithuania!! Ahh, too excited!! Oh, and I'm also very excited it's "officially Christmas time". It's my favorite time of year!Love,Vyresnysis Kurtis
