We have had a great Sunday.  We started the day meeting with Elder Falabella of the Seventy to learn more about the Perpetual Education Fund and Self-Reliance.  As it turns out the Student loan is only part of the Self Reliance initiative throughout the world.  So we will have a full plate when we get to our mission.

We had our departure devotional tonight which was a nice devotional with a lot of RA Ra Ra for the missionaries and it is impossible not to get caught up in it.  We love the Spirit of The MTC and the spirit of the missionaries from all over the world.  We sat next to a young Elder Chen and Sister Tsia from Taiwan who were from the same ward in a town called  North Taichung.  They came in together and I think I embarrassed them when I asked if they were married.  They both said "no no no" but they were friends from the same ward.  She happens to be the Sister who took our picture in front of the World Map. They are both called to the Canada Toronto Mandarin Mission.  We told them that they made us home sick for our Chinese Daughter in law.  They laughed and we had an immediate connection. 

 
We have had a great week and half at the MTC.  We also saw my second cousin several times.  This is Elder Brandon Ellis from Colorado.  His dad is my cousin Todd Ellis and he is the grandson of Gerry Ellis.  Elder Ellis is headed to Argentina so we have the Spanish connection as well.

Our bags are packed and we are ready to fly out tomorrow afternoon.  We have had to send a box home that made us overweight. 

Tuesday night we had the weekly devotional with Elder Larry Lawrence of the Seventy and his wife.  He spoke of the ways Satan temps us to get off the right path.  I knew all of the ways that he mentioned, but I was especially touched by the way he put it.  He said that any decision that we make that pulls us away from light and peace is directed by Satan and pulls us away from our Father in Heaven. Some of the feelings that he mentioned were: anger, frustration, fear, contention, depression, impatience, and anxiety.  I thought how each of those have affected me and my family over the years.  I can recollect many occasions that if I had waited and acted out of love instead of falling prey to one of these emotions, I could have had a much better outcome.  All of these can be overcome by faith, and understanding and accepting the gift of the atonement of the Savior. The feeling I had was an amazing feeling of peace and light as I listened to his lecture. 
One of the main things that struck me is how Satan works to destroy families by guiding us into a state of contention, anger, and dishonesty and not being completely forthcoming with our spouses.  He indicated that a tool used many times is sarcasm.  Sarcasm little by little tears down a persons self-esteem and causes depression, anger and distrust.  He counseled us to never say anything about our spouse that would indicate that they are less then a perfect son or daughter of God.  It is so easy to be degrading or cutting without really meaning it and not even thinking about the damage we are doing to spouse or child. 

This will probably be the last post until we are in Chile.  We are so excited to be getting to the field.  The only obstacle we have now is the long ride on a metal tube with a major explosion going on outside at 30,000 feet in the air.  I prefer to call it a flying cattle car.  WISH US LUCK.