Half way through the MTC!

Dear Family,

I love you all so much! I can feel your love and prayers each and everyday, and what a blessing that is. It was amazing to hear from you all this week, I absolutely love getting your letters, it brings a little piece of home with me on my mission. I am doing fantastic! The work here is going great, I am now at my happy halfway mark! The MTC is great, but I am so excited to be on the field in four weeks. Mom, thanks so much for the ties, they are awesome! I'm wearing one now actually :) and thanks for the banana bread that tastes amazing! The MTC is so empty now but today we will be getting 700 new missionaries! Crazy! And we will be getting 8 new Elders and 4 new Hermanas in our zone to make up for the loss of so many missionaries. I love my life as a missionary, I'm really getting used to the schedule and loving it. The blessings the Lord has in store for his worthy servants are unimaginable, he has blessed me so immensely I can't even explain it. I think about each of you every second of everyday and how important this gospel is in my life and how important it is in the lives of many. Dad, I thought about you a lot this week, and I just want you to know I love you so very much! You are such a great dad, I am constantly telling the Elderes in my district about how funny you are and your jokes are always being told by me. They think you're really funny, and I tell them that your awesome! :) This week has been splendid, my spanish is coming so much easier and I can really feel the Lord blessing me in my studies and in all I do. We are teaching a lesson today, our last lesson in ENGLISH! and next week the whole lesson will be in spanish. We will be teaching about the plan of salvation, and how lucky we are to know of this great plan and to have it. I often think forward to the time that we will all step back into the presence of our heavenly father and how excited we will all be! It's truly a great blessing. Yesterday at our Tues. Devotional we had Elder Pearson come and talk to us from the Seventy. He had many great things to say and I learned so much, and I feel much more fully prepared to go forth and serve my heavenly father from his words. So this week I have thought a lot about you all as i have said, my district and I watched a mormon message video about thanksgiving and it was so good, a quote that I got from it said this: "Because we see things so often, we SEE them less and less." That quote hit me like a ton of bricks, because that is exactly how i've felt since I've been here, I see things around me, I have loving people around me so often that too often I take no time to thank them and express gratitude for them and REALLY SEE them. I'm so thankful for each and everyone of you. You are all such a blessing, and I cannot emphasize that enough, you are my family, that my loving father in heaven sent me to earth with, you are children of our heavenly father, and He along with my self LOVE YOU! So much, it's undescribable. We should live in thanksgiving everyday, and I believe that if we do we will be SO blessed. I really realized how much I love to teach this amazing Gospel, I've felt the spirit in such great abundance I wonder how I ever went without it for so long in my life, I love carrying this message of happiness even though our investigators in the MTC are all mormon :) it still brings happiness. So I've recently began playing four square at gym, let me just tell you that is amazing, haha, I enjoy it so much and our zone pretty much dominates it. Don't worry about me, I am having the time of my life, and I am truly so thankful for this opportunity to serve.

Holli -
Sorry I didnt bring your email with me to the temple so I dont have it with me now, I just want to tell you CONGRATULATIONS! FELICITACIONES! I am sooooooo happy for you, I KNOW this is a blessing from the Lord, I know it! From the bottom of my heart! You will make an amazing mom, I love you so much and am so happy for you! I almost cried right then and there when I read your letter, we're not supposed to open our letters until 9:30 but something told me I should peak at it and when I did I was overwhelmed with happiness for you and Andrew. I've never prayed harder for you two (as well as the rest of my great familia!) as I have now. I have a feeling we will have a new baby boy in our family. And he (or she) is so lucky! I'm so happy for you Holli! I'm sorry to hear about the sickness, but like you said, on the brightside its a sign of a healthy pregnancy! Oh man, I am just so excited and happy to hear about that, please keep me informed and up to date! I Love you both so very much!

Well Familia, I know i said it a lot but I can't stress it enough, I LOVE YOU! So much! You all are the reason I keep pushing everyday, the reason I go through the bad, because in my head I see your loving smiling faces pushing me along.

Well I am about to begin my 5th week here in the MTC and its only been a month here and I feel as though I've learned more than ever before at my time here. I have learned more about myself, my relationships with people, the gospel and my Savior Jesus Christ. As a representative of Him, I feel so blessed to carry his name, to have his message and to be able to spread the amazing news of the gospel and His atonement to everyone. If we truly put our faith, our trust and our EVERYTHING onto the savior, he will handle it. He might not take it from us right away, he might just strenghthen us so that we can be able to carry our burdens. I have a solid testimony of our savior's atoning sacrifice on our behalf. As He suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane and Hung on the Cross of Calvary, he had US in mind, every single one of us. He knew the sacrifice he was making, and he did it for us, as long as we would trust and believe on his name. I urge you to trust and believe our savior. If you do, I have NO DOUBT whatsoever in my mind that your lives will be enriched with happiness and love towards all.

Keep staying strong family! Remember I love you, remember the Lord loves you,

Love forever and for always, Elder Falor

P.S. Grandma Long! Happy Birthday! I love you so much! Are you keeping an eye on grandpa? You better because he's a troublemaker :) I love you both! I hope you have an amazing day grandma! You are such an inspiration and example to me! Keep staying faithful and close to our Heavenly Father! I love you both! Give each other a hug for me!

P.S.S Mom you mentioned something about a thanksgiving box eh? Haha, that sounds amazing, I don't know of anything I would want specifically, I trust you that you know what I like, and I would LOVE anything you put in it. Also, If you could send me that Articles of Faith book in it, and in my christmas package could you send me that other journal just in case? That would be splendid! I love you so much! You are a wonderful mother! Keep staying strong, you sound like you are doing it already but I know you can keep it up!