The MTC has been so much fun and I am so ready to start teaching in Australia. I leave this coming Monday I am sooo excited but I am also a little nervous. For the 4th of July we got the opportunity to listen to a speaker who talked about the sacrifices of people in the war and how some of them are still willing to take extra time to attend sacrament meetings. They had people come in and play bagpipes and carrying flags from all the countries that have missionaries. It was so cool and afterward we got to see the fireworks from the BYU football stadium (the Willard fireworks are 100 times better though). On Sunday we were given the chance to attend a devotional and listen to Jenny Oaks Baker(Dallin H Oaks Daughter) play the violin and she was so good. She also had her children all of which were under 10 and they played violin, cello, and piano. It was so amazing and the five year old girl playing the piano could probably play better than me. They have such an incredible family.

This last week it has been amazing to see how much I've grown spiritually. I have been continuing to memorize scriptures and so far I have about 15 memorized. A lot of the missionaries in my residence hall have seen some of the quick sketches that I do and they think they are pretty cool so whenever I get a little free time, I draw them some pictures. The Provo temple is so cool and it was a lot like the inside of the Ogden temple. We only got to go once because it is closed till after we leave but I was so glad to have had the chance to go inside that one. We have been teaching a couple (fake)investigators and they are going to great except for the ones that my teachers play because they make it so much harder. I feel like I am getting so ready to enter the mission field. One of the couples in the MTC presidency used to be mission presidents in Perth and they told us about some of the cool things there like the giant tarantulas and some of the poisonous animals that we will probably want to avoid. They said that some missionaries would catch the spiders and pin them onto the wall and give them names. I thought it was pretty funny.

Elder Butts