Week 4

Week 4
January 15, 2018

 Hey everyone! It's been a pretty great week once again! And on Tuesday it makes a full month of being gone... or you could say I'm 1/24 of the way done! Anyways, it's been great and I'll tell you about my week!

Started Jan 9th! The day started with Elder Webb and I teaching 4 lessons on the Plan of Salvation, in Portuguese... which is still a grind but the language is definitely coming along. Anyways, we teach these lessons called TRC lessons, which is teaching in Portuguese to a member who speaks Portuguese but they're from Utah. The one guy said we taught with the spirit more than anyone he had ever had and we were ready for the field! Although, most of our success is probably because of Elder Webb! And the night of the 9th we had a Devotional and the speaker was Elder Bednar!! That was so good, and he's an amazing speaker. So that was a great day. 

The following day was a Wednesday, and every Wednesday, the MTC gets new missionaries. A cool thing, since I've been here for a decent amount of time, is that now I get to host new Missionaries that come. That means that I pick them up from their families and take them to their room, and classroom. So that was pretty fun, and our District got 5 new missionaries, 2 Elders and 3 Sisters!  Gym time was good, but I got kicked out of basketball for the day because I blocked a kids shot off the backboard and they thought that I touched the backboard (if you touch the net, rim, or backboard you get kicked out of the gym for the day, but, I was able to sweet talk my way out of being kicked out, hahah.)  

The next day nothing eventful at all happened... so instead I'll tell you what people have gotten to know me as... 

1) The guy who always has a plate of cantaloupe with every meal. 
2) The guy who has Blue Powerade with every meal. 
3) The guy who is Canadian. (That's a given.) 
4) The guy who can quote all the original Spider-man movies at any scene, and loves Tobey Maguire. 
5) "That Canadian baller". 
6) The Raptors fan.
7) The guy who knows all the movies/songs. 
8) There's definitely more but I'll stop here.  

Anyways, the next day was Saturday/Jan 13th, I decided that I'm only gonna eat salads and healthy stuff from now till the end of the mish. But Saturday started when in class we facetime'd our teachers mother-in-law and taught her a lesson, which was pretty cool. But at lunch that day an event happened... One of my roomates Elder Angeles, (he's from the Dominican Republic which is sweet!) anyways, after lunch he put around 5 squirts of handsanitzer in his hand and was gonna go shake this girl's hand, because he thought that she was cute... that plan majorly backfired. Instead, one of his Spanish friends came up and gave him a huge high-five that sent the sanitizer everywhere... including the eyes of the girl that he thought was cute. HAHAHAH, he rushed to grab paper towels and stuff but she never accepted his apology. On the way back to our room Elder Angeles said, "Maybe that was karma, and she deserved it", and everything that he says is 10x funnier because of his accent. Oh.. but the worst part came at dinner, this salad I had was the worst thing I ever ate. The worst no doubt. The sauce was wack, the rice wasn't cooked, the lettuce tasted poisoned but I ate it cause I'm on the grind. 

It was my first Sunday not being a Zone-Leader which was kinda nice because I didn't have 5 hours of continuous church and meetings aha. Although, I did have to teach a lesson on Christ-like attributes. Anyways, last night we had a Devotional by these two guys who went to Germany a long time ago and since their missions, they became best friends. They taught on how to be a good companion, and traits you can work on to be a good companion. 

And then today which has been SO great!!!! Woke up, and went to the Temple which was crazy because when we went to the Temple we saw Elder Taylor's (my roomate from Arizona)  girlfriend, and they didn't even plan it. But after that I saw the Petersons! That was so awesome and definitely a highlight of my week! SO awesome, and probably my last goodbye to all my friends from home. Anyways they all looked so great and it was awesome to see them! 

I wanna challenge everyone who read this letter to think of one Christ-like attribute and focus on it this upcoming week! The Spirit is so strong here, and once again I know I'm doing exactly what I should be doing at this stage in my life.
If my pics from this week don't work, click on this link: 

Anyways Thanks for all the love and support, it really means a lot! I love getting letters and emails throughout the week so thanks everyone! 

Elder out 

Mamba out



Elder Layton and his MTC Roommates at the Provo Temple.
Elder Freeman, Elder Angeles, Elder Taylor, Elder Throolin & Elder Layton




A video from Elder Layton at the Temple.



 Parks with the Peterson Family (minus Heather) who were visiting Provo from Las Vegas!





Elder Layton and his good friend, Saige Peterson.  






 Elder Webb, Elder Layton & Elder Taylor





Addresses: 

Elder Parks Stewart Layton
Portugal Porto Mission
Provo Missionary Training Center
2005 N 900 East, 
Unit #157
Provo, UT. 
United States 
84602


--------------------------------

After January 29, 2018

Elder Parks Stewart Layton
Portugal Porto Mission
Rua de Amália de Luazes, No 23, Sala 1
4200-052 Porto
Portugal 






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