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July 11, 2025 - Week 2

 Hey everyone! 

    We made it to the second P-day at the MTC! 😤 It’s been an amazing week and a half so far. I wrote my email last week before we actually did anything for the fourth, so I’ll add some pictures of it to the end of the email. I saw mi amigo Elder Lindahl many times this week, which is always amazing. I also saw an awesome Lightning McQueen Camaro out my classroom window and I'll add that to the end too.
    Something I want to note first...the food. I can’t tell if the food is getting better or if my standards are just lowering because some of this stuff is actually pretty good.
    Shout out to my Bro in Law, Andrew, for introducing me to the Bring Sally Up pushup challenge song like 4 years ago. The group and I have been starting every day off with the challenge, and we’re staying longer into the song every day. The goal is to finish the whole 3 minutes and 30 seconds by the time we leave the MTC on August 5th. We’re at 1 minute and 50 seconds right now.
    I gave my companion a priesthood blessing on Monday night and it was an awesome spiritual experience between both of us. We’ve had a very busy week with classes and haven’t been able to get any solid companion studies in or any personal studies for the past 4 days. 
    On Wednesday morning, my companion and I had a helping others appointment, which is basically just a small lesson that we have to teach to someone who is given a “scenario” for us to teach them about. We went in there with close to no planning, but I felt the spirit while I was teaching, so that’s what’s important. I just hope that spirit carried with me can be felt by the people I’m teaching.
    We got to greet the new greenies entering the MTC on Wednesday (I know we’re still greenies). That night, we gave all la Hermanas in our district priesthood blessings, which was a really cool experience. We stayed in our class after it ended at 9:00 at night and each one of us gave one of the sisters a blessing. That same night when the Elders and I got back to the dorm, we all felt pretty homesick but also grateful for priesthood authority and the work we get to do in bringing others closer to Christ. We all just started tearing up at those thoughts mixed with some music that Elder Gasaway was playing, and we all ended up coming together in a huddle for 30 minutes, each of us saying a separate and unique prayer out loud one after another in the circle. That was one of the most spiritual experiences I’ve ever had in my life. I was literally shaking from the love I felt from Jesus Christ during the whole thing. 
    Last thing to note is I have now completed my second day of immersion in Spanish class. and I have to say it is so hard. I get frustrated when I’m trying to listen and can’t comprehend much of what is being said, but I know that with constant effort and faith in Jesus Christ, I will start to understand the language soon enough. I wish I could’ve written some of this email in Spanish, but I’m not quite at that level yet haha. I can leave you with a short personal testimony though. 
    Yo se que Dios nos ama y somos sus hijos. La Santa Biblia y el Libro de Mormón son las verdaderas palabras de Dios. Digo estas cosas en el nombre de Jesucristo amén. 
    I’ll see you guys next week! Thank you for following along if you’re reading up to this point in the email. I love all y’all. 
-Élder Collins


Celebrating the start of Spanish immersion 😨









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