Name sign

Hello all!! 1 month down 23 to go! Another week has flown by here at the mtc! I miss you all. So my progressing investiagtors are doing great! Elder Hearne and i learned so much these past few weeks about how to teach better. Our teachers have told us that we improved so much! Even thought we still have a long way to go. I feel that as I get there i will be so sketched to start teaching real, deaf investigators and members. Cant wait though! So we taught Trc and a couple we taught gave me my first sign name. So you do the sign for scotland but for my sign name you change the handshape to an S, apparently stotts sounds scottish , i like it. So the branch president called Elder Sandkamp and i to be the new zone leaders, so we will start with that sunday. I dont know really what to expect. So Chad lewis and his wife came to speak to us for our sunday devotional. It was so good. Chad lewis has done much good in the famous nfl world. He helped wounded soldiers climb all the way to the top of mount timpanogas. He said that some of the soldiers couldnt make it so they gave him and one other nfl star their fake legs to carry it to the top for them. He told som really cool other stories. Apparently he translated to superbowl into chinese recently and didnt know all the terms for football so he used some of his mission language, " I testify that Tom Brady is throwing true passes" it was pretty funny. He also brought Taysom hill and Taysom talked about how he met with some apostles who were in a booth at a byu game afew weeks ago. They told him that if the lord neded you down there playing then youd be there. He related it to saying that the lord needs us here on missions. He also said that no amount of screaming fans cheering for you can come close to any of the experiences he had on the mission field. I look forward to what is to come. For the tuesday devotional Elder Erich W. Kopiskhe spoke to us, it was a good talk. We sang i feel my saviors love and that was a good experience as well. I can testify that the lord really has his hands in missionary work. I have seen miracles happen here. Big and small.  The leg carrying reminds me of you mom. 

I love and miss you all,

Elder Stotts

elders in my district all wore my ties for a day

Ran into Jimmy Marshall
a friend from home

Time just literally flies here!!

Hello family! Seriously it feels like last friday was just yesterday. Time just literally flies here. We went to the temple last week at 2:00 and it was a very great experience as always. I love the temple and miss working there. I want to work there as i grow older and older. We had trc on saturday and taught members about charity. The devotional sunday was good. It was by an mtc administrator. His son russel has down syndrome and he had him talk to us a few times. Great kid. I liked the talk because he had a few converts come up and share their conversion story. He taught us to always focus on how the investigator is doing and progressing and not necessarily how we are. Because people are naturally selfish and always worry about how they are doing and teaching. Teaching our investigators this past week went so well!!! We committed one to be baptized. We really have improved our teaching techniques this past week. Tuesday night Devotional was by L. Whitney Clayton on the 70 presidency. I enjoyed his talk as well, and we sang joseph smith's first prayer. That was such an amazing piece. 

I hope all is well and pray for you guys every night

Elder Stotts

Mom's note: 

We emailed with Grayson and asked him to tell us what an average day is like in the MTC

this is what he replied 

So, i sleep very well every night now because i pray for it every night. We wake up 6:30 shower eat then are at class by 7:40, sometimes we teach an invesitgator at 7:45, then we study and learn ASL things till lunch, then we eat lunch in the cafeteria or get sack lunches depending on the day. Then we go to the gym and play basketball. I am getting very good at basketball. Good at 3 pointers now. Then we study and maybe teach an investigator again, till 5:10 then we have dinner and elder Hearne and i get the mail. I look forward to that every day and hope i will get mail from you guys.... but haven't this week, haha, Maria sent me a package with a bunch of candy so please tell her thanks. Then we have p.s. c.s. and L.s. Personal companion and language study till 9:30.  Obviously not every day is the same. We have service in the morning on tuesdays and thursdays. WE are THE POO CREW. We like cleaning toilets.

The Poo Crew

Time Flys when you serve

Hello Family!

So i know how to say elder in russian, Turkish, Danish, Slovak, and Icelandic! It is so crazy to think that in a matter of a few weeks everyone here will be out around the world all fulfilling the same purpose. Thank you all for all the letters again! I love hearing form you all! Keep them coming! This week literally just flew by. I feel like today should still be monday. I loved all the talks from General conference. I think i took more notes than i ever have before. There was so much stuff i learned that i can apply to my mission and to my life after that! I enjoyed hearing from elder Haynie. And i know the 3 new apostles were called by god! Elder Hearne and I sang in the choir again for the tuesday night devotional. We sang Sweet Hour of Prayer. It was very great again. So the speaker tuesday night was the relief society General President, sister Burton and her Husband. They were great speakers. So Last Sunday night devotional BYU Vocal Point came! I was so stoked when I saw on the screen that they were coming! I loved listening to them before my mission. They sang Lord I Would Follow Thee, All I Need to Know, Infant Lowly Infant Holy, and my favorite by them and im sure everyone else, Nearer my God to Thee. It was a spiritual experience and im not afraid to admit that i did cry several times. My district is so great and differerent, that we all mesh together very well. For some weird reason people think im a funny person and they laugh at my jokes. We taught our investigators this week and that was pretty tuff. Tomorrow we will do Trc and i do not know what to expect. The elders speaking English that came in on the 23rd with us left this week! They probably will have a baptism by the time we get out! We are nearly halfway there! i can not wait to go to arizona to find teach and baptize. It rained this week and i was stoked to finally see rain. The view from my classroom area is so awesome. We can see all the pretty mountains and the Y and some of the Byu Campus

Love you all!

Elder Stotts

My District

Some of the Elders in my district on temple day

Elder Stott, Elder Stotts, and Elder Scott

I met Sister Osumo
She is the younger sister of one of Courtney's companions
in the Philippines. Small world

sometimes elders hide food in the dorm vents. We found this.
I ate the micorwave popcorn

The Missionary Training Center is Great!

HOLA family! Words can not even express how i have felt this past week. The mtc is still great! Everyone here is great! The food is so scrumptious and you can eat as much as you want... not that i do. Thank you all so much for all the letters! It is great getting a little bit of home here at the mtc! I got your package mom! So turns out that the mtc emailed me the wrong address apparently it is unit 105 not 103. I still got the letters but a few days after they arrived b/c they were sitting in the wrong mailbox. haha thats okay though. So since i didnt get a letter till wednesday of this week (b/c it was in the wrong mailbox) i opened my package in the dorm and my whole district started singing happy birthday to me and started cheering super loud! (i thought it was christmas) haha . So this sunday we watched a devotional by Elder bendar that can ONLY be seen in the mtc. They had warned us prior that it would be life changing. And sure enough it was. It was about being Converted in Christ. When something happens to you and you naturally expect everybody to feel bad for you, instead what you do is turn outward in service and such and love others. So that is my goal for you guys (as well as myself) Become converted in Christ as you go about your week. So monday we got to watch the broadcast of Elder Scott's funeral. That was also very interesting because they talked alot about how much he served and was faithful despite the circumstances he was in, that to me had alot to do with Bendars devotional about being truly converted. Guess what dad. I sang in the choir!! me and 3 others in my district sang in the choir, we sung Jesus Once of Humble Birth. we sang in the tenor section and wow was that powerful. The Constructor was a man who has lead the motab choir before so that was cool.They recorded the choir and put it up on the big screen for everybody to watch so they wouldnt have to turn around. They told us not to look at the screen even if we saw ourselves on it. So i saw in the corner of my eye, while we were singing, my companion on the screen, which meant i was on it! One of the other 3 elders who was singing with me said just us 4 were on the screen for like 15 seconds. That was pretty cool. If you can somehow watch that broadcast then do, because youll see me singing. If any of you reading this are preparing for a mission, SING IN THE CHOIR. It is such a great experience.The devotional tuesday was by a guy who is in the presidency of the seventy in brazil, Elder Costa. It was crazy, as we were practicing singing before, a worker was walking around with some kind of metal detector checking under chairs and such. SO guess what!! My companion and i had 3 lessons with our investigator this past week, and we committed her to baptism! But we found out that she is actually a teacher of ours. haha oh well she did a great job of acting. Now we will teach 2 new "investigators" both are "deaf" and one was never taught asl so this week when we teach him we will have to act EVERYTING out as we teach him. So this week everyone i mean EVERYONE in my district got sick. I had a really bad sore throat and a cold and am just about over it now.It is so cool seeing the new missionaries come in. I feel like that was just me. Theres so much that happens here it is so hard to remember everything as we go about our days. OH YEAH, we went to the temple last friday at like 2:00pm. It was a great experience and that temple is beautiful. We will go again today.

I love all of you guys and wish you a happy week

Love,

Elder Stotts

I made it to the MTC

All I can say is WOW. The mtc is so awesome! Everyone here is super friendly! So i guess since ive only been here a day and a half ill start from the beginning. So lori and brad took me and their kids, steven, amber, and megan to olive garden. Ive never been there and i loved it! great breadsticks. (Ethan and Char that is where you will go when you go on your mission to continue the tradition that Courtney and i started!) So then they dropped me off and I cried a little! Then my host Elder mcceary ( i think) going to japan, he took me to get my nametags and they cut the pocket out on my suit. Then i got my room key and debit card and meal card. On your nametag is an orangeish dot and you keep that on your first day, so everyone knows you are new! "They all say Welcome to the MTC!!" I cant wait to welcome new missionaries in the coming weeks. So he took me to my dorm and i was the last one there. Which meant i got the last top bunk! Dropped all my stuff off and then went to my first class. My class is all the way on the 5th floor in the 18m building. Which means i will hopefully have raging calves by the time i leave. I had to do some gym rules and etiquitte and such on the computer then went into class to begin! WOW i was mind blown. I know from everyone that has served that they throw you right into SYL (speak your language). It all stared coming back to me. I met my copmanion Elder Hearne (silent e) He is from valencia CA. Hes a Great guy and has such a great spirit about him! There are 6 of us elders and 4 sister. ELder Turchard is from menifee ca and is going to Fort worth TX. Elder Hess is from sacramento area and going to seattle. Elder gordon is from Denton TX and is going to Anaheim. Elder Sandkamp is from Minnesota and is going to missiouri (He knows our cousin Steven from efy. Small world). MY teachers are Brother featherstone (the deaf guy i texted from back home, he has a cochlear but doenst always wear it) and sister Pendelton (like Camp Pendelton) They are very prepared to teach how to serve to lord.We went to a big meeting and met the Mission president here. Good stuff. We as district are so close and i am learning to love everyone!. It truly is like a large efy here except the part where you get to sit in classes basically all day, but i love it! THe food is for the masses. Ethan, it is kind of like as plentiful as provo efy was but as tasty as logan efy was. It is so weird for me being here and knowing absolutley nobody. Ive always been places where i know at least one person but here that is different! So there was a sister form menifee on the plane with me going to russia after the mtc. There are alot of Russina Missionarie. I learned how to say Elder in russian and am obeseed with how cool it is. That language would be intense to learn. So yesterday we learned how to pray in sign and i made a goal to be an excellent prayer person by next wednesday. So we meet our first investigator yesterday and we will teach her tomorrow! please pray for elder Hearne and I! Oh i forgot to mention that every building here looks the same basically. So the first night we were supposed to meet our Zone leaders, and elder Hearne and I got lost.... for like 20 minutes and we couldnt find our building. Then we came across Elder Truchard and Hess teaching this investigator from madagascar who was supposed to meet missionaries but they were not there yet so they taught her! Then we all got lost together and finally made it to the classromm but couldnt find anyone cause they left without us for the mtc tour. So we asked some peple who work there and they didnt know so they suggested we wait and see ift hey would return. So we did. Turns out the room we were supposed to be in was written on the white board. What a bunch of dinguses we were! But they werent even at that room because we were so late. Anyways this is so great and i know this is what im supposed to be doing despite how hard it is and not being able to sleep much because i am so mind blown!!! I love you all and wish you all luck this next week. May the force be with you all. (Oh yeah we all decided as a district 31d we would dress up as missionaries for halloween!)

With love,

Elder Stotts