This work is truely amazing.

So, this week has been amazingly amazing. But before I can get to that... I have some yelling to do at some people...

First of all... Windy, Zerr, Nik and Nick. Are you all dead? What happened at the skydiving adventure?! No one ever told me.

Also, I must admit that I'm upset at the BYU/MTC people. You see, the MTC is currently at above maximum capacity. There are apparently more people in the MTC now then at any other time EVER!!! Which is cool, but really kind of annoying. They are doing construction on the place so that there will be more class rooms. But the place they are doing it is where the one and ONLY printer is. So, I'm not allowed to print e-mails today... so... my message might be somewhat short. Sorry.

Basically everyone else is doing great... thanks. I got a whole lot of letters this week... So thank you again. I can never let you know how much a brief message is. I love those short little letters from DearElder.com. They bring a lot of joy to me when I get them. So thank you.

Well, this week has been full of... fasting. It started off on Fast Sunday... then I fasted on Tuesday for my own purposes... then we did a district fast on Wednesday. The district fast was a fast of words. For the entire day we did not speak a word of English. Believe you me... HARD! But so worth it. It is interesting how spending one day without using only Spanish makes you absorbed in Spanish. I started thinking in Spanish now. It's crazy. It is still not coming fast enough and I'm always lost when our teachers are talking a million miles a second. But I can get across more now.

We have a teaching appointment every week with a fluent Spanish Speaker... it's called the TRC. This week we had no clue what kind of person we were going to teach. Normally we have an old teaching record to go off of. But this week was totally random. It turned out she was Buddhist. It was really frustrating not being able to say everything we wanted. But my companion and I relied on the Spirit and actually got across our message. It took a lot of faith and relying upon each other and the Spirit. We basically taught 3 minutes of the PMG lesson plan and 40 minutes with the Spirit's lesson plan. (PS... PMG is Preach My Gospel. It is our study manual that we learn everything from).

Oh, seriously this week has been amazing. I know I already said it... but it was. We had President Uchtdorf come to talk to us. That is 3 apostles since Ive been here. Elder Dallin H. Oaks, Quintin L. Cook and Dieter F Uchtdorf. It looks like when I sing in the choir we get an apostle. So I guess next week I'm singing again. It really is amazing.

President Uchtdorf taught with such power. It was amazing the things that he seems to know about every person. We all left that meeting with a million things that we need to work on. We all were beaten into humility, encouraged and then blessed with an apostles blessing. It was incredible. I don't even know what else to say. You really just need to have been there.

Well, I'm working hard as ever. I'm getting my Spanish scriptures ready. It is a lot harder then it sounds because I cant always understand what the scripture is saying... so it's hard to study with them. Oh, and I got my hair cut for the first time. Most people go in with longer hair and come out looking like a military student. I was lucky... my hair is short, but not too short. It is basically the same as when I left. So, I'm happy. Oh, and another thing about my hair... it parts itself now. I don't even have to comb it :)

Well, I don't really know what else to say and the thing hasn't even started flashing. Oh, I know what Ill tell you all:

So, we started a rule about 2-3 weeks ago. If you say the words "guy, dude, man" or their name without the name "Elder, Hermana, Hermano" before it... it's 10 push ups. In the first day I ended up doing about 140...ish. To let you know what kind of change this has brought... when I came here, I could only do 20 push ups max. Last night I was able to 50 push ups. It was pretty sweat! My room works out every night. Ive really been trying to not put on weight... and Ive been doing pretty good. My pants that I wear to the temple were actually like falling off today. It was pretty funny.

Well, I don't know what else to really say. But I just want to tell you all that I love you and think about you all often. You are all in my prayers daily. I also want to tell you how ready I am to be doing the Lord's work. I know I'm here for the right reason and I love doing it. I cant wait till I can actually touch people's lives with the love that comes from our Father in Heaven and from our savior Jesus Christ. This work is truly amazing... and truly brings out the best in people.

Everyone stay safe and don't do anything I wouldn't do.

All my love,
Elder Tommy Steinkuhler

PS Just so everyone knows... the Blog idea was my sister Windy's idea... I had no part in it. Thank her. And... Thank you Windy. You're amazing.