Last MTC email!

This is the last MTC email...

I am so excited for Corey and the mission in the Philippines he is about to embark on. He is so so excited and so ready to serve and he knows exactly where his heart is and what he should be doing:) He is ready!

Here are a few district pictures that was taken of District B

 *Funny picture 

Here's a good one:)

Well family the time has come. Two days and counting until liftoff to the land of the Philippines. We'll be leaving early in the morning of the 23rd for our flights, and then after hours of flying the real work and real adventure will begin.Then comes the first Jeepney ride, the first lesson, the first conversation with a real Filipino. I"m not afraid. but I have one desire, which is this to be everything god knows I can be. This is the time for my mission, and I'm going to make every moment  count, don't ever doubt that. I believe in success, and that if we do everything we can then there will be happiness and success. I won't become discouraged I won't fear because our Heavenly Father is with us through and through, as long as we stand with  him all will be well. I know that if we do all we can and stay close to god he will respect our efforts. I'm feeling really good Mom and Dad don't worry about me, I'm not even worried about me. I'm happy I'm healthy I'm feeling strong and I really hope you are too.  There's a short video by president Hinckley called the war in Heaven, please watch it. The reality is that we've already chosen victory we've already chosen to win before this life began, there's no reason to make the choice more than once. There is no reason to doubt, Mormon 9:25, Alma 56:47. One of our teachers had us read Alma 26 with him, it is the missionary chapter.
 Last week Elder Johnston and I gave the best lesson we have ever given, everything went perfectly, we taught to our investigators needs we followed promptings we felt the spirit stronger than we had the entire time at the MTC, and we knew that our Heavenly Father had helped us. It felt amazing. Just before that we had taught some other lessons, one of them was to a lady who grew up in the Philippines she told us we had funny accents, and laughed at us a lot, which we didn't mind, we're both pretty funny, but at the end of the lesson she told us that she wasn't laughing at us, it's part of the culture of the people in Philippines to laugh a lot, if they're a little uncomfortable they'll usually just burst out laughing, at least thats what she said. You know the most incredible thing about the Philippines is that the people there are the happiest people in the world and they're are also some of the poorest, it goes to show what matters most. I think everyone could take a real lesson from the people of Philippines. Another thing about filipino's is that to them it's rude not to accept an invitation, so sometimes they'll say yes to baptism or a commitment when they really don't want to do it. Which causes some problems, our teacher told us that we should explain that we are there for them and not for us and that every decision they make is up to them.
Everyone in our district knows that the language we'll be difficult and there's going to be some tough weeks, when we first get there. Our teacher Brother Mauzey gave us a challenge, the challenge is to try to be the missionary you want to be at the end of your mission on the first day of your mission. Whatever you see yourself being at the end be it at the beginning. I had some doubts about how much I can really give the first few weeks in the field, one of the other elders and I were talking about, he told me he had the same question. But a friend of his told him that even if you can't speak the language well or contribute to a lesson you  can still always serve others. If we do all we can god will always respect our efforts.
One of the sisters in our district was playing volleyball with us during gym time and broke her thumb. My companion rapped it for her and then she went to the MTC clinic. Turns our she has to wait ten weeks before she can go to the Philippines, and if Elder Johnston hadn't of wrapped her finger it could of ended up being even longer.
Thanks for the package food is always good. I'm about half way packed right now, I'm going to finish tonight, then there's Sunday and then we're off. I'll let you know as soon as possible how everything goes. Good luck to all of you in everything you do, talk to you soon.

Elder Creager

.....and we got a suprise second email:)

Got a little more time so here's some more.
The whole purpose of the gospel is to find happiness and peace. And the real way to peace is through the Atonement. Through the Atonement we can be cleansed from anything, every regret every disappointment every pain every weakness every sorrow anything that has caused us disappointment or guilt can be cleansed by the healing power of the atonement. Each day as we begin and end a day we can ask forgiveness of our mistakes and of the weakness and sin that causes misfortune, we can literally cast our burdens upon the lord and be freed from them. Each day is a new clean slate because of the atonement. Alma 42:24 only the truly penitent can be saved. D&C 131:6. Without the Atonement there is no hope, no joy, no happiness. There's a CD of a book called the infinite Atonement down in my room, if you get a chance listen to it.
The Atonement is central to our religion, without it literally nothing works. Christ could have chosen to die at anytime but he suffered through everything in the event of Crucifixion even after he had suffered every feeling of sadness, pain, and misery the world had or ever would endure. To add to the pain Christ had never sinned he had never felt guilt or misery, which adds a whole other amount to how much he really did for us.
Even with the Atonement being essential to the existence of our religion, and our purpose on earth it seems to be the least understood of almost any doctrine, this is almost certainly because the adversary himself desires us to live this life lonely and alone, separated from the joy and power of an infinite atonement. Sometimes we don't truly understand everything it can really do for us. Let's not let him dampen the power of the atonement or our belief in this power. We don't walk this life alone we walk side by side with the savior he is are master, our friend, our teacher, he's the life and the light of all things. Every thing that compelith to believe in god and do good is of god.
If you have a chance watch "only a stonecutter" its an inspiring story of a man who was a stoncutter for the salt lake temple and carve the words "Holiness to the lord the house of the lord" in gold on the side. Dad I think you'll especially like it.
It makes me ask the question I'm I really doing all I can?
Will I look back on this moment from eternity and have no regrets?
Will I be able to stand before god and say I gave it all, every opportunity every moment, every chance, and I did it for you?
One of the gems of teaching is to ask soul searching questions, there is nothing better than a question that searches the soul. Whats interesting is that the best teachers the wisest the greatest and most spiritual, teach through questions, a question prompts others to think and to teach themselves while the teacher is just a director of the learning. It's interesting that in the our purpose statement for missionary work, it says "help others come unto Christ" it does not say teach. It is my strong belief and conviction that we as missionaries help the spirit to teach others. He does the teaching we our but an aid to his great work. Through faith miracles are wrought, through faith the gifts of the spirit our obtained, (Moroni 10) Wo be to those who doubt miracles, miracles cease because of unbelief. I believe in miracles.
I know I'm not perfect but I do my best,l I want you to know I love you, and when I think back on you and the experience's we've had I'm inspired and lifted to "be something more"
Alma 26 really is a great chapter, lets glory in god just as Ammon. I believe in all of you, I hope we all believe in greatness, I believe each of you our great.
One other video I think its called "spreading doubt" by presidnt Hinckley is also very powerful, his video's our the best I've seen. They've really helped me.
We'll I've written a lot, I've shared how I fill about some things. One of my biggest desires is for all of you to be as happy as you can possibly be. So believe in yourselves and if there's anything I can do for you if there's a question you have let me know. We're not always promised happiness but are promised "peace in this life" which is to me pure happiness.
Let's enjoy life keep on keepin on, and have a good time. Until next time. And hoping I've helped you and wanting you to know I'm happy.
Your boy:
Elder Corey James Creager

We're excited for him! As you can tell he has such a strong testimony of the gospel and his mission. I'm remembering his desire and making it mine.

"I have one desire, which is this to be everything god knows I can be"

We love you so much Corey! Good luck with everything:)

Voice of the Spirit/Flight Plan:)

Here we go  only 10 days left! We received a few more pictures from the Elder that I would like to share with you.

Here are the classy MTC rooms he has been living in...and he Loves them:)

Companion picture with Elder Johnston

Typical Corey picture right;)

"Another week at the MTC has past, and in ten days district 16b will take off from the Salt Lake airport to Portland, and then from Portland to the land of Tokyo. Then from Tokyo to the Philippines. 
Mom and Dad I know things are going to be a lot different then they are here, and I can't tell you exactly how I'll react to them, but one' things for sure its not going to be easy. Maybe some people might be afraid to fly out to the other side of the world, and it would be a lie to tell you that I'm not nervous, because I am a little nervous, but I'm not afraid. 
I've heard that missionaries can call there families from the airport so I'll let you know when I find out more about that. If I can call it will be between 5:00 A.M. and 8:00 A.M. 
Thanks for sending letters its always great to get mail. Tell Andy to keep running, it's cool that he's doing Cross Country, my best high school memories come from cross county meets, football games and bon fires, so don't miss out on them. The bon fire is right before the Homecoming game they might of already had it, Andy will know about it for sure. One other thing, you know that when you loose your lunch at the end of a race you gave it your all. I hope you have fun with cross country Andy and keep getting better at it, give the team a hello for me. 
I hope everything else is going good at home. Its great to hear about people getting mission calls, so let me know when they do. Sorry I don't have much to write, this week the weeks go so fast and then you can hardly remember whats happened. If you have time you should watch the Mormon message called "The voice of the spirit." One thing is for sure without we can't do much.
On Thursday of this week our district tried out for a musical number, they have one at every devotional, we tried out in front of the MTC presidents wife which was interesting, I played the piano, a sister played violin and a few others sang, its a great song, called Savor redeemer. They already had a musical number for this Sunday but not for the next, so we might be playing then. I forgot how much I like playing the piano, its a lot of fun.
The real works about to come. The MTC is pretty easy, but in ten days we'll be in the Philippines. I love being a missionary, there's no greater opportunity or responsibility, keep letting me know whats going on at home. I really like to hear about what each of you are doing. Thanks again for the time you take to write me."

Elder Creager 


Here is the voice of the spirit video Corey was talking about. It is so true that "without (it) we can't do much" The spirit tells us so much in our lives and is something that we can always count on and cling too. I know that throughout my life it has been one of the few stable things that has kept me going and focused on what is important. I know that Corey has learned so much about the spirit. He know that the spirit is the teacher in all things and I know that he will trust it in all that he does.

17 Days

Guess what! He's half way done being a the MTC! wow who would have thought that would come and go so fast.

Here is official missionary badge, doesn't that look great? He's doing so good and is getting more and more excited everyday to serve the people of the Philippines. Here is this weeks email.

We've got 17 days left before our district leaves. The district who got here two weeks before us leaves tomorrow. Then we'll be the oldest district in our zone which is awesome. Yesterday our district was on some computers doing language study, and a sister told me she new Amy, turns out it was Malarie Hanson whos going to the San Jose California mission.
Weeks go by so fast here that sometimes its hard to remember what happened. I got your letter and saw that Calebs (Corey's best friend from Roy) going to Dallas let him know that thats great. He'll probably be in the MTC for about two weeks, and then he'll be out in the field, teaching the gospel.
 One of the elders in our room got a package yesterday there was some food and a article about the Philippines. It turns out that Manila is having some serious flooding because of typhoons, the philippines gets hit with about 20 bad ones a year, so the pilipinos are used to it, but they still cause a lot of damage. I honestly can't wait for a typhoon, call me crazy but I think there awesome. Because of the Typhoons missionaries end up doing a lot of service during typhoon season, serving others is what I'm most excited for we'll be able use what we are learning for real situations.
I'll have my flight plan by next week so I'll let you know what the plan is. There's still a lot of learning to do here, but it will be great to get out in the field and get to work.

Our temple day is here again, and then another Sunday with a devotional. Last Sunday we had a speaker come who is the president of the Philippines MTC. He talked about the building and what it was like to serve there as president. It's always great to hear about the Philippines.
One thing about the MTC that we've all noticed is that is completely separates you from the outside world, the only information we get from the outside usually come in letter or articles. I think it helps us focus on the work, but sometimes I wonder if anything news happened since we've been in here.
We should have new zone leaders this Sunday so everyone's interested in who they'll be. I'm still trying to figure our how to send pictures, its not all that easy here, but my companion and I are working on it.
Thanks for the letters and sorry if I haven't answered some of your questions, I forget to take your letters with me to the lab so I forget what you've asked. If you've got questions it would be great if you sent them in an email. Things our going great, hope its the same for all of you. Until next week

Elder Creager

We finally got some pictures from the Elder! He always talks about how he loves going to the temple so here are a few from that.

 Sisters in his district

Elders in the district

Just like Corey, I know that the Temple is not only amazing, it's the place we can go to find peace. It's place we can go to serve others in a way that you can't anyway else. I'm so glad that he gets to experience the blessings of the Temple know and that he is loving every minute of it.

#3 Sacrifice

I can't even believe it! He's been out for almost half of the time spent in the MTC. In about 3 weeks he will be going here:)

map view

landscape view

What use to be an at least 9 week amount of time spent in the MTC has now been cut down to 6! Can you even believe that these young missionaries are able to learn so much in so little time? The spirit is truly with these missionaries. In the next few emails we will probably learn about his flight plan. As Elder Creager said, "It's like a mini mission call" so that will be super exciting for him. Here's what was going on this past week.

Well day 17 of the MTC has begun! The MTC experience for district 16b is almost halfway over. Here's some crazy stuff that's happened since last week.
Elder Neil Anderson the apostle came and spoke to us on the Tuesday night devotional at the Marriott center. Gave a great talk that was of course on missionary work, the title of the talk was love and sacrifice heres a few quick lines form his talk. "we sacrifice what we love, and love the things we sacrifice for", "you might never know what impact what you say has on people" As missionaries sometimes we never see the results of the work we do, and sometimes its that way in life to. Its just a witness to me that you always do your best because you never know what impact your words might have on the lives of others. At the end of the talk, the MTC presidency told us to stay in our seats because there was a thunderstorm outside with some lightning. So for about twenty minutes we sat inside the marriott center and sung hymns. Elder Anderson got up and started shaking some hands. Some sisters in our district were one person off from shaking his hand, and some other sisters in our district got to shake his hand. It was really cool. Now it is just a handshake but an apostle is a special witness of Jesus Christ there are only a few of those on the entire earth.  After Elder Anderson shook some hands they let us leave, it was still raining outside so we got pretty soaked on the walk back to the MTC.
Our building here at the MTC is very old, there going to be tearing it down in a few weeks, so we might have to move buildings, which could be interesting, there were some workers at the res. yesterday talking some measurements but hopefully we're out of here before they tear down the building. (That way we won't have to switch buildings) We got a new district in this week, and the districts who have been here 4 weeks got there flight plans. Time goes by so fast here.
The language is actually getting much easier. I was struggling a bit this last week everyone in our district was. But after some prayer and some lessons on sentence organization I'm feeling really good about it. Something that I never understood until now is that sentences are organized differently in other languages, memorizing words isn't all that hard but forming sentences is what takes a little more work. I"m shooting for memorizing  40-50 words a day, we'll see how it goes.
I'm looking forward to the Temple, we go every Saturday as a zone, the temple is really a place where we can learn. It's one of my favorite times of the week.

One more thing, In the time my companion and I have been here we've seen two of the Elders who our in "The District" and our now returned missionaries, both of them work at the MTC. People might not recognize them outside the MTC but there famous inside it.
I hope I'm writing some things that will help you. The MTC is something you can't understand unless you've been here. Tell Grandpa Kelsey thanks for sending a me a dear elder, mail is always great. *(shout out to Grandpa)

Until next week:
Your son and your brother

Elder Creager

"we sacrifice what we love, and love the things we sacrifice for", "you might never know what impact what you say has on people"

Work hard Elder! You will have an impact on others without even knowing it...You've already impacted us:) 

#2 Realization

He's been out a full week! Look at how fast the time is flying. He's singing, playing the piano, shooting hoops, learning Tagalog and turning into a spiritual giant:)

Graduation May 2013

Well, first full week of the MTC is over and it flew by. Last Tuesday I actually went and sung in the choir for the Tuesday night devotionals. Elder Johnston and I aren't big fans of singing but our whole district was doing it so we went along. Was actually a cool experience we didn't sound very good (Elder Johnston and I) but it was great to be a part of it. The speaker at the devotional was a seventy who had been been president over some Filipino missions, he talked about missionary work and about being connected with our purpose which is to bring others to Christ through faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, the gifts of the holy ghost and enduring to the end. As missionaries it becomes easy to look at what your mission can do for you, but in reality a mission is all about others. Missionaries are a tool that brings others to the gospel.
The weeks and days here fly by so quickly that its difficult to find free time. And when there is free time I usually like to spend it relaxing or shooting basket on our res. Nerf hoop. So sorry for not sending you letters. I wrote one but you probably haven't got it yet so expect to get it soon. I've got a load of pictures just for you mom, I've just got to figure out how to put them on, so they should send with this email I'm hoping, if not next time for sure.
On Sunday night we also had a devotional, by someone with the last name sikehema can't remember his first name. He played in the miracle bowl with Jim Mcmann, and in a couple of pro bowls, in the NFL, and is now a news anchor for NBC and has covered several Olympics with NBC. But he said that none of the experiences he had through sports or media ever matched up to the experience of serving a mission. He talked about one special experience in Kansas City (where he served) He and his companion we're going to the sports store to buy some Tennis Balls, and the store owner asked them why they were both named elder. That started a conversation that led to lessons and then baptism. This man (his name was Bob) and Sikehema became good friends, they're still friends this day and it has been 30 years since they first met. pretty sweet story. What was even cooler is that bob spoke at the devotional to, so you had a missionary and someone he had helped convert speaking together 30 years after it all happened it was great.
The Tagalog is coming slowly. Were doing our best to get as far ahead in the language as possible. One of our teachers said that it took him 4 months living in the country to be able to speak comfortably with people and 8 months before he felt like he could speak to anyone. So there is definitely a lot of hard work ahead. But we put are trust in god, because we know he can do all things if we will believe. The greatest lesson we've learned so far is that we can not under any circumstance rely on ourselves, we can not teach without gods help the spirit has to be with us. D&C 42:14 "if ye receive not the spirit ye shall not teach" We don't say what we want to say we say what Heavenly Father would say we act as he would. Throughout my day I often ask myself what would the savior do? How would he act? How would he respond?
It has been said that its hard to have a negative attitude when your life is centered on Christ, and boy is that ever true. Give it a try sometime, after all it has always been said and always will be said that we should follow the example of Jesus Christ.
I may sound like I'm perfect or I"m doing fantastic (which is true) but I still have much to learn, I know the direction I should go, I know the fathers will and this is the time to do it. Here' a story of a realization.
About Tuesday night I started to get a sore throat which went from, soreness to a cough through the next three days(don't worry mom now i"m fine) I went to the clinic and got some medicine to take, but I never really understood why I got sick, it made it difficult to focus on the work and was sort of a distraction, i asked myself why would our Father in Heaven let me get sick in the MTC? I know its really just a small and minor thing but why, I felt like it hindered my growth for a few days. But I think that being a little sick helped come to a realization of purpose, it slowed me down a little, took me from a focus on fun,(which is just fine) and brought me to some spirituality. If you have time look up the Mormon message by the apostle Christoferson that talks about the little current bush and the Gardner you should be able to find it, do it for a family home evening or something. "God love's us enough that he is willing to cut us down"
One last thing before we rap it up. Dad you'd be happy to know that I played the piano for our district meeting. They asked for someone to play and I wasn't going to, but the other elders in district sold me out. So I played. Till next time, Your son, your brother, your missionary. Love you always, and always yours.

Elder Corey James Creager

"God love's us enough that he is willing to cut us down" What a great statement that is. Heavenly father always knows what is best for us! He will challenge us and push us in our lives but only to help us grow. One of my favorite quotes that is such a great life message relates to what Elder Creager was saying here.

We have to trust God! He know's what he is doing and he will never let us fall! Just as it says in Alma 38:5 "As much as ye put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, troubles and afflictions" Cling to God and everything will work out:)

There you go week number two in the MTC sounds pretty successful! Corey is growing and learning so much so quickly that we can hardly keep up with him!

p.s: We ended up not receiving any pictures this week...and have yet to. So hopefully sometime soon we will have some pictures up for you!