Just got to main campus this morning for confernce. GUESS WHO I JUST RAN INTO??? DAVE!!!!
I can't get my pictures to upload right now but we took pics and I will for sure send them later and you can pass them on to everybody!!! I looked for him forever on Tuesday and Sunday and then just got here and ran into him! So happy. He says korean is hard but he is doing well. He just learned all about the tsunami season and acid rain yay!
So excited for conference. We will try to get online later this afternoon between sessions after lunch to finish our computer time and hopefully we can chat then so just please keep checking your emails! If it is too busy between sessions it will be right after afternoon session.
This week flew by again. Great moments and hardest ones yet too I think.
Sunday we had a devotional from Stephen B Allen. He did something really interesting and had the special musical number people perform their rendition of Joseph Smith's prayer 3 times no joke... they didn't know ahead of time and he just would talk a little then had them sing it again and before the third time he said to pray and ask God for a confirmation of the truth of the words. This is the unique message that we have to give to people. We need to know with conviction that Joseph smith saw God and Jesus and that the gospel of Jesus Christ is on the earth and he was a prophet. So I did. I said a quick prayer and asked to for a reconfirmation. It was an amazing thing. The first time and second time they re-sang the song we were all like what is this guy doing? These poor singers and such. It was odd, not going to lie. But then the third time I felt the Spirit so strongly. Like a shock in my body like 6 times throughout the song -- I got the chills without shuddering. It was a really neat experience that I won't soon forget.
Monday we got two new investigators. Maria and Adrian. They are both at TRC and so we don't know if they are members, less actives or investigators. Well, after this week I can surely say that they are not members, or else they are phenomenal actors. Their questions are amazing and crazy hard to answer and make us so motivated to find answers for them and to plan so hard. Maria was really hard to get to open up and she didn't reallly want to be there it felt like. She is from Venezuela studying english here at BYU and has Mormon roommates. In the first lesson we were brielfy talking about the Holy Ghost and how it brings feelings of peace. She brought up Nephi and Laban and how he was commanded to kill Laban and why would the Holy Ghost tell him that? She has read the first few parts of the BOM and we were like "ok, yeah that's like one expection haha that of course she brought up". We did our best to explain that it was a commandment from God and that the Holy Ghost tells us things from God. We got her to open up a little more though and she told us yesterday that she just doesn't feel like she needs to believe in the priesthood or the BOM because she is evangelical and believes that there are lots of prophets or inspired people on the earth. She has had a TON of great questions about the priesthood, the BOM and about miracles on the earth from people without the priesthood and we are really trying to just personalize the lessons to her so she can see the relevance. But, it's hard because we don't get through much of lesson because of all her great questions. But we have told her several times that we love her questions and will look for better answers and then get back to her. We bore strong testimonies last night and she said that she can see that we felt the power of God or the Spirit. It was pretty great that she said that and she too must have felt something. She is going to conference this morning in Salt Lake City with her roommates and I challenged her to write down 3 questions and ponder and pray and have a desire to listen and record thoughts and feelings so hopefully she does!!!! I have faith that her questions can be answered like mine were last April Conference, if she has the desire and intent. We need to do everything we can to strengthen her faith because she doesn't really have the kind of faith to act yet. She hasn't received an answer to her prayers yet because she doesn't have an intent to act if she does receive a confirmation. She doesn't really want to know if the BOM is true it seems. So we are praying for help with that.
Adrian is our other investigator. He is a soccer player at BYU. His family is LDS in peru and his sister teaches spanish at BYU. He has already taken all the lessons and has lessons each day with 8 companionships but he said yesterday that some of them are pretty bad teachers. They can't speak Spanish well or just teach the pamphlet and then talk about it. He said he can read it on his own and that he has and he believes in a lot, but he wants to have discussions and his questions answered not just be "taught at". He said it's not just that they can't speak Spanish well, it's that they aren't listenitng to his questions. So that was great to find out because now we know how to better reach him. He had 3 amazing questions yesterday:
- Why does President Monson have 2 counselors and 12 apostles when Jesus only had 12 apostles and we claim that this is the same gospel and restored church?
- Why did Joseph Smith receieve priesthood before he was baptized when that's not what we do today?
- Why did the apostles of Christ not give the priesthood to others if they knew they were going to die? Why didn't they share their precious gift?
The first two we sort of answered and said they were great questions and that we would find out more if he searched too (esp in conference for answers - he is also going with his sister.) The last question he asked I just went for and explained that the priesthood is only on the earth when there are peopple to listen and follow a prophet. Otherwise God takes it away and it's an Apostasy. The people were not prepared to listen and follow therefore, they could not have received the priesthood and hence they killed the Apostles. This is the same througout history and it's the way God works. Also they were not called by Christ to ordain anyone else bc God knew there needed to be an apostasy until the people were ready again. Adrian totally liked the answer and said "tenia sentido" or it makes sense. He thanked me and I felt awesome. I knew it wasn't all just me but I am glad that we could give him something so he trusts us.
He told us at the end that he was grateful that I was able to explain it and that that is what he hopes to gain from our conversations. I told him I felt the same way and that every time I teach I want to learn something too. It's not just us teaching AT him but a discussion where we should all come away edified and strengthened.
We said to both investigators that we don't know all the answers but we have faith that we can find some answers and that we can feel comfortable with the ones that we won't know in this life. Faith is KEY!!! Adrian said that he knows that the aspostle thing is being particular and that it isn't life shattering but his beef is that if this is Christ's church why isn't everything the same? This is really interesting to think about but for me it just comes down to God knows us in this time. The church is larger and we need certain things to be different.
I know God knows me. He knows my worries and how I always want to be prepared. I know that he is here for me and gave me these investigators so that I can feel prepared for the field where I know I will be asked these questions. He knows how we each learn. I am grateful for these challenging investigators. We are motivated to studfy harder and I def worked harder this week than last week.... It felt more like real missionary work.
Had my week 4 one on one Spanish evaluation last night with a teacher. I was nervous beforehand but I got to talk to him for awhile about the lessons we had just taught in Spanish and that helped me feel more comfortable. I answered 4 teaching questions in Spanish and it went well. He listened and took notes and told me at the end "bien hecho" like 10 times (good work) so that helped my confidence. It is hard to tell if my Spanish is improving always but, he said I could go to the field and communicate right now and he was impressed I used subjunctive in week 4, so yay!
More to come but here is the first (most of it) part. So stay tuned and please please try to be on later and I LOVE YOUUUUU! Talk to you later today after one of the conference sessions.
Her. Myers
Hi again,
Hi again,
I have always got more to say!!!
First off: nurf gun fight: yes it happened. Her albach;s mom sent mini ones and we loved it, even if it only lasted 5 mins it was epic and made us laugh. already planning plot to ambush my elders,
Tues devo:
The schwitzers. fav quotes:
- always be someone that Jesus can count as a soldier as described in 2 Tim 2:3
- hard things help you to have less fear for later, (sis schwitzer) said that after hard things you can replace fear with faith and be able to testify boldy to your children when you are going throuhg future trials. I hope that I can do this and I know my mission will help me to testify boldly throughout life. what a blessing.
- " the commandments are teh schoolmasters of exaltation" God knows how we learn, we llearn by doing and acting and following the commandments is how we learn and achieve exaltation. really cool insight for me
- savior carried his lamb, great imagery here, "pack the lamb" always remember this with others
Something that hit me after devo during district discussinon: like mom always says, we need to accept people for where they are at, everyone is at a diff stage in life and learning. Christ acccepts where we are at ALWAYS. Why would we not be expected to do the same. We need to love and build and uplift no matter where someone is at. It is our duty to follow Christ's example and he never turns us away or doesn't forgive us bc we aren't smart enough or humble enough. we can always count on him. be that person for soemone else. I am trying to do that.
Mint brownies at west campus! think of you each time mom, so delicicous. also ran in pouring rain last pday to eat at great harvest. so wroth it!!!!!!
Arm wrestled elder osgood and beat him. oh yeahhhhh all the elders in my distrcit were pretty much freaking out LOL,. Made me feel inlcuded and respected hahaha
LES AMO Mucho. until next week familia. you rock. tahnks for your examples and please keep up the "dear elder" letters. They are much appreaciated.
Hermana Myers
