MTC Week #2

​Hey everyone! Pictures are still down so there wont be any again for this week from my camera. But this one is of my absolute favorite people ever; my District: Right to left (Tallman, LaRose, Celis, Price, Siania, Hagman, Gurnsey, Schoenfeld, and Bowler) :( Thanks for all the letters!! and especially the package from the Marshalls!!! best thing so far. A typical day in the MTC goes as follows: 6:00 wake up, shower, get dressed. 7:10 breakfast 7:40 Personal study time 9:00 classroom instruction 12:10 lunch 1:00 gym 2:15 classroom instruction 5:15 Dinner 6:00 daily planning and companionship study 7:45 teach investigators 9:00 personal study time 10:15 Quiet time 10:30 lights out. It was really exhausting the first couple of days, but now time seems to fly by!!

SO, on Friday night we got news that we were going to be teaching an actual new investigator! Miranda is 22 and from Florida, who was raised as a baptist, but followed a Mormon boy to BYU and wants to learn more! We have taught three lessons with her so far and have our last one tonight. She said that she was introduced to the Book of Mormon through her classes at BYU but only really read it for the exams. She is in her Junior year at BYU and the boy she followed is on a mission right now. The missionary stopped writing her because he wanted to have a marriage and relationship with women who had the same beliefs as he did. Heartbroken by this, she didn't reject Mormons immediately, but had the desire to know what we believe and to know if it really is true. We were her first lesson and we began by teaching her about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through Joseph Smith. We taught her that Christ brought his gospel to earth and set up a church. This church, which taught the fullness of His Gospel, was taken from the Earth because of its wickedness. She then asked "Is that church still gone today?" we then explained to her that God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith and gave him power to bring Christ's FULL gospel back to earth. Having just the bible doesn't give us the full access to the teachings of the Savior. This is why the Book of Mormon is so important in our religion. The Book of Mormon, along with the Bible, offer us the complete restored truth of God's plan for each of us. We read her Moroni 10:3-5 and asked her if she was willing to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know of the teachings. Miranda, with a determination bound to gain her favor with the Lord, said yes and thanked us for our teachings. This first lesson, I immediately felt the Savior's love for her and felt her sting desire to know. She put her complete trust in us which is crucial when meeting someone new. Our conversations flowed really naturally and it felt like a conversation instead of a lesson. For her second lesson, we asked if she had read anything from the B.o.M. and she told us that she had read the entire chapter of Moroni 10. She got really excited and shared with us verse 32 where it talks of Christ's grace and that through it, we are saved and then said she though that the bible teaches things just like that. So, through her willingness to read even 30 verses of scripture, she already has seen that connection between the Bible and BoM. As Elder Tallman and I prepare to teach Miranda, we have been taught to really look at her through God's eyes and to focus on what we feel she really needs to know of. Wholly relying on Him, We taught her about God's Plan of Salvation for each of us. Because of her strong belief about the Atonement of Christ, we wanted to focus on how the Atonement is the only way in which we could live with God again. But, since she was raised baptist, she had no idea at all of what life was like before we came to earth. Our lesson time was spent with her asking questions and expressing concerns about the life before and after this life. In the life before, we know that we lived with God and knew our families, when we came to Earth, we forgot of him and his teachings and were to find a way back to him. But because of sin and death, we could never do this. That is why God sent his son Jesus Christ to pay for our sins and to overcome death. And it is only through faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and following his commandments to the end that we can access the power of the Atonement and live with God again. Miranda said that a lot of what we taught her put to ease some of the concerns that she had with what she was taught in the baptist church. We invited her to write down any questions about God's plan and to continue to read the BoM, and that she would receive answers to her questions. As we taught her, she said that she had just gotten the chills (aka FELT THE SPIRIT) and we told her that what she was feeling was the Holy Ghost confirming the truth of our message to her. We always go a little overtime in our lesson and the Sister Missionaries who teach her after us really get mad that we take time out of their lesson, but we know that she is so so ready to accept. Our third lesson with her was planned to emphasize how we can access the Atonement and what it does for us. We started the lesson by having her pray, which was a bigger step than we then realized, because she said that she doesn't even pray in front of people if her professor asks her to. We then asked her if she had any questions about the Plan of Salvation and she said no! It was a small miracle for Miranda to accept new and deep information and revelation so quickly! We then dove right into the Atonement and really made it personal to her. As she told us how the Lord has helped her, the spirit in the room just grew stronger and stronger. She expressed concern about how sometimes she feels that she's saved and other times she gets scared that she's not saved. She wanted to know how you can know that you are saved. We taught her that by exercising faith in Christ and His Atonement, Repenting and giving up our sins, being baptized, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end, we know that the full blessings of the atonement would be available, which includes Christ taking your sins upon Himself. She said that she really liked how it was simple enough to understand and follow but she wondered if she needed to be baptized again. We told her that yes, she did. Her previous baptism was not wrong, or evil, there was just no power to connect it to the atonement, which is what baptism by priesthood power and authority does. This is the power that was given to Joseph Smith by angles of God. I quietly asked her if she was willing to follow Jesus Christ and be baptized by priesthood authority. Then, without any other questions about her previous baptism, she said that she needed some time to sincerely and completely think about it. She told us that the only thing she was scared of was her family. She knows that her family will not be pleased with her decision, but she knows that its right. She felt afraid and scared of change. Elder Tallman and I then expressed our love and support that we felt for her. We testified that as she comes closer to Christ, her sorrows and pains will be taken from her and she will feel a whole, complete, 100% hapiness and support from all of her friends, us, the church, and then asked her to sincerely pray and think about this change. She confidently told us that she has a strong desire to know and that she will ask God to know for herself. Our answer comes tonight at about7:45!! I cannot wait to hear from her.

On Sunday, we gathered as missionaries and were privileged to hear from Sister Sheri Dew, who is a big name with Deseret Book or something. One thing that I learner from her advice to us was that seen or unseen, angels surround and support us in our cause. We then had the opportunity to watch an address given to the missionaries by Elder Bednar that is apparently only shown in the MTC called Characteristics of Christ. He taught us that the times that  the natural man tends to worry or feel bad about himself are the times that the Savior shows unyielding love for others. As representatives of Jesus Christ, we missionaries must forget ourselves in the service of others to truly become converted to Christ and His teachings. On Tuesdays here in the MTC, there is a General Authority who comes to speak to the missionaries, and everyone has an opportunity to join the MTC choir and sing for this person. I showed up and the song we were going to sing was "Be Still My Soul" After rehearsing the song, we found out that we were going to be privileged to hear from the new President of the Twelve, President Russel M. Nelson!!!! It was so cool to sing to him and to hear what he had to sat. My favorite part of what he told us was that we are here to prepare the world for the second coming. I have a testimony that the modern prophets and apostles of this day speak divine truth to us and I love my experiences at the MTC so far. Love and miss all of you! please Write!