Christmas in the MTC

Umm, this week has been amazing. We've been so blessed. On Sunday we were supposed to have this lesson as a district, but our District Leader forgot to prepare a lesson, so we just had a testimony meeting about the Atonement. It was just an incredible experience. I absolutely love my district. Their wonderful testimonies are all so powerful. Everyone has a different background. We are all so different, but we all come together around the Savior, and we can all strengthen each other in our testimonies. 

We had another testimony meeting on Monday, too, only with a couple other districts. Someone got up and bore their testimony, and mentioned that something I had said the day before touched them. It was a wonderful feeling, knowing that I had helped someone who already had such an incredible testimony to feel the Atonement just that little bit deeper. I love it!

Our investigators are doing pretty well. For our newer investigator Eduardo we decided to try singing, so Hermana Amendola sang How Great Thou Art in Spanish to him. It was pretty much amazing. I was definitely crying a lot!! He's still difficult, but I think he's coming closer. 

Jason has been pretty hesitant about the whole baptism thing. When we invited him to be baptized, he said yes, but wouldn't commit to a date. So in our next lesson (which was totally different from any other lesson we've had so far in that we had some lesson planned but a lot of it stemmed from answering questions he had/issues that came up with specific scriptures I had recently read in personal study time) when we asked him again to be baptized, he was even more hesitant. 

So then I was prompted to share Mosiah 18:8-12, and I had him read it, and as he read it, the Spirit was so strong, and after he finished, I asked him how he felt, and he said really good, and I asked him if he would be willing to be baptized, and with the biggest smile on his face, he said yes, and committed to being baptized on the 15th of January. We promised him we'd help him be ready for that, and that we knew God was so happy for him! It was just wonderful. ^_^

So we had this TRC thing on Friday. (Training Resource Center). Basically we just go and give lessons to members. It was definitely a learning day for me and my companion. Earlier that day I learned that I've been saying "God loves himself" instead of "God loves you." >_> So that was awkward. And my companion accidentally said that Jesus Christ was her son, instead of her brother, and that the Savior called twelve hungry apostles, instead of 12 men as apostles. 

But it was a really good experience. The people we talked to were both quite old, and both so sweet and kind. They weren't super strict about speaking Spanish either, so that put less pressure on us. I'm so proud of my companion. She's doing so well! She can contribute a LOT to the lesson without even using notes. :) She's basically the coolest ever.

I don't remember if I told you this before, but the other day we played Mario Kart. XD It was basically awesome. It was our P-day, and we were supposed to exercise, but we can't go into the main gym on our pday, so we decided to run laps around our dorm hallways... but that was boring so we played Mario Kart live and "threw banana peels" at each other, and got stars and ran super fast, and then when we got hit we would slow down and spin around a bit. It probably sounds lame but it was so funny. We were all laughing so hard it was quite difficult to run.

We're doing a "Secret Santa" thing in our district. Our District Leader calls it "Chris Kringle." I guess that's what they call secret santa in Australia. We'll be opening those later today!

So with DearElder, before you hit send, copy and paste the message somewhere else. Then if you don't get an email back immediately after you send it, paste your message back in and try again until you get an email saying it sent. :) That'd be awesome.

BTW, if my spelling is terrible, it's okay. I seriously cannot spell anymore. Spanish is corrupting me. :) But my Spanish is coming along, I think. I'm getting better at conversing and expressing what I want to say. The MTC is so weird. OH I saw that one Elder from our ward. I cannot for the life of me remember his name but I saw him on Wednesday. I also saw Elder Dean (Rachelle's brother). It was super fantastic.

The Christmas Devo this morning with Elder Nelson was fantastic. :) Basically, 3 Nephi 5:13 is going to be my new theme, and he told us to become bffs with the Ward Mission Leader and the Ward Family History Consultant. He said that we should have the WML FILL our schedules. (Love you Dad!!) :) He also thanked all the families of us, teh missionaries. :) So the Apostle thanked you for loving me. :)

Oh and last night we caroled around our dorm. :) It was super fun, but I definitely miss singing with you all!! (I'm definitely glad I've been trying to learn the alto part for a lot of these songs!)

I'm so glad to be out here. I love you all. I hope you are all doing well and loving each other and staying strong.

--Hermana Harris

Week 2 MTC Hurrah for Israel!

I included some pics from the MTC drop off day. Hopefully we will get some from Sister Harris soon!

So our investigator Jason committed to baptism! Unfortunately we're starting over with him, apparently, so we're meeting with him for the "first time" tomorrow. We also met our new new new investigator, Eduardo, yesterday. He's so much more difficult. He gets super distracted, and won't even look at us half the time. He just sits there making random comments and scratching his leg and looking at the wall or his fingernails. He also speaks SUPER FAST. I can barely understand him, and I've been trying to learn Spanish for years... so it's hard for the two of us. We've been praying about ways to help him feel the spirit. It's hard when you're bearing your soul to someone about how important the gospel is to you and they won't even look at you when you talk. I think we need to get to know him better before he'll really pay attention.

Sunday was amazing. We get to watch Music and the Spoken Word, and it's always so amazing. This week was about Hal Halverson/ the Candy Bomber. I actually have a book about him from my Childrens Lit class, so I had already heard his whole story. Since I read it, I truly respected him and wanted to meet him. After re-hearing his story, and feeling the story all over again, I was feeling very close to him. Then he showed up! I instantly started weeping. For me, it was a moment where I caught a glimpse of the emotions I will feel in a much more important meeting.

I am so grateful for the early members of the church. We watched the Joseph Smith movie, and I was humbled so much. I cannot even imagine going through that. I am so grateful for the prophet Joseph Smith. What a truly incredible, humble servant of the Lord.

I love singing Called to Serve here. We sang it today in devotional. It was incredible. They put the lyrics up on the huge screens at the front. I mean, I already knew the words, but the last line of the chorus, "Called to serve our King" was on the screen by itself, and as I read it and heard it I felt it deep within my soul. I'm so grateful for this calling I have been given. I only hope I can be more worthy of being His servant.

On Sunday Elaine S Dalton spoke to us for Relief Society. She said that by April of this next year, there will be 2000 sisters at the MTC. 2000!! That's insane! We're going to be training the new ones. I forget who said it, but they said that we will be the ones setting the tone for this new era of missionary work. The new flood of missionaries will be looking to US to set the pace. I definitely don't feel ready yet!

I've learned that I need to become the message. I need to truly know it so that the gospel will just be part of me. The truth will emanate (sorry, I don't think that's spelled correctly) from my soul. I'll definitely need this, seeing as my Spanish is still struggling a lot.

"Smile. Be happy, because that will change people's hearts." -Elaine S Dalton. She also said, "Stand in front of your mirror and tell yourself, 'Heavenly Father loves me, and today I will stand up for Him, even in my smile.' "

"Hell is where a man meets the man he could have become." -Hermano Law (who is Jason as our investigator) (But he got it from somewhere else.)

Well, I have to go now. I'll hopefully finally be able to write you all that I wanted to. I love you all! Stay safe!!

The Adventure Begins!

 

Life is crazy!! So basically the first day was a whirlwind. Actually... basically every day feels like it's all one day. The other Hermanas in our district are Hermana Amendola, my companion, and Hermanas Glauser and Auten. They're all so awesome.  Hermana Amendola is pretty fantabulous though. She's part Italian and absolutely gorgeous. We get along really well. She has the most beautiful voice ever. I try to not be jealous. XD

We like to quote the same movies and stuff, so it's super fun. We also learn a lot from each other during companion study. She has a wonderful testimony of the gospel. The Elders in our group are Elder Tanner, Elder Sharkey, Elder Dougal, Elder Mason, Elder Bosse (The District Leader and only foreigner, an Australian), Elder Garcia, Elder Lovell, and Elder Staten. (Elder Bosse looks a bit like Thomas Cooper mixed with Paul. It's kinda weird.) We've all had varying degrees of Spanish lessons, so it's interesting that way. Hermana Amendola is completely new to Spanish, but she's doing amazingly well. She's giving prayers and bearing her testimony and everything. I'm incredibly impressed.

We've taught a few lessons so far. Three, to be specific. Our Progressing Investigator is Jason. He's from Chile and his wife is still over there. She works at a supermarket. Jason is a lawyer. In our first lesson we just basically talked to him a bit and then taught him about prayer and then closed with prayer and left. The next lesson we taught him about...something. It's escaping me for the moment. But at the end we got him to pray with us. Oh yeah! We taught him about the Apostasy and the Restoration/First Vision :) The third lesson was just yesterday, and we told him all about the Book of Mormon, and challenged him to read it and pray about it. Tomorrow is our next lesson with him, and we're planning on committing him to be baptized. :) Oh, and did I mention that these lessons are all in Spanish?!?!?!

Our District is kinda crazy. The Elders get really distracted and start talking about Batman and Superman and Star Wars and stuff. It's a little frustrating sometimes, and we have to remind them to focus a lot. I hope if we respect them more then they will step up to it. They're a lot of fun, though. We're pretty good at helping each other with Spanish and such.

So our teacher is Hermano Wald. He looked super familiar and it took me forever to figure out why, until like 2 days ago. He looks kinda like Luke Skywalker...mixed with Weslin. XD Definitely weird. It's like I died and turned into a Roman. (Ask Lang.) Anyway, he's super nice and very patient with all of us and our craziness. He actually made a rule that the Elders have to leave the room during additional study time so that they won't distract everyone so much. XD He's got a wonderful testimony and is very willing to share it with us. It's super awesome.

Food here is okay. There's a salad bar, and that usually has delicious salads, so if all else fails, I just eat that. I've been using the elliptical a bit. It's all new to me, but it's okay. I'm surviving. It's hard and exhausting but today we went to the temple and it was amazing. Oh ps in our lesson with Jason this last time I told the story about 2 Ne 1:15 and I felt the Spirit and totally almost started crying. It was super cool. :)