Hey Mom! Did you get my last email?? I know there was a storm and the connnection was bad so I wasn't sure if it went through. I emailed Dad too with some snippets for the kids, but I haven't gotten an email from anyone in our family except for your Dear Elder thing. Which I don't know about this dear elder thing. I just got like a confirmation email that showed your letter, but it never came in like a letter form. Weird. Anyway, each Friday our P-day schedule is a little different so sometimes I email later in the day but sometimes its earlier. Right now it's about 8:00 in the morning on friday. We're going to be heading to the temple soon. That's probably my favorite part of P-day. It takes a long time but it's so worth it. I'd rather be in the temple than even taking a nap! Crazy huh? I'm so glad to get some news about baby Elisebeth. What day was she actually born? I don't really understand what exactly happened but i'm glad things seem to be going better now. I jumped up in the computer lab and yelled "I'm an aunt!" last week. So now just about everyone at the MTC knows my happy news :) We're about halfways done here at the MTC and it's bittersweet. I am so ready to be out of here and actually talking to people about the gospel but at the same time I know I am far from where i need to be to be able to say what I want to be able to say. We have been teaching "investigators" and it has been interesting to me to be able to feel the Spirit guiding and directing a lesson that isn't "real". We've had some powerful experiences with our investigators and then we've had some times when the Spirit really isn't there. I know that it might be the same way when we're out in the field so this is good practice. One of our investigators always says he has to go right as we're feeling the Spirit the strongest. Its so frustrating!!! But then I try to imagine teaching someone who really doesn't know about the gospel and what would I do if my real investigator did that? We really try to treat these practices like they are real because we know that in just a few weeeks it will be really real and I can use all the practice I can get! Even next week will get a whole lot more real! We're going out with the missionaries here in Manila! Pray for me! We might be teaching REAL investigators! Sometimes it doesn't feel like I've really started my mission yet because I'm not doing all the things that I imagine missionarires doing, but i know that this time is super important. I have a very strong feeling of responsibility and sometimes I get anxious about not doing enough or not studying hard enough or whatever. My kasama on the other hand is very happy-go-lucky and so I think we help each other. I am happy to report that I havve been very good at waking up happy(ish). I've been trying to overcome the normal Rachael response to waking up early and so far so good. Except for this morning when one sister flicked me in the head to wake me up, but we can't be perfect all the time. One of the elders in my district, from Samoa, is great comic relief for all of us. He doesn't speak very much English but one time during a lesson he just jumped in and totally interrupted his kasama and started telling the Joseph Smith story. excpet this is how he told it, "Let me tell you a story! You know Joseph Smith right? Well one day Joseph Smith was 14 years old and one day Joseph Smith wanted to pray so one day he went to the grass! And you know what happened in the grass?? He saw two personages. Do you know who the two personages were? That's right, it was God and Jesus. And you know what they said to him?? Joseph, this is my Church, ENJOY it!" We have no idea where that came from but we laughed about that for a while. Now we like to add "ENJOY it!" to the end of whatever we say :) Oh and here's a fun fact about the Philippines, there are about 600,000 members, only about 100,000 are active. Crazy huh?! So it sounds like we will be focusing a lot more on reactivating the less actives members and bringing the non-members they know along with them! I have a thousnad things that I want to tell you about, in fact sometimes at night I compose my weekly email in my head before I go to sleep, but I can't really remember it when I wake up so this is going to have to do. Well I have no idea what picture i attached to this file or if it will even work to send it. But hey, I tried!
Mahal Kita!! Love you! -Sister Larson
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