May 26, 2011

Place - MTC Week 2

Dear Family,

      Well I am on week two! It has been quite the week. I do not even know where to start. It seems as if it all blends together. Although Tuesday night was absolutely INCREDIBLE!! We had the wonderful opportunity to hear from an apostle Elder Russel M. Nelson and his sweet wife Wendy Watson Nelson. She talked about the importance of obedience but not only that, being EXACTLY obedienct. One of the quotes that she said is that " Obedience brings blessings, and EXACT obedience brings miracles!" I love that. I know as missionarys we have to be EXACTLY obedient and we have many rules that we need to follow. Even those small and simple rules like not wearing a watch in the gym while exercising.  We may think that they are simple but we have those rules for a reason! They are to help us and I have a strong testimony that if we obey those rules we will see and begin to see many blessings, more than we could have ever imagined.

      Something that has been emphasized over and over again is that we teach people NOT discussions. Everyone has a different story and we need to take the chance to get to know eveyrones background and story. Everyone has different beliefs and we have to understand that. Something else that stuck out to me that Elder Nelson said was,    

" We follow Christ". We do everything that Christ did. We as missionarys follow Christs example. We teach

Faith -

Repentance- Doctrine and Covenants 20:37- they humbled themselves before God with Broken Hearts and Contrite Spirits

Baptism- John 3:5 "...Except a man be born of water and of the spirit he CAN not enter into the kingdom of God."

                                  1. 2 Nephi 31:13

                                  2. 2 Nephi 31:15 He that endureth to the end shall be saved...these highest blessings in the church is his temple.

       He also talked about how important first impressions and how we always need to carry a smile on our faces. I think that is something that is so important. That is something that people and investigators are going to notice about us is the fact that we are smiling and happy! We want people to notice that there is something different about us, which will hopefully help them notice us and want to know more.

       I am in a district of mostly hispanics minus us 3 missionarys who are what we call "Gringos". Anyways one of the Elders who is named Elder Rojas is from Peru. This is his first time being in the United States. His aunt said that someday he would learn at the feet of an apostle. Tuesday night was the First time that he had ever seen an apostle in real life. After this fireside we had a meeting with our Branch President. We all bore testimony of the fireside and our testimonys in general. When Elder Rojas bore his testimony and began to tell us about what his aunt had said and that tonight was the fist time that he had ever seen an apostle, the spirit hit us all like a ton of bricks. There was not a dry eye in the room. This really brought us together as a district. It is amazing to me how strong it it when someone bears a simple pure testimony, there is nothing like it.

     For those of you who do not know I transfered to a new district. Becaus of this I leave and report to the field in a little less than 12 days! I report June 7th! I can not believe it! There is a part of me that wants to stay at the MTC longer but another part of me that is ready to go out into the field. I just want to make sure that I do EVERYTHING that I can to be ready for the field. While biking the other day in GYM Hermana Fernandez y yo memorized the first vision in Spanish. I have truly been humbled and blessed to have been here in the Advanced Group. I have really seen the hand of the lord in my life daily. He has really helped me and given me a better understanding and confidence in not only Spanish but in my ability and confidence in teaching discussions and being able to fully understand the needs of our investigators.

      Today we had the chance to go to the temple. It felt really good to be in the Provo Temple again. It is kind of strange that not only a little bit less than a month ago I was at BYU going to the temple as a student, always envying the missionarys that I saw there, and now I am one of them. I love the sweet spirit and feeling that I get when I go to the temple. It seems that all of my worries and questions are always resolved when I go to the temple. I love that I am able to focus on what really matters. I am so thankful for the scriptures and the fact that we can pray to our Heavenly Father ANYtime and that he can answer us.

    One of my favorite quotes is "When you want to talk to Heavenly Father Pray, When you want him to talk to you, Read your Scriptures". I have the STRONGEST testimony of this. I have seen this happen MANY times in my life. I was in the temple today praying about how I can be a better missionary. I opened my scriptures and read Doctrine and Covenants section 44 and 45! I love the scripture in Section 45:28 I believe. It talks about missionary work. Anyways my answer was Obedience with EXACTNESS! I can not stress how important that is.

    I want you to know that I have NO doubt that THIS is where I am supposed to be and WHAT I am to be doing right now. I have NEVER seen this much joy in my life. For I know that when we serve others we can ultimately be happy. I love the scripture Mosiah 2:19 for when we serve others we ultimately serve him!

    Yo amo a esta inglesia. Yo se que es la unica inglesia que es verdadera. Yo se que nuestro padre Celestial nos aman a todos. Yo se que Jose Smith era una profeta Verdada y si traduzco el Libro de Mormon y que es el Libro MAS verdadera del mundo. Se si nosotros leyemos el libro del Mormon y pregunta a Dios si es verdad vamos a recibir una respuesta. Porque YO recibi mi respuesta que es verdadera. Yo se que podemos ser juntos por siempre con nuestra familia. Quiero compartir esas cosas en el nombre de Jesucristo. AMen.

I love you family!

Keep being awesome :)

Love,

Hermana Gray