Hola mi familia!!
Another crazy week has past! I can't believe it's already Thursday again. This time next week I should be getting my travel plans! So crazy!
Random fact..... when I arrived at the MTC I received a Ministerial Certificate from President Monson. Every missionary receives one. But I forgot to tell you about it earlier. It's effective from August 22, 2012 - March 13, 2014. We were wondering due to transfer dates whether I would be home Jan. 30 or March 13... so I guess the certificate answers that questions! So I will see you all on March 13, 2014!!
The weather has been so beautiful! I have really been enjoying gym outside. Sadly elders and sisters can't play soccer together so I usually play Frisbee or walk around the field. It's so nice to go outside because I feel like I'm never outside any more and I'm suck in a classroom all day. Sadly, I think they are closing the field in the next week or two. I've heard the field is closed after conference but that's just rumors. We'll see what happens. Friday night I was out at gym and could hear the BYU game! I was thinking I bet my family is there, but then I remembered Mom and Dad went to Burley this weekend.
So this past week I started marking my Spanish scriptures. I didn't want to start marking them until I had a set plan and a way that I wanted to mark them. but it took me forever to figure out a good way to mark them. I also bought a quad in English. The English scriptures that I brought are the ones I got when I turned 8 and they are starting to fall apart. I figured I should get a new set for my mission so I don't destroy my set that I've always had. I'll send my old English set home when I leave the MTC. It's so fun to mark new scriptures and find things you never saw before.
The Devotional on Tuesday night was awesome. Elder Ellis of the Seventy was the speaker. He opened his talk by talking about conference. Usually people challenge you to go to conference with a question but he said something totally different. He talked about how the Savior told the disciples that one of them would betray him and they all asked, "Lord, is it I?" He said to listen to conference and during every talk ask, "Lord, is it I? I am I the one that needs to be hearing this." This really hit me hard. I am totally guilty of watching conference and thinking "Oh I hope so and so is listening to this talk right now. It's totally for them." Instead we need to ask, "Lord, is it I?" Also, I AM SO EXCITED FOR GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!!!!!! And I hope you all are too. I am really sad I won't be able to go to conference at the conference center but we do get to watch all of it. I didn't get to watch the Relief Society Broadcast yet though. They show it for the Sisters while the Elders are watching Priesthood. So I'll get to see it on Saturday night.
Sunday night the film we watched was The Testaments. I love that movie!! But you know you have been in the MTC to long when you get excited about the cheesy love story in the movie. I miss watching chick flicks!!! hahahha
So for our lesson with our investigator Diego yesterday, Hermana Andrews was reading in the book True to the Faith and she found the perfect quote but it was in English. So we decided to translate it! It was such a neat experience. Diego has really been struggling with faith and won't pray until he has more faith but we know that to gain more faith we can pray. So this quote was perfect...
"Faith is a gift from God, but you must nurture your faith to keep it strong. Faith is like the muscle of your arm. If you exercise it, it grows strong. If you put it in a sling and leave it there, it becomes weak.You can nurture the gift of faith by praying to Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ. As you express your gratitude to your Father and as you plead with Him for blessings that you and others need, you will draw near to Him. You can also develop your faith by studying the scriptures and the words of the latter-day prophets."
It was a really neat experience to translate this into Spanish. It made us realize how much we have learned but we still had our other teacher check it to make sure we translated it right! We had an amazing lesson with Diego when we shared this quote. We really emphasized the importance of prayer and testified that God will answer our questions. We then invited him to pray right there in the middle of the lesson and he agreed to. His prayer was probably the most beautiful and humble prayer I have ever heard and the Spirit was so strong. As Diego closed the prayer and we looked up, there were tears streaming down his face. I know that God hears and answers our prayers no matter how big or small our prayers or questions may be! Never be afraid to ask God! This quote was also the perfect lead into talking about latter-day prophets and General Conference!
Yesterday we got a new Hermana in the Zone. She was supposed to go to New Jersey on Monday, speaking English but her mission president called and changed her assignment. Pretty crazy but she seems excited about it. She joined the district that came in last week. So now the trio is two companionships. This means that there are 6 Hermanas in the zone. That's more than we have ever had the whole time I've been here.
It was such a challenge to get to the temple this morning! It seemed like everything was working against us but we wanted to go so badly. For starters I've been having tooth pain so I had to schedule an appointment and on Thursday a dentist comes in and does free appointments. Because it's just free apts. you don't get to pick your time. The time they gave me was right in the middle of our scheduled temple time. We were struggling to come up with a plan to fit the temple in before my apt. Then last night we realized that our plan didn't work because breakfast wouldn't be open in time so we adjusted the plan again... just hoping it would work out. Then as we were going to bed last night we decided to check our recommends and realized Hermana Andrews had misplaced hers. We tore the room apart searching for it EVERYWHERE. By this point we were so frustrated and didn't know how it was all going to work out or if we could even go to the temple! We finally just prayed about it and went to bed. This morning when we woke up she checked her drawer again where it should have been and there it was sitting right on top of everything! Everything worked out so perfectly this morning but it sure wasn't easy! But it sure was worth it!!
I love and miss you all! I hope you all have a wonderful Conference Weekend!!!
Con Amor,
Kim
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