First, I just have to say, you guys are da BEST!!! Thank you for humoring my shameless begging for letters. It was so fun to get those and read them throughout the week.
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| Happy hermana with some mail. :) |
If I could ask another favor though, my compy Hna. Kroska hasn't been getting a lot of mail. I know it would just make her day if she could get a bunch of letters encouraging her and letting her know that you are praying for her. DearElder.com would be a perfect way to do that. Her name is Hermana Clara Kroska. Her departure date is NOV 03 and her Unit number is also 804. Send good thoughts her way!!! :)
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| Bahia Blanca, here we come. |
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| General Conference! |
Ok, now to what the heck has been going on here. First, General Conference while at the MTC is the BEST THING EVER!!! You're not only getting great revelation and inspiration for yourself, but for your investigators as well. It's incredible. I can't wait for tomorrow too!!
So last Sunday night we had a devotional (devotionals here are the best - we have them Tuesday and Sunday nights) and then afterward we get to pick a movie or a talk to watch. All the new missionaries are told they should watch The Character of Christ their first Sunday here because it will change their lives. It's an MTC devotional given on Christmas like 5 years ago by Elder Bednar. They were right. Changed my life. It's the message that helped me feel that the mission isn't about me. It's all about how the character of Christ is to turn outward, in every situation, thinking of others before Himself. That is also the nature of true conversion. One is truly converted, or one has truly become as the Savior, when their character has become such that they turn outward and think of others first. Instead of focusing on our desires and what we want, no matter how good or righteous those desires are, we turn outward and think of what we can do for someone else. And the amazing thing is when we do turn outward and stop focusing on what we want, what we do want naturally comes to us. We must lose our lives in order to find them. If you want to be kinder, or more humble, or more loving, or more grateful, or more whatever, stop focusing on the fact that you want that and start thinking about other people. You'll find that in the process of doing that, you will become kinder, more humble, more loving, more grateful, etc. That concept is absolutely beautiful. I'm going to watch that talk one more time before I leave FOR SURE.
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| I love being a missionary!!! |
I'm also really learning to trust the Savior again. I feel like I've learned to trust Him when I am enduring something difficult, but now I need to trust Him to help me DO things I can't do on my own. For example, this week we had a lesson with Jared and we had prepared for this lesson the morning of. Then right before the lesson my mind just went blank. Weirdest feeling ever. I really could not think of anything, other than I knew we shouldn't teach him what we prepared, but I had no idea what else to prepare and I was TERRIFIED. What were we going to do? We wanted to be prepared and try, but I could not think of a single thing. So bizzare. So we went down to the lesson with nothing prepared and trusted and prayed that we would be guided in what to say. We just started talking to him and we were asking him about prayer and stuff and then all of a sudden I was crying. I wanted SO BADLY for him to feel his Heavenly Father's love and know that he was loved in spite of his mistakes and "failings", but I felt like I couldn't do that. I started telling him about how I felt like I was failing because I couldn't think before our lesson so I couldn't prepare anything, but how I knew in spite of all that that God loved me. And then Hna Kroska bore her testimony and invited him to pray right there to ask if God loved him. He offered the most beautiful, sincere prayer I've ever heard in my life. He was crying. I was sobbing. God knows exactly what His children need to help them feel His love. Apparently my gift of weeping was exactly what was needed in this situation. I'm so grateful for His guidance, and my testimony was strengthened that this really is His work and He really is in charge. He is going to help me do the specific things He needs me to do. Also, even though these investigators aren't "real", the feelings and the Spirit in the lesson are. It's incredible. Going into these role plays I thought "There's no way I'll be able to take this seriously. It isn't real." So wrong. You really start to care for these people in a real way and you want to help them more than anything. So cool.
On a lighter note, in another lesson with Jared we had our first funny word mess-up or whatever you want to call it. He was telling us about how he got paid $20 to eat three cookies in the food lab on campus. The word for cookie in Spanish is galleta. Hna Kroska thought he was saying gallina, which means a whole, live chicken in Spanish. So she thought he had eaten three whole chickens that day and was SUPER confused. We got a good laugh out of that later.
In other news, Jared - aka Hermano Brown - is now officially our teacher. But we'll keeping teaching Jared and we'll start teaching Miguel (Hno Hammond) next week. I really love both my teachers. They definitely have super different styles, but I really enjoy both. I'm always so excited for class everyday, and I really enjoy teaching our "investigators". I love applying the insights and things we learn and just learning in general. Basically, I just love it here. I feel like I'm growing so much and it hasn't even been two weeks yet. It's amazing!!!
Sorry for the novel! There's just SO MUCH!!!! :D
Chao for now!! I love you!
Hna Chipman
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| Inside one of the bubbles... especially for Candice. :) |
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| This one is especially for Elder Vavricka's momma. :D |
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