Hermana  Grow and some other Hermanas and Elders form her district!

01 May 2013

Hola Amigos! ¿Como estan? Estoy feliz!!!! Tengo gozo en mi alma, cada dia!!! =] This week was short. Very short. Because of the influx of missionaries that will be coming as soon as school is done they had to change everyone´s schedule. And I mean, everyone. Can you imagine having that job? I think I would lose my mind. We used to have personal and companion study in the morning, lunch, a 3 hour class, dinner, and another 3 hour class. We have to do, I mean, we get to do service every week and it used to be Thursday mornings at 10. P-Day was on Friday and we did laundry around 10am. Now we have morning class and evening class with study in between lunch and dinner. Service is on Thursday’s at, get this, SIX AM. Oi. P-Day is Wednesday and now we do laundry at SEVEN AM!!! Okay, so at first I was a little peeved but...... after trying it today it is so much better to get everything done in the morning and then not have to worry about it the rest of the day. We just have so much more time! The only thing that's really sad about the schedule change is the fact the teachers changed too. Normally you have two different teachers and they play your investigators too. But now we have brand new teachers and brand new investigators. Let me just say that we are getting pretty awesome at teaching lesson 1. That's all.

Hermana Runyan (Luz) and Hermano Morgan (Pedro) were our teacher/investigators. They were the best. Hna. Runyan had so much energy ALL THE TIME!!!! She would stand on the chair and yell at us in Spanish (in a good way =] ) and write all over the TV with the dry-erase marker. And she hit the TV. All the time. It was just to demonstrate points but the whole District would cringe every time she did it! So we made her stop. =] jaja She was the best. And Hno. Morgan was just awesome, mostly because he was Pedro. Yeah. He would end every lesson with his testimony and say, "La Iglesia is verdadera. Es real!!!" That was our favorite part! =] Now we have Hermana Valdez (Nancy) who is from Peru!! Yeah, way cool! And Hermano Clifford who is just pretty awesome. I can't wait to get to know our new teachers.

One of my favorite parts of being at the MTC is going to Relief Society every week. All of the Sister missionaries meet together and we usually have a lady who is pretty high up in the church come and speak to us. We've had Mary Edwards, who has done all sorts of amazing things with missionary work for the church, Cheryl Esplin, the second counselor in the Primary General Presidency, and this week we were privileged to hear from Sis. Bonnie L. Oscarson, the newly called General Young Women's President. This was her very first assignment and she was AMAZING!! Her husband was called as a mission president in Sweden when he was only 29 and she was 24, and expecting their 4 child! She talked about being afraid but carrying on and having faith despite your fears. "Two people can do ANYTHING, as long as one of them is the Lord." I loved it!

 26 April 2013

I cannot express how much I LOVE being a missionary! We learn so much every day and we continue to grow closer as a district. I just realized that in my first e-mail I didn't finish introducing our district. Elder Orullian's companion is Elder Tway, he is from Colorado and he is smart. I mean SMART. He's taken Spanish for 12 years but he counts the first 5 years as one because it was in elementary school so really he feels like he's only taken it for 8. CRAZY! He is very knowledgeable about the gospel and we get into these awesome discussions about deep Gospel doctrines all the time. I love it! He is also going to Trujillo! Which reminds me, we've been meeting a bunch of missionaries that are also going to Trujillo, which is pretty exciting. The other two Hermanas in our district are Hermana Foster and Hermana Gardener. They are the sweetest! Hermana Foster is a dance major, from Orem, UT. She is super happy all the time and she is a health nut. She's going to the Washington Kennewick Mission. Hermana Gardener is from Eager, AZ and she knows our friends, the Skippers! She has traveled all around the world and she loves studying literature. She is going to the same mission as Elder Orullian, Florida Fort Lauderdale (mom please fix my spelling =] ). The nine of us make up our district. We sit in class together all day long learning Spanish teaching skills from amazing teachers like Hermana Runyan and Hermano Morgan. We eat together, we go to gym together, and we are growing so close as a district. I think I might just cry when we all leave here to go our separate ways!

A few cool things happened this week: 1. Meeting Elder Orullian's dad, 2. The fire alarm, and 3. Nancy.

-Elder Orullian's dad is an air conditioner repairman and he has been working on a job at the MTC since we got here. Every time we see any repairman-looking person we freak out, thinking that it’s him. Well, earlier this week we were sitting outside as a district when all of the sudden Elder Orullian gasped and got the biggest smile on his face! We knew exactly what had happened so when he ran away we followed him and we all got to meet his dad. The fact that we had been looking for him for so long made it super exciting to finally get to meet him!

-Think about fire alarms. Think about the MTC. Think about what could happen with fire alarms at the MTC. Now reign in your imagination because it wasn't that crazy, but it was pretty funny. Right after gym our Elders were showering in their residency hall and the fire alarm went off. Thinking it was a prank they continued to shower and all but one of them were able to get out and dressed before the man came and told them that they had to get out NOW, this was not a drill. So poor Elder Orullian wrapped up in a towel and they all ran downstairs and outside. Now, this wouldn't be a big deal, but we're at the MTC. Modesty is kind of a big deal. They made him stand outside for 20 minutes before someone noticed people taking pictures from across the street. Then they let him go inside and get dressed. Turns out someone was using the microwave and it exploded, but it really wasn't that big of a deal. But we Hermanas were dying when they told us what happened!!! Good times....

-Nancy. I love Nancy. She is our newest 'investigator'. Did I mention that after someone is finished being our investigator they become our teacher? It's pretty cool. Anyways, Nancy. I love her to bits. All of our other investigators have invited us over and were expecting a lesson but Nancy was different. She had been contacted by the missionaries a couple years ago but nothing came of it so we decided to pay her a visit. When she opened the door and realized who we were she tried to give back the Book of Mormon that the other missionaries had left with her, saying that she wasn’t interested. But we asked if we could come in for just a few minutes to share a message with her. She said she was busy but when we told her that it was a message of hope and joy, about Jesus Christ, she agreed to let us in. We got to know her a little bit and found out that she is a single mother raising a boy and a girl and that she goes to a different church. We talked to her about the Restoration and the Priesthood, the authority that we have from God to preach the Gospel and we invited her to pray to God about our message to know if it was the truth and we invited her to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized if she felt that it was true. (And this was ALL in Spanish, mind you =] ) She said that she was preparing to be baptized in her own church. That threw a wrench in our plans. I wasn't sure what to say and I looked at Hermana Christensen and she didn't know what to say but then Hermana Ivie spoke up. She bore the most beautiful testimony of this church that I have ever heard. She invited Nancy to read from the Book of Mormon and to pray to God to know if it was true and she promised Nancy that if she asked, God would answer her and that she would know which church to be baptized into. We were all in tears and Nancy agreed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. She invited us to return to teach her again and we left with our hearts full. It was beautiful. I know that this church is true and that we can pray to God to find answers and that He WILL answer us because He loves us and He wants to lead and guide us. I can't wait to teach Nancy again.

Love you all! I can't wait to get your letters! =]

Con Amor,

Hermana Grow

19 April 2013

     Hello outside world!! I've decided that everyone should serve a mission. Todas las personas en todo el mundo!!!!! Because it. is. amazing. This was my first full week at the CCM and I couldn't have loved it more! We've been teaching an investigator se llama Pedro, and we love him so much. In reality he's just an actor, but when he's our investigator he's acting out his own conversion story. He has a friend named Bentley that introduced him to the church and he just wanted to know more. So each companionship in our district had the chance to teach him four times. And it's kind of confusing but it's like we we’re each teaching a different version of Pedro, we’re each in an alternate reality where only one set of missionaries taught him so when we go in he only remembers the things that we've taught him. Was that a geeky enough explanation for you? =] But anyways, the first time my companions and I taught him was on Friday and we tried to teach him the Plan of Salvation but we were way too focused on our lesson and our terrible Spanish to pay attention to the Spirit to know his needs. The second lesson was on Saturday night and it was beautiful. Not because of anything we said, our Spanish was still atrocious, but because of the Spirit that was there. We didn't go in with a specific lesson plan, we just decided to ask what questions he had and what we could do to help him. And we did. We answered his questions about the Atonement and the Plan of Salvation, about the need for baptism and the importance of the Book of Mormon. The Spirit was so strong. I think that was the strongest that I have ever felt it in my life, I could almost hear the words that I needed to say, I remembered Spanish words that I didn't know I knew. Beforehand we had wanted to leave a Book of Mormon with Pedro but the only Spanish ones we had were our personal copies and we didn't want to leave them because we use them every day. But during the lesson I realized that it was so much more important for Pedro to have that book than me, it didn't matter if I had it, I could work around it, but Pedro absolutely needed it. So when the time came I gave my Book of Mormon and that one simple act brought the Spirit into our lesson so strongly, we were all in tears. From there we talked about the example of Jesus Christ and the gift of His atonement and the importance of following His perfect example. And then we did it. We extended the baptismal invitation and he said yes. But it was so much more than just a yes to baptism, it was a commitment to follow Christ and live HIS law, to keep HIS commandments and love others. It was beautiful and I know that we couldn't have done it without the help of the Spirit. We did our best to speak the language and the Spirit translated it for Pedro. I know that with the power of God, anything is possible and that we have to live worthy in order to have His Spirit with us always, so that we can follow His promptings and do His will. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints we are representatives of Him and it is SO important that we follow the Spirit so that we can act in His name. It is SO important that we only do the things that He would do if He were here because we do not want to misrepresent Him.

    Another amazing thing that happened this week was the Tuesday devotional. Every Tuesday at the CCM there is a devo and a General Authority comes to speak. Usually it's a member of one of the Seventies or some other auxiliary leader but this week we were blessed to be taught by none other than Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. I had the chance to sing in the choir at the devo, along with hundreds of other missionaries, but that guaranteed us seats in the same room as Elder Scott so we got to watch him live instead in one the other rooms that it was being broadcast to. AND we got to sing one of my favorite hymns, Nearer My God to Thee, and the choir director enlightened us all to the fact that the song is actually about Jacob's Ladder from the Old Testament (look it up, it's in Genesis or Exodus, and then listen to all the verses of the song, AMAZING). Elder Scott spoke about prayer and the importance of communication with God. He said that God answers prayer in one of three ways: 1. with a warm, comforting feeling that lets you know you're doing His will, 2. with a cold stupor of thought that lets you know that the choice is incorrect, or 3. with nothing. Sometimes God doesn't answer our prayers in either of these ways and when that happens it means that He trusts you enough to make the right decision on you own, keeping in mind His commandments and His will. We should be grateful for these chances to act on our own and praise God, thanking Him for the trust that He has in us.

   He also focused so much on the fact that we have been called of God to serve Him and that God does not set us up to fail, He sets us up to succeed. He knows that we can do it and He has faith in us, we just need to have faith in Him. Elder Scott also pronounced an Apostolic Blessing on all of us that we would MASTER our languages and that we would be successful. It was amazing.

   I love you all and thank you for the letters, the ones that have come, the ones that are in the mail, and the ones that you are going to write when you finish reading this ;)

La iglesia es verdadra!!!

Hermana Grow