Hello, family!
How has everyone's week been?? I'm curious to hear about school starting and braces and geography-lunches and all of those other wonderful things. "Viera Idol" sounds fun, haha. I'm glad they had a James Taylor song for you, Dad :) That's awesome about the tickets to see him with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir! I'm still interested to hear how their styles match up, haha. Chill, laid-back JT with the power of the Mo-tab. Fill me in on that one :) Also, when does Brad get to do the Future Marching Hawk night?? You're getting old, lil' bro ;)
We've been super spoiled with those treats from Mom this week! The doughnuts and cupcakes were thoroughly enjoyed, haha. My district loves you! The Dear Elders are very much appreciated as always, and I'd love to see some of those journal entries, Dad! Nothing inspires us more than the mission stories we hear from our MTC teachers- especially Hermano Ball's. He served in Mexico and has some amazing stories of having trust that the things he promises companions and investigators will be fulfilled, and they always were! I hope I can have as much determination and faith on my mission.
This week definitely had a theme of learning about faith. It seemed like I learned something new in every personal study, district discussion, lesson with an investigator, etc. It was so awesome! To give a few examples...
-We watched a video of Elder Bednar talking about spiritual promptings. He said that there's a flawed part of our culture ("not our doctrine," he clarified) where we feel like we need to wait for a spiritual prompting, and we need to be sure that it is in fact a spiritual prompting, before we do something. He said that most of the time we won't even know that a prompting is a prompting, and we need not get caught up in wondering. Be a good boy, or a good girl, keep your covenants and the commandments, and do your very best, and you will be doing what needs to be done. It's so much simpler than what we make it!
-Our choir director mentioned that a missionary told him that she didn't feel good enough for the work she has to do. He told her, "Well, you're not good enough. So thank goodness it's His work, and not ours. We aren't good enough to do this work, but we are good enough to be His helpers." He told us that we needed to go forth in faith with this in mind. This director is super awesome, by the way. I think his name's Brother Edgett. He conducted in General Conference once, and he reminds me of Brian Regan when he cracks jokes :)
-We read the talk "Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ" by Elder Gene R Cook from October 1982. One of my favorite parts is when he says to "Commit yourself in advance to what you righteously desire. The righteous exercising of faith will bring it about." I highly recommend taking a look at this talk.
-In my personal study, I read Ether 12:27, and realized that although it's clear that God wants us to act in confidence, He's given us weaknesses for us to depend on Him and for us to always remember our true source of confidence. It we don't remember that, we still might end up teaching boldly, but the Spirit will not be present, therefore (D&C 50:18), "it is not of God." Nephi showed this in 1 Nephi 3:7, where he DOESN'T say, "I will go and do the things which the Lord commanded because I'm a young, strong man with experience and I know what I'm doing," but instead, his confidence is in the Lord - "for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men save HE shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which He commandeth them."
Good stuff, huh? I wish I had time to share more, but hopefully that gives you an insight into what I've been learning this week.
Our district got to help with the new missionaries this Wednesday. It was so fun! I didn't run into Kayla Hawes, but I'm pretty sure she'd be in the West Campus.
Anyhoo, that day started out stupendously because our investigator, Diana, agreed to baptism! We were teaching her about Joseph Smith, and Hermana Woolley recited Joseph Smith's account of the First Vision perfectly, and then I asked her, "Seguirá el ejemplo de Jesucristo al ser bautiza-" and she said, "Si!" before I could even finish the question. We've taught her about faith and our main goal of reaching the Celestial Kingdom with our families throughout this week, and she's loved every minute of our lessons. It's been so fun :)
We were able to take the overwhelming feelings of the spirit with us into all of our training meetings for the things we'd be helping with all through that day. We got to host the new missionaries as they came in! Cars would pull up, and if it had a pink sticky-note, I'd run up, grab their luggage, assure the mother, make sure they had their immunization record and didn't accidentally still have a cell phone on them, and then show the missionary the ropes of the MTC. I met some way awesome, way prepared people.
Hermana Adair, Hermana Woolley and I were also picked to give an example of teaching a new investigator in front of 50+ brand-new missionaries. Haha, that was a cool experience, but it was a little tough because we had to do it in English! It was especially tough with this one guy who had a really thick Italian accent, so our minds kept switching into Spanish-mode.
Right after doing that, we met yet another new district in our zone and gave them the orientation of the MTC. It was a super long day, but the spirit was strong and we were SO excited to get to help the new missionaries.
Last Sunday was neat, too. For Sacrament meeting each week, all of us have to prepare a 5-minute talk in Spanish, and then whichever Branch Presidency member is conducting the meeting that morning will randomly call on two missionaries to give their talks. I got to give mine last week :) It was funny talking to the Branch Presidency afterwards, because they were all like, "I don't know what you said, but I felt the Spirit and you looked confident!" haha.
Oh, and we were told by Sister Nancy Maynes during a devotional this week to "Be the kind of missionary your mother thinks you are." Haha, I loved that, and I'll certainly keep trying my hardest!
As for my visa, our district was notified yesterday that our visas have not come in time, so we get our temporary reassignments next week!!! So crazy! I'm way stoked, though. It's kind of a bummer to not be heading straight to Spain, especially if my reassignment is an English mission and I lose my Spanish. But I'm still getting way pumped for heading out to the field! (those feelings are especially strong during meal times, haha. I'm pretty ready to stop having cafeteria food...)
Anyway, I love you all so much, and I hope you've all had a wonderful week!!
Until next time :)
Love,
Hermana Grover
PS- I have a gajillion photos, haha. We'll see how many I have time to send...
PPS- We were smart and did our emails before going to the temple today, but I doubt I'll have time to send any letters after the temple. I'll hopefully have more time to write next week!
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