Ally in the Big Apple: Power in Perspective: MTC Week 2

¡Hola todos!

The Missionary Training Center here in Provo is terribly exciting, but I'm afraid to say I leave next week! We got our travel plans on Wednesday, and I'll be gone by 7am on Monday the 8th!

Hermana Pace and I are kinda cute

My father asked me, jokingly I'm sure, if I had any baptism commitments yet. I'm sure he expected me to say, "Alas, no, I'm sorry for disappointing you Father." However, I am exceptionally astonished to say I have! So, story time my wonderful friends.

I started teaching in the TRC here (I believe it stands for Teaching Resource Center) on Tuesday. Investigators can range from members or teachers to true investigators. I'm almost 100% sure our investigator is an actual investigator. Especially given what he has said, his emotions, how he wants to keep in contact with us as we go on our missions, and how we go almost an hour over in every lesson. I teach in Spanish and feel fairly inadequate, but needless to say the spirit is always in the room extraordinarily strongly. Teaching Ryan (name has been changed) is such a pleasure. When we walked into the room on Tuesday it was like a wave of the spirit hit us. He testified to us after we had talked about how he knew we were truly his sisters and how he felt in his heart that he knew us before. He committed to be baptized that first day. His tears and spirit touched my heart, and his curiosity and questions are so genuine and heartfelt. He mentioned how many missionaries he had talked to before, and how he felt we were the first missionaries to make the gospel make sense to him. He has had several wonderful spiritual experiences since we began teaching him on Tuesday, and I am so excited to keep up with his conversion throughout the next week as we teach him and as we go into the field the week after! His testimony is so strong, and I know he will do wonderful things.

That's not the only exciting thing to happen to me this week, though! I played in a musical number on Sunday. I played with Elder Gomez in my zone, and it went marvelously! It was so exquisitely refreshing to have a last hurrah with my instrument. I played 'If you could Hie to Kolob' and it sounded every bit as thought provoking and lovely as I could ever imagine. Choir was also absolutely amazing. We sang 'Where can I Turn for Peace?' and it was so powerful and amazing to sing with the missionary choir. When 2,000 missionaries sing, there is enough strength to spiritually overwhelm almost anyone.

Traditional name tag-at-the-Provo-temple
missionary picture

Our wonderful, fantastic zone!

Hermana Aguilar and I matched in class on Tuesday :)

Hermana Pace loves me (and we both love the temple).

Listening to Elder Bednar's talk, "The Character of Christ" gave me so many thoughts and questions. The primary question that I came out of the devotional with was, "If our goal as mortals is to gain the mind of Christ, then how would I do that? How could I possibly ever gain the mind of Christ as an imperfect human?" I went to the temple this morning with that question in mind, and obviously it would be impossible to gain the mind of Christ all at once, but I came out of the session resolute that my first effort would be to obey perfectly, as Christ, and my second would be to always give everyone the benefit of the doubt, of which I am not always completely phenomenal.

One of my favorite things I did this week was an in-depth study of the atonement. I decided to read through all of the four gospels' perspectives on the atonement and pick out words and phrases that were different. I then researched the backgrounds of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and attempted to depict why the differences were significant based on the writer and the purpose of the writings to the readers. Through this I learned so much about the power in perspective. It applied to the gospels, and it applies to us. Our perspectives and contributions are so powerful, and some of our impressions and thoughts will change the world.

Gym time is still some of my favorite time of the week. Playing volleyball, knockout, foursquare, and running laps and jumping rope are all wonderful ways to release my energy and give me endorphins. In the words of Elle Woods, "Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people don't kill their husbands."

We love endorphins!

My companion got deathly sick this week, which was fun. Pretty much half of my (pretty dang amazing) district did as well... Luckily, I am still quite healthy, though we shall see if that changes!

Quotes of the week:

"People say, 'I was born in the church.' Well, I was born in a hospital, but my parents took me to church pretty quick after."- Brother Nilsson
"It's good to obey, it's better to be exactly obedient, but it's best to follow the higher law. Like Samuel, we need to stay on the wall in the places the spirit can continually reach us." - Brother Nilsson
"Take that you doubting French - we have witnesses!" - President Condie on God and Christ being witnesses to the Sacred Grove experience of Joseph Smith.