First of all, I will be flying out to Florida a week from today, on April 30th. My flight leaves at 7ish in the morning, and we have to be at the travel office here at the MTC at 4 am. YIKES! But I will be calling, so don't sleep through my call, I can't wait to hear your voices :)
My first day was good, its just such a strange feeling to be in such a totally new environment like the MTC, cut off from everyone and everything.. But that is actually what makes it so great too. My district is so great. I really love them and feel like they are my family. My entire district, elders and sisters are going to Jacksonville, which is unusual. Kevin Bodily, who's a couple years younger than me and went to Logan High, is also in my district. My companion's name is Sister Nunes (Abbi Nunes) and she is from Tooele. I LOVE HER. She is a tiny little human, and she is so sweet and so kind. She is freshly 19, the youngest that you can be as a sister missionary. She is the first missionary EVER in her family, as far back as she can tell in her family history. What an amazing example she is to me. I feel so blessed that she is my companion and I know that Heavenly Father hand-picked us for each other. More about her later :)
The first day we were here, all the new missionaries met in a big room and the presidency here at the MTC gave us the low-down on what would be happening while we were here. There were over 1,000 missionaries in the room and you could could feel the excited energy. We were told that more sisters than elders had arrived that day, the first time that had EVER happened in the MTC. Girl power! There are SO many sisters here, going all kinds of places and it really is amazing to see. That first night, we met in smaller groups and "investigators" (they were role-playing but it really seems like its all real) were set up in the front of classrooms in a set up similar to someone's actual living room. We as a group were the missionaries, kind of tag-teaming in teaching and giving input when we wanted to help teach. I think I was pretty quiet, it is definitely an intimidating thing. We rotated from room to room seeing different investigators with different stories. There was one investigator named Three-J and he shared that the only time he had ever prayed was when his dad would come home drunk all the time and he and his brothers would lock the door to their room and pray together. People kept talking to him about how they didn't understand what he had gone through, but that Heavenly Father loved him and that if 3-J trusted Him, everything would be ok. You could tell that 3-J wanted to believe that but that he couldn't get past his baggage. My sweet little companion stood up to the tallest of her 4'11 height, and shared with 3-J a very personal experience. She told him that unfortunately, she DID understand what he had gone through as a child. She bore such a bold testimony that ONLY through Jesus Christ can he forgive his father. You know me, I was a mess, but the spirit was SO strong in the room, and 3-J was getting emotional too.
That night I laid in my top bunk and I felt.. excited. I knew I could do this. I am here, I have been set apart, and I feel the spirit constantly guiding my thoughts and progression. I have never felt the spirit to such a degree in my life! My roommates had a tough time falling asleep, but I was out in about three minutes! I was so tired.
This week is truly a blur. I am only in the MTC for 12 days, and so there is an incredible amount of learning to be done. But Heavenly Father is helping me do it. It has been an emotional roller coaster for sure. I have such high-amazing moments, but I have also experienced moments where I am low. I feel like Heavenly Father is giving me this roller coaster because it is necessary for me to be humbled every time He needs to teach me something. I want to be humble more than anything, and I am praying for Heavenly Father to help me be humble, and so am beginning to realize that those down moments are direct answers to prayers, and I am so grateful.
We have two teachers, Sister Smith and Brother Doxy. They are wonderful people. I especially love Brother Doxy, he is such a good teacher. You can FEEL that he and Sister Smith love us and have taught me to pray as hard as I can to feel Christ's love for my investigators. I do feel it, even though they are staff members pretending to be investigators, I feel so much love for them. We are all brothers and sisters! Christ is our Savior! I feel like I am not making any sense because I am so excited and don't even know how to organize my thoughts, but I know that the savior loves me and that he wants me to be here. I chose to come here before I came to this earth.
Sister Smith went to Louisiana and Brother Doxy went to South Africa and spoke in clicks language! He bore his testimony for us last night in his mission language and all our mouths dropped, it was awesome. They are wonderful teachers, but they teach us how to teach as missionaries by example. That is how Christ always taught, not by long lectures, but by His example. We do role-playing a LOT, which at first was a little awkward but is such a good way to learn. Think about it, we do proxy work in the temple, and is it not meaningful? I feel the same way about role-playing in the MTC, it IS meaningful. We are asked to think of an inactive or non-member friend and pray to feel and respond the way that they would. I have said things and felt emotions that are not my own, and I know Heavenly Father is helpling us to learn in ways that we could not learn on our own. This is THE most important work we could be doing.. Bringing souls to Christ!! Helping them to find the source of true joy and happiness. I feel like I have always had a testimony and I have always tried to strengthen my relationship with Christ, but this is a whole new level.. Its like my world was a camera and I thought I saw the whole picture but all the sudden, I just zoomed out and there is SO MUCH MORE. Heavenly Father is giving me that insight as a missionary and I feel so humble and so grateful. I am learning in my classes how incredibly essential it is to let the spirit be the teacher in EVERY lesson. We are merely the facilitator for the investigator to feel that spirit.
Our relief society lesson was with all the sisters in the MTC and the 2nd counselor in the primary general presidency spoke to us. She was awesome, and full of the light of Christ. What a blessing it is for me to be able to carry the Savior's name on a badge on my chest every day. I hope that the same light of Christ can be seen from my eyes. That night, the BYU men's choir sang to us and it was great. Then we watched the testaments.. It was SO funny at every part where there was physical contact between a girl. You would have thought we were sitting in a middle school gymnasium, every time that the main characters in the testament flirted with each other or kissed the MTC went wild!! I think the Elders are going a little stir-crazy trying not to look at these cute girls too much ;)
I have seen Melanie once and was so excited :) She seem really happy and I know she is an awesome missionary. I also saw Hannah. Her name tag says her name in Georgian and its crazy. It looks like squiggles. She is awesome. I also saw Zack Ringle!! You know Zack, he was jumping up and down to see me and was smiling ear to ear! Ok, he wasn't doing that, he actually looked like he was embarrassed that some girl was so excited to see him, but he looks happy :) I also saw PACO, from Torreon!! We were so excited to see each other :) He is going to Chicago in May.
There have been moments where I have prayed on my top bunk and had to climb down and pray on the floor because I feel so humbled to be here. I have so much to be grateful for. I am so grateful for the atonement, and for my Heavenly Father. We sent off part of our zone last night and we sang a few hymns together. It was powerful. I love music and joy explodes from my heart when we sing together! I love you family, and am so happy that we are sealed together in the temple.
This is where I need to be, and I have so much to learn, but I can't wait.
I love you all!! Talk to you next week :)
Love,
Sister Dodd ;)
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