Oi! Family and Friends!
Well officially I am going crazy in here. I want to get out of the MTC so bad and just get into the mission field. Got two more weeks left then I am off to the other side of the world. It feels like I have been in here forever, but I know that it will soon come to an end and I will be preaching the gospel in Portuguese to Angolans. I am just super excited and pumped to get out there and just go to work, becoming a tool in the Lord´s hand to bring true and everlasting happiness to families and people. Thats all I can think about right now, and I am just trying to work on my language and teaching skills and studying the gospel as much as I can before I get there.
Well this past Sunday Night, Richard Heaton the Administrative Director for the MTC spoke. He talked about missionary work and just tidbits of advice and help that we can use in our missions. One thing that stuck out to me is when he said, ¨ The greatest miracle on the planet is the conversion of a soul to the gospel of Jesus Christ¨. And its true, what a miracle for a person to change their way of thinking and way of life and flip it upside down just because they have such a strong feeling that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God. Its quite remarkable and its even better when its people that we love. Thats why I need to really love the people of Angola, and I am sure I will. And thats why we every member is a missionary because we all have people we love who doesn´t have this great and amazing message in their lives. And if we truly do love that person we need to open our mouth and share with them the gospel and about our church, and give them the chance to follow Christ or not. I know that if we do this then the Lord will bless us for trying to bring his children back to him.
Anyways, oh yeah this last saturday we got our first baptism with Benedita, so that was awesome. Now that she has been baptized Irma Hart will be a new investigator for us when she gets back, and we will probably have this one till we leave. And we have Chines´ baptism this weekend so hopefully that holds out for us, cause we have struggled a bit with him but we got through his difficulties. If you guys haven´t seen them yet, theres this three part Africa story on LDS.org with President Holland that is really good, and we´ve watched it countless times, so you should go by and watch that. On Wednesday morning I got my ingrown toenail taken out. I was able to talk to the podiatrist a bit because I told him I worked in a Podiatrist office before. So we just talked about the procedure he was going to do and just other random tidbits, haha it was kind of funny and reminded me all those hours I spent at Dr. Petersen's office:) Good Times:)
On Tuesday night Rober Steuer who is an Emeritus 70 came and spoke. He has been working on the translation of the Portuguese bible into an LDS version one and a more correct one because the ones that we have are from somewhere else. He also talked about missionary work, the Temple, and the Gospel. One thing that he said which will help my next temple visit is he said that everything in the Temple symbolizes or relates back to the Atonement of Jesus Christ and that the focus of the Temple is the plan of redemption. I never really thought about it that way, so my next temple trip I will for sure be looking out for that. He also gave a good scripture in DC 101:36 which talks about in this world our joy is not full but rather in Christ our joy is full. Things of this world are nice but the focus of our life is to draw closer to Christ through his gospel and his teachings. Family time, reading scriptures, etc. are very important because that is what will bring us the real joy in this life and continue to grow our testimonies. One thing he said about testimonies is that there an earned legacy. He talked about how people who have pioneer ancestrey could not live off their testimonies. That God is so equal and fair to us that we all start from at the same point and have to gain and grow our testimonies. We cannot live off of borrowed light, but truly for ourselves go out and find the truth of these things through reading the scriptures, studying the gospel, and praying.
Lastly, one thing I liked that he said was that no matter what, even if my testimony is attacked, the prophet attacked, all of our testimonies and the church are attacked, the truth will defend itself. The pure truths of the gospel will defend themselves against anything that is thrown at it. And that is promise from our Heavenly Father that I will take with me into the mission field. So it was a pretty good week.
Language coming along, studying and all is too. Just gotta keep grinding these last two weeks out. This upcoming week we should be getting our travel plans, so my next email should have all my flight details when I leave! I love you all, and thanks you for all your support, letters, and packages!!
Tchau,
Anyways, oh yeah this last saturday we got our first baptism with Benedita, so that was awesome. Now that she has been baptized Irma Hart will be a new investigator for us when she gets back, and we will probably have this one till we leave. And we have Chines´ baptism this weekend so hopefully that holds out for us, cause we have struggled a bit with him but we got through his difficulties. If you guys haven´t seen them yet, theres this three part Africa story on LDS.org with President Holland that is really good, and we´ve watched it countless times, so you should go by and watch that. On Wednesday morning I got my ingrown toenail taken out. I was able to talk to the podiatrist a bit because I told him I worked in a Podiatrist office before. So we just talked about the procedure he was going to do and just other random tidbits, haha it was kind of funny and reminded me all those hours I spent at Dr. Petersen's office:) Good Times:)
On Tuesday night Rober Steuer who is an Emeritus 70 came and spoke. He has been working on the translation of the Portuguese bible into an LDS version one and a more correct one because the ones that we have are from somewhere else. He also talked about missionary work, the Temple, and the Gospel. One thing that he said which will help my next temple visit is he said that everything in the Temple symbolizes or relates back to the Atonement of Jesus Christ and that the focus of the Temple is the plan of redemption. I never really thought about it that way, so my next temple trip I will for sure be looking out for that. He also gave a good scripture in DC 101:36 which talks about in this world our joy is not full but rather in Christ our joy is full. Things of this world are nice but the focus of our life is to draw closer to Christ through his gospel and his teachings. Family time, reading scriptures, etc. are very important because that is what will bring us the real joy in this life and continue to grow our testimonies. One thing he said about testimonies is that there an earned legacy. He talked about how people who have pioneer ancestrey could not live off their testimonies. That God is so equal and fair to us that we all start from at the same point and have to gain and grow our testimonies. We cannot live off of borrowed light, but truly for ourselves go out and find the truth of these things through reading the scriptures, studying the gospel, and praying.
Lastly, one thing I liked that he said was that no matter what, even if my testimony is attacked, the prophet attacked, all of our testimonies and the church are attacked, the truth will defend itself. The pure truths of the gospel will defend themselves against anything that is thrown at it. And that is promise from our Heavenly Father that I will take with me into the mission field. So it was a pretty good week.
Language coming along, studying and all is too. Just gotta keep grinding these last two weeks out. This upcoming week we should be getting our travel plans, so my next email should have all my flight details when I leave! I love you all, and thanks you for all your support, letters, and packages!!
Tchau,
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