Grasias

Hola Y'all

This week was awesome!! and cold. Spanish has been coming a long and thanksgiving was so good!!

So last tuesday, we had one of the members of the 70 come and speak. He spoke about not being afraid to say what you feel in your heart to your investigators even though it could be really crazy! If it scares you then its probably the spirit telling you to say something. I really loved a scripture that they shared, its 2 timothy 1:7. Look it up! 

Wednesday was super cold. We had a lesson with our investigator brian and it lasted a whooollllleee hour when it is normally supposed to be 30 minutes! woops. But it went so well! We explained what the atonement was and how it could bless his life and that through it we could let go of all of our sins and bad feelings and be forgiven! We asked him if he would be baptized and he said yes! We didnt set a date because he feels like he needs to learn more which is fine. But Brian is awesome seriously. Teaching him is always a good time because he helps us with our spanish and doesnt judge when when we mess up really bad. planning our lessons with him can be stressful sometimes but I actually really enjoy meeting with him because hes just such a down to earth person and really wants to become better! 

Thursday was thanksgiving!!! I loved it. Me and hermana budd sang in the MTC choir and sang come thou fount and it was probably the most beautiful uplifting thing ive ever heard. The lyrics are amazing. The line that says "heres my heart, oh take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above" really gets me so good. The whole song is about a guy who comes to know that Christ is our savior and feels completely indebted to him for the atonement. Which is completely true. Because of his atonement, we can be clean and be able to have eternal life with our families and our heavenly father. Our choir director told us about how in the old testament, after they had this big battle and they felt as though God helped them, they raised this big rock thing and called it Ebenezer. Basically it stood for their change and how they would never go back to their old sinful ways and always keep his commandments for them. Look up the rest of the lyrics and listen to the song. Its truly amazing! We heard Neil L andersen speak and he spoke about being thankful in all of our situations and for all of the things that come our way. even the bad things! Because even our trials and hard thigns that we go through are for our benefit and for the benefit of those we serve. God has literally given us everything we have and everything we see. The least we can do is give back to him for all of his love and charity that he gives us. It put my purpose as a missionary into perspective. 

Friday we had another lesson with brian! We didnt really teach much but we answered a couple of his questions and he felt like we knew all about him but he didnt really know much about us. So for our lesson after that he wanted us to tell him about our lives and how the gospel has impacted us. 

Saturday we were planning our lesson for relief society and it was going really bad. Me and hermana budd didnt really know what we wanted to say and were just feeling really frustrated and stressed about what we needed to say and stuff. So after our study/planning period in the morning we had a class with our teacher hermano hicks. He talked to us about how in the book of mormon, nephi and his brothers were commanded to go and get the brass plates from laban. It seemed like this super impossible task but they brainstormed and came up with a few ideas. First laman went and tried to talk to laban and just try and reason him out and get them that way. But that didnt work and he got chased out by his army. Then all of nephis brothers went and got all of their gold and silver and stuff together and tried to trade laban for the brass plates but that didnt work either. Afterwards Nephi was really frustrated. He decided to consult the Lord and ask what he should do and that Laban be delivered into his hands so that they could somehow get the brass plates like their father commadned him. Our teacher Hermano hicks told us that nephi failed. He was not perfect. He had 2 failed attempts to get the plates. We as people are not perfect and sometimes we dont get things and have to struggle in order to know what we have to do! 2 out of the 3 times Nephi didnt consult the lord about what he should do. The lord knows best in everything. The lords way is higher than our way and it is important that we include him in what we are teaching our investigators. We need to try and teach what he would have them understand. Later thats what i realized that me and hermana budd were doing wrong. When we were planning our relief society lesson we werent trying to teach what the lord would have the other hermanas learn. we were trying to teach what we wanted to and it wasnt working out. So later that night we sat down again and said a prayer that we would be able to feel in our hearts what God wanted those other hermanas learn and it went great! we cranked our lesson out and felt super good about it. After we gave it on sunday it went really well and I felt like i learned sooooo much and i was the one teaching! The lord knows yall!

Yesterday we had another lesson with Brian but this one was only 30 min. We introduced ourselves again and told him about our families and our lives. We told him that through the gospel of jesus christ and the plan of salvation that our families could live together forever and we could return to see heavenly father again after this life! we explained that some of the trials we went through in our lives really strengthened our testimonies and helped us understand that God is real and God is there. He wants the best for us in every situation and he wants us to also grow and learn. He loves us but he lets hard things happen to us so that we can rely on Jesus christ and his atonement. I love this gospel so much yall. It seriously brings more peace and joy than anything else in this world could. Have a great week!

Hermana Anderson