Hey everyone! I'm officially more than halfway through my MTC experience! Thinking about leaving is happy and sad because I'm going to miss everyone and all the learning here SO MUCH but I'm also super excited to go out and serve!
Elder Gary E. Stevenson spoke at our devotional yesterday so that was amazing! The Spirit was so strong when he entered the room! A few things I really liked that he said:
-Never underestimate how much music can bring the Spirit as we testify the gospel.
-By the time we leave our missions, we want worn out shoes and worn out scriptures. (It's important to work hard and be ALL IN!)
Our district started full immersion this Monday, so now we not only just speak Spanish in class, but all the time with our companions. We aren't perfect at it yet because sometimes it's hard to remember to only speak in Spanish, especially when the amount of things I can communicate is a lot more limited, but we're getting there and I'm really hoping to see more language progress over this next week!
My district has started waking up a few days a week for EARLY morning sand volleyball so the wake-up's been rough but it's definitely worth it.
My companions and I started doing some study-time in a room with a piano and it feels so good to play a little! I have a book of hymn arrangements and it's really helped me connect to the Lord through music lately!
SPIRITUAL:
This one's long so bear with me! This week in our Sunday devotional, President Calderwood (the MTC President) talked about how if we have one bite of a good pizza, we already know the rest is good without having to eat it all.
And I know it sounds so obvious, but it's actually a super good analogy for both missionary work and life.
First off, it's a good reminder for me that those I am teaching may not always need to follow the exact plans I have for them in order to gain a testimony that the church is true. I can invite them to read specific scripture passages or go to specific activities but they may not accept my challenges perfectly every time. A person I'm teaching does not necessarily need to read the entire Book of Mormon before gaining a testimony that it is true. They may not need a complicated lesson.. sometimes a few simple truths can bring them the Spirit before they understand everything else about the gospel. A person's entire testimony grows through personal revelation, and I just start that work by teaching small pieces at a time about the restored gospel.
The pizza analogy is not just for missionary work, it's true for all of us. We don't have to eat the whole pizza right now to know it's good. We may not understand everything about this gospel perfectly. We may have questions about why Heavenly Father has allowed certain things to happen or feel stronger in some areas than others, and that is OKAY! We don't have to have a perfect knowledge of everything right now. We can trust in the spirit we've felt about the Book of Mormon, the Atonement, or whatever we feel connected to right now.. and let that faith carry us when we have doubts or don't understand it all. Someday I know we will have a perfect knowledge of it all, but for now, we can trust that if one part is good, it all is!
I challenge you all to pray for strength in one important aspect of the gospel so that you can build your faith in the gospel as a whole!
FUNNY:
One of the Elders in our district had to go out of state to get his visa for his mission, but his comp thought it would be funny to tell us all that he left the mission in the middle of the night without giving a reason and wasn't coming back. We were all so shocked and then when he came back the next morning there was a lot of relief haha
QUOTES OF THE WEEK:
-"Don't climb the mountain for the world to see you, climb the mountain to see the world."
-"Focus more on the habits you want to gain, and that will help you focus less on the habits you want to lose."
-"The true gift of tongues is made manifest in the church more abundantly, perhaps, than any other spiritual gift. Every missionary who goes forth to teach the gospel in a foreign language if he or she is prayerful and faithful receives this gift”
(President Joseph Fielding Smith)
Love you all lots!
Hermana DeMordaunt
PICTURES:
-My district and our teacher, Brother Spackman! He just left last week so that was our last photo with him :'(
-BeReal with a pre-mtc trainer
-We wrote little notes to everyone in our district and put them on their desks :)
-temple!
-just for fun selfie in the mtc dorms!
-companion picture!
-We got VIP reserved seats for the Sunday devotional because Sister Judd was saying the prayer
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