My last letter from the MTC!
So, I'm leaving for Paris. How strange is that? It shouldn't be that strange, I've had my call for like 7 1/2 months now. I'm SO excited! This week has been amazing. We had a zone conference last friday and talked about the Savior and charity and the charity lesson blew my mind. We talked about Mosiah 28:3 and how the reason the sons of Mosiah were such amazing missionaries was that they had such overwhelming love for and desire to serve the people. I thought about it a lot and I've felt my love for the French people just ballooning. I'm so excited to get there and meet people and learn about them and just listen to them speak french! I just want to learn all about the culture and the people and their worries and their joys and I want to show them how the gospel can change their life! I love it!
I have a feeling this is going to be the best Christmas of my life :)
This week has been so funny. The whole zone is just excited to leave and everyone's passing around journals (for everyone to sign, it's like high school again) and freaking out about how we're leaving and we're trying really really hard to focus... I mean don't get me wrong, we're focused on the gospel, but it's hard to want to focus on planning when we're finishing up with our progressing investigators and we have yet to meet our new investigators. Oh that reminds me! One of our investigators is getting baptized tomorrow, booyah. Teaching is seriously my favorite thing, I want to be a teacher here when I get back.
Ok last sunday's devotional was AMAZING, BYU Men's Chorus came and just sang to us for an hour and it was beautiful and I could've listened to them all night. And I saw Jonathon! Like 12 times on the screen. It was pretty exciting. Oh and I saw Lou on music and the spoken word! Oh and Relief Society was so good, Sister Christofferson came and talked about how we don't always see the big picture but the Lord does. She talked about how the night Christ was born probably didn't seem like a good time to Mary, she was probably wondering why he had to be born then, when the only place to lay him was in a manger in a smelly stable. But to the Nephites on the other side of the world, who were waiting for the sign of his birth to find out whether they'd be killed or not, the birth of the Savior could not have been more timely. I'd never thought about that before.
Also Sunday we had accountability interviews with the branch presidency and they went so well! They had to be in french and it went really well, I feel like my french is pretty ok and hopefully I won't freeze up once I actually have to speak to French people!
Monday was so funny, we had a health and safety meeting for all the departing missionaries. It was mostly all this stuff like wash your hands, drink pure water, eat healthy, all this DUH stuff. But the guy who was teaching the meeting was insane. If I had a dollar for every time he said the word diarrhea.... And he ended the meeting by telling us we had to lock up our hearts and then he whipped out his harmonica and played us a song. Elders Pistorius and Blank were crying they were laughing so hard.
Tuesday Elder Pieper from the Seventy came and it was AMAZING. Best devotional I've heard since Elder Holland. He talked about agency and choosing to have righteous desires and mostly he talked about how important you are to God. We talked about that later in our district meeting--you are important enough to God that he is aware of every word, every thought, every prayer, every struggle and concern and complaint and joy and happiness. I hadn't thought about it really, or I'd always just taken it for granted. You are SO important to God! I can't comprehend his love. He keeps teaching me more about it every day.
So today we celebrated Christmas with all the soeurs, it started last night when we sat in the res singing christmas songs and it felt like Christmas, even though all our families are (or soon will be) far away. The spirit of Christ is all you need :) Then this morning we all got up early and sat around our little fake Christmas trees and opened presents and drank hot chocolate. It was magical :) I have loved every minute of being here and I'm so excited for the field! Next time I write this it will be from Paris!! Aaaah!
Being a missionary is the best thing ever. No question.
No comments:
Post a Comment