Friends and Family,
Bonjour! It's been a week since I've written last, but it feels like it's been longer. And shorter. If that makes any sense at all. If not... oh well. I shall update you on my oh so exciting happenings at the MTC. :D
Thursday, 30th -
I learned lots of French. Lots. And lots. It made my brain melt a little. But I do feel like I'm improving pretty quickly. Well, until I talk to the district of missionaries that just came in from France. When I talk to them, I feel like I've been learning the wrong language for the past five years. They speak so quickly! But they're really nice, and they're trying to learn English, so we help each other.
My companions and I taught Quentin, and it didn't go as well as we'd hoped. He did accept our invitation for baptism, but we confused him with one of the scriptures we gave him that said something speaking with the tongue of angels, and we didn't know how to explain what it meant in French... I felt like I could've done better at teaching with the Spirit.
It snowed on Thursday, and Soeur Rasmussen was way excited because she's lived in Provo all her life. She grabbed some of the snow and threw it up into the air with a look of pure amazement on her face. Awesomeness. Also an elder in our district, Elder Teh, who's from Malaysia, was excited about the snow too. I also love snow and I was distressed by our not-the-best lesson, so I built a 'lil 6" tall missionary snowman to release my stress. :D He even had a name tag.
Soeur Ridd was also unhappy about the lesson, and her progress in French, so Elder Wallace gave her a pep talk about how learning French was like Mt. Everest and she had to climb a little and then rest on a plateau to get used to the air, and eventually she would be a sherpa doing jumping jacks on the top. Very inspiring. Now we have a mountain drawn on our chalkboard, Soeur Ridd climbing it, and me belaying her.
Last thing I remember from Thursday... I think I told you one of our elders (Elder Amaya) was advanced to a different district because he was so amazing at French. Well, Elder Wallace was his companion, and he used to ask him a lot of French questions. Now that he can't do that anymore, he uses his French/English dictionary and has named it Elder Amaya. We told Elder Amaya this and he didn't seem too happy about it for some reason... :D
Friday 31st -
During gym time Soeur Rasmussen was in a not-fantabulous mood, so Soeur Ridd and I cheered her up with jokes. Also, we took pictures of ourselves while we were doing service cleaning the bathroom. And we took a picture with my poor melted snowman.
Frere Kellet is awesome, though. He taught us how to use our personal studies better so that they would carry on into our companionship studies and help us prepare for our lessons. While I was studying with our other new investigator (Siliane) in mind, I had random scriptures pop into my head, and all sorts of ideas to help Siliane with what she needed. I know Heavenly Father was helping me know her needs and what to say to her. Then we talked as a companionship and everyone had amazing ideas about how to teach her.
So, I don't know if I've told you peoples how awesome/hilarious Elder Teh is. We now have a book of Teh, a notebook with his funny sayings/situations in it. One that happened on Friday was when my companions and I looked through one of the windows into a room where Elder Wallace was playing the piano and Elder Teh was looking out the window with his hands behind his back. (I took a picture if I can figure out how to send it :D ) It looked very dramatic, and we told Elder Teh he looked like a dictator. Later, when we were leaving, Elder Teh looked out the window one last time and said, "The world is a beautiful place." Then he walked out the door, looked back at us and said, "But I, Hitler, must destroy it."
Saturday 1st -
I felt pretty crappiflapnasty (maybe ask Gabrielle if I spelled that right) on Saturday. I felt like I wasn't very good at teaching with, following, or feeling the Spirit. But then we went to a Zone Teaching Conference and we had to get to know someone in 5 minutes, then pray to know their needs and prepare a lesson for them by the Spirit. Well, the sister I was with pretty much asked me questions the whole time, so I didn't really get to find anything out about her. So I prayed and asked the Lord to help me know what she needed the most. I felt like she was really worried about how well she was doing at French and that she was so stressed by all of the things required of her each day. I felt prompted to look at where I'd been reading in the scriptures and I found some amazing verses nearby. (In Doctrine and Covenants). I had her read them and asked her questions that I wouldn't have thought to ask without the Lord's help, and she thanked me because she said that was exactly what she needed to hear that day. I'm so grateful for the Lord and for his love for me, that he knows what we need, what I need, and gave me the opportunity to teach that day so I could feel better about how I was doing, and rely on him more.
Sunday 2nd -
Okay, my email time is quickly depleting, so I'll have to talk about this briefly. But we had Mission Conference on Sunday. It was fantastic. We also had our devotional and watched the Joseph Smith movie. Throughout it all, I felt like I needed to give my whole heart to the Lord, to trust him more and put the Savior more in the center of my life.
Our zone walked to the temple on Sunday. We took a plethora of pictures. My face hurt from smiling so much. On the way to and from the temple, Soeur Rasmussen threw snowballs at us. She's still not tired of the snow. We shall wait and see if that changes...
Monday 3rd -
We taught Siliane and Shuang Bai. Siliane committed to baptism if she felt and knew that what we were teaching her was true, even though it was our first lesson. Shuang Bai was a bit more difficult to teach because he had no religious background. At all. So we started at the basics. I think we did pretty well, but I always think I can improve.
We had companionship inventory, and we went around saying what we liked about each other. I think it helped us grow closer as a companionship.
Well, that is all I can write for now! I love and miss you all! Live long and prosper! :D May the Spirit be with you!
Soeur Williams
I will send pictures later. This computer is not the awesome.
According to Gabrielle, the proper spelling is 'crapaflapnasti'
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