June 24, 2017

I'm pretty sure that I have learned more about the gospel this past week than I have in 19 years... haha which sounds kinda bad but it's true! The first 3 days went by kinda slow but this past week has flown by. I feel like yesterday should've been sunday. It's hard enough to remember what happens in a day, let alone a week so I always have to pull out my journal while I'm emailing so I don't miss anything important. Last Sunday was so awesome, speaker at our devotional was... Donny Osmond! So many people didn't know who he was but then he started singing "Let's get down to business", and everyone started freaking out haha. He told us that when we get home from our missions we have to youtube 'white and nerdy green screen take 1' haha so I guess I'll see what that is all about in 18months. He talked about perseverance, not letting rejection discourage us, obedience, not overlooking the small and simple things, confidence, "your future is as bright as your faith, and experience, ENJOY YOURSELF. So many people forget to "experience their mission", to enjoy the culture. At the end of the devotion he sang one of his songs 'whenever you're in trouble'. After that my district and I watched Elder Bednar's talk 'Characters of Christ'. So many people had told me to watch that one and that it is super life changing and they were all absolutely RIGHT! I don't even know how to describe how good it was. We learned how it is the natural man's instinct to turn inwards, and be selfish. But Christ's character is to turn outwards. Everything He did was never for Himself. The only way to change is through Christ and His Atonement, and so if we want to change we need to turn out. To repent does not just mean to be forgiven of our sins, it means we are trying to align our will with the Lord's. And so when we repent we are ReTurning to God, turning towards Him and away from ourselves. And so it doesn't matter what I want or what I think I deserve, or what I expect to get out of this mission that I am on Sometimes  we think that we have the right to feel sorry for ourselves because we think we should be getting more, more baptisms, more investigators, more people coming to church but this mission is not about me in the slightest, it is about Him completely. Learning this has helped me a lot because it doesn't matter if I'm the best missionary, or know the scriptures inside and out, or say something really profound in every class and lesson because when I worry about those things that is me worrying about myself and turning inwards. My goal is to become the missionary that the Lord wants me to be and to find out what kind of missionary that is I just need to focus on learning more about Him. Something else that Elder Bednar spoke a lot on was conversion. Having faith and saying that you believe in Jesus Christ is not enough anymore. There is a price we have to pay to gain our own personal conversion and we are promised in Alma 23:5-8 that a testimony+conversion=never falling away. Holy I am only on Sunday still hahah I'm going to have to get better at summarizing! But I just want to share with you guys everything that I am learning,it is just all so important and just makes you want to try so much harder to be better!

This week we did a lot of missionary work online at the referral center, answering questions and calls on mormon.org. It's kinda scary but super cool, I can't believe how many people are just sitting on their computers everyday trying to find out more about mormons. Tuesday night we had another devotional with Donald L. Hallstrom and his wife. Sister Hallstrom talked about having a heart that is committed to this missionary work and a heart that is willing to change. Elder Hallstrom said that the world says to be selfish during this time to find yourself, but the Lord says to be selfless to find yourself. We will never again be given the opportunity like we have been given now where we can completely dedicate 2 years or 18months to serving the Lord, without any other distractions. And so decide now what kind of missionary you want to be.

Sister Rodrigues caught a virus and so on wednesday we got to leave to MTC and go to the BYU pharmacy and it was sooo weird walking down the sidewalk. It was like a little glimpse into the future. Everybody was looking at us and you could see some people pointing from their cars haha we are definitely guarded inside the mtc, you could almost compare it to barnwell haha. We watched "missionary work and the atonement" by Jeffery R. Holland and you all need to watch it. It's kinda more directed towards missionaries but it is so good. "why isn't missionary work more easy? Because Salvation isn't cheap." Let's just say I was bawling, but that's not really a surprise haha.

Our Thursday morning class was amazing. So with this pilot group we are in there is usually someone sitting in the corner of the class taking notes about what we're studying and stuff like that. The sisters and I were all just studying from chapter 11 in preach my gospel and we just started having this awesome conversation and the guy in the corner came over with his phone and asked if he could video us, and just to keep doing what we were doing. Having the camera on us was kinda intimidating haha so we just tried to keep looking at each other and not over to him. We started role playing with the promise in moroni chapter 10, and talked about what a sincere heart and real intent mean. When we have real intent it means that we will be willing to act on the answers we receive and I know that when I first started praying about whether I should go on a mission or not,I did not have real intent. I am so thankful now though that I am here because like I said at the beginning I have learned so much about the gospel. The church and the people in it are not perfect but the rock it is built upon is. And that rock is the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have to build our faith in Jesus Christ, which leads us to repentance, which leads us to baptism and recommitting ourselves to God(partaking of the sacrament), and then we are promised to have the Holy Ghost with us, and he testifies of the Father and the Son which builds your faith in them and its all just this perfect path leading us to live with our Father in heaven again. A week and a half ago I didn't even understand what the doctrine of Christ was and that is what this life is all about! It says it so many times in the scriptures!

So the normal cafeteria has been turned into a conference room because right now all of the new mission presidents and their wives are getting trained here at the MTC, which means that there are also lots of general authorities here! But we haven't seen any yet! One downside to not having the cafeteria though is the food is definitely not as good haha we are eating in the new building and I don't even know how the chefs and everyone are doing it but it must be a lot of work because they have to bring all the food over in trucks. But its only for a week. 

Gym time everyday is so fun, we play volleyball, and the other day we were playing basketball with our district but me and sister rodrigues are kind of an uneven match mostly because she is 4'8'' haha so we just went to a different net and i was teaching her how to shoot haha. Yesterday sister merril (who just got here on Wednesday)and me ran around the track together for 45 minutes which was super nice because I just kinda got to release some of the stress from the week. She liked cross country too and so we just got to run for 45mins and tell each other about ourselves. I'm excited to get to run with her this next week too, it's pretty amazing how aware our Heavenly Father is of us and our needs even if they seem really insignificant. 

We did a session this morning at the temple with two of the districts in our zone and it's just so amazing seeing so many young people doing something that's so good:)

I miss you all so much but I am doing good. I am so grateful for the prayers that you say for me, I'm praying for you too:) maybe you can start praying that I will stop having the craziest dreams at night haha my latest one was shaylee and I dying haha hopefully that isn't true but I wouldn't know because I haven't HEARD from her yet haha shaylee you little turd! still love ya though<3

Love you all sooo much!!

Sister wood