MTC Week three

Hi Mum and Da,

Sorry I forgot to tell you last week that my pday would be saturday this week--because we had in-field orientation yesterday! crazy. i can't believe that's been almost 3 weeks already and that my elders are leaving on Wednesday. It honestly breaks my heart a little each time i think about it. they are great people and great missionaries, and I know that they will do great work in Oklahoma--but I sure will miss them!

 I found out this week that two of my teachers are climbers (rock climbers). They were telling me about some of the climbs they've been doing up in rock canyon...so jealous. but also so awesome that we have that connection. :)

In our first day's welcome meeting, President Brown told us something along the lines of "everything in your life has led up to this moment and will apply to your mission." I have really seen the truth of that already. Every person I've met, studied with, dated, worked for, or interacted with in any way has left at least one memorable experience or lesson with me that i have been or will be able to draw on at some point during my mission. this is great because, as President Wenn says, our uniqueness will allow us to connect with and touch the lives of people we meet in ways that no one else ever could. So I'm grateful for anyone and everyone who has ever touched my life--because it will help me to touch the lives of the people who are waiting for me in Ohio.

We've learned so much and had so many great and not so great experiences this week. haha. a lot of the time, our lessons end up being frustrating because we want to badly to share what we know and apply what we have learned so as to touch the investigator's heart or soften it in some way...but it just doesn't work. I've seen it work a couple of times though, and it has been truly miraculous. one such experience was in a lesson with Cade the other day. we've met with him multiple times and tried to share our message but it just didn't seem to be reaching him. But in this lesson we were able to listen to the Spirit and ask inspired questions so as to figure out what his questions and concerns about the church and life in general were. he asked why we needed modern prophets if we already have the words of prophets in the Bible. I felt impressed to share the example of The Family: a Proclamation to the World, released by the first presidency before the attacks on the family that we see in society today ever became prevalent. He turned to us and told us that he is studying the family unit as part of his major, and that this is exactly what he's interested in. he really latched on to the Proclamation and was so interested in what we had to say about it. I didn't teach the rest of the lesson as well as I could have, but I was so grateful that I had finally been able to listen well enough to share something that fit his needs and applied exactly to what is going on in his life right now. It was great.

I have so many thoughts and quotes that i want to share that i think i'm just going to list them instead of trying to put them together in coherent thoughts. hopefully you like them.

*if you're not focused on the right thing, you will get the wrong results
*we don't convert. the spirit converts. we open the door for an investigator to feel the spirit.
*We and they need to know Christ, not just know about Him.
*true love is inspiring someone to change.
*"Beauty springs from the well of virtue" -Julie B Beck
*one of Satan's greatest tactics is to destroy hope. Without hope, we will not act. And we must act.
*do not justify being less than you are because of who you are with.
*Investigators remember less what you teach and more how they feel.
*This is not a gospel of avoiding hell. This is a gospel that moves us forward-a gospel of obtaining heaven.
*Never again will Zion run--it's time to take a stand

And possibly my most favorite, from a talk called "Missions are Forever" by Elder Holland that we watched on Sunday:

"Come to the edge," He said.
"No. We'll fall."
"Come to the edge!" He said.
"No! We'll fall!"
"Come to the edge."
So we came to the edge.
He pushed us...and we flew.

I know that if we allow Christ to push us past what we think we are capable of, we will soar.

I'm almost out of time and I still want to send pictures...my pday is friday next week so I will write again then! Love you all!!

Love,
Sister Wygant