[Note from Kat: I fixed it! :D]
Okay. This past week. It was pretty good. The food here is making me gain weight... It's those biscuits and gravy, curly fries and tater tots... I mean to go in and not eat them, but they entice my every time. I do exercise, but I suppose I should push myself harder in order to make up for all the extra calories I seem to be taking in. :]
I forgot my journal, so I can't really remember anything in particular... Oh! Last week, we took a walk to the temple in the rain. I actually really don't like going out in the rain, but I really needed a change in scenery. It was still a jovial walk despite the dampness and coldness.
I discovered that since my emotional breakdown, the lock on the door to my tears seems to have loosened a bit. I find if I so much as think about something that is stressing me out, my eyes start to water. I'll tell you the truth it's been quick a thing for me to get used to. I'm not one to really just cry willy nilly. This newfound weakness of mine and made me even more stressed and makes me feel like an uber loser. Solution! Don't think about anything that may or may not be stressful to me. When that fails and I start crying, its just never ending. I had one of those moment this past week but I knew I couldn't cry for that long. There was no time. My companion and I had an investigator to teach in an hour. So I just shut off my emotions. I felt absolutely nothing and thought about nothing. It was strange, but it worked. We went in, gave our lesson and it was great.
This past week Elder Dallin H. Oaks came and gave our Tuesday devotional and was about to pretty plainly and clearly explain how our church is different from other churches. It really was an eye opening and spiritual experience.
On Saturday we (Meng Jiemei and I) had our first (official) TRC experience!! We had a given topic this time, which was to prepare a lesson for Preach My Gospel (so it didn't really narrow it down, but guidelines are always nice) Oh, if you don't know what TRC is, it's basically a time when the missionaries in the MTC meet people who volunteer to be taught. In our case they are all Mandarin speakers of course, and for the most part it's member who just want to help out or be spiritually uplifted, but on Saturday, one of our TRC volunteers was my teacher He(pronounced huh) laoshi's friend who wasn't a member. Needless to say, Meng Jiemei and I were quite nervous about it.
But first!! Our first volunteer that we met was a missionary from Taipei, Taiwan who was sent home a year into his mission because of an illness, and for some reason, after getting home, the doctors still don't know what he has. Our hearts definitely went out to him and we shared the message we prepared about faith and how we need to continually nurture it because as human beings we are quick to forget the Lord's tender mercies as well as his constant love and desire to help us through our trials. We invited him to, every night, write down in a journal or notebook, one thing that the Lord and Heavenly Father had blessed him with sometime during the day. I also challenge anyone who is reading this to do the same, and if anything I encourage you to find and write down 3-5 things. I promise you that if you do this, your faith will grow and you will be able to feel His hand in your life, constantly trying to lift you up.
The second volunteer was He Laoshi's friend. She was very nice and we discovered that she already had a copy of the Book of Mormon had was starting to read in 1st Nephi. We asked her to read a few scriptures about faith and asked about her thoughts and ended with a challenge to not only continue reading the Book of Mormon but to also pray every night about whether or not it is true.
Speaking of the Book of Mormon, I am almost through Mosiah and I just have to say that Alma's conversion was more than I thought it was when I learned about it in church. Alma was one of King Noah's evil priests. One of his evil priests! Meaning he was mostly likely like King Noah and all the other evil priests living in all manner of well, evil! But, when he heard the words of the prophet, his heart was softened and even tried to plead with King Noah to spare his life. After that he ran away because he believed his words and then repented of his sins. I feel like just saying it like that makes it seem like an easy matter. But it couldn't have been. He had been living such a lifestyle and because of the Spirit and the Lord he changed completely. It was a great reminder to me that no matter who you are or how you might be living, if you open your heart to the Spirit and allow the Lord to heal you, anyone can change and become a follower of Christ.
Okay, well, I'm running out of time. Let me just add that the MTC is quite possibly the hardest experience I've had (so far) in my life, but I don't regret it. I feel like I have learned so much more about the Lord and his influence in my life more in these past 2 and a half weeks than I have in my entire life. It is a rollercoaster everyday. "The days are long, but the weeks are short" I think my time to leave this place will come much sooner than I'm expecting. I love my District and my companion Meng Jiemei. I think we really are perfect for each other because we both are really able to learn a lot from one another.
-Sister Hsu
P.S. I'm sorry if there are letters missing. The keyboard doesn't seem to like me very much.
Note from Kat: I think I corrected most of the errors... But I think the "r" on her keyboard wasn't working very well.
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