This week was similar to last, no huge changes!
We are continuing to teach our teachers who act as investigators and our lessons are getting better each day. Once a week we do what is called TRC (Teaching Resource Center) which is where people who live in the provo area volunteer to come in the mtc and be taught a short lesson by the missionaries! Most of the volunteers are members but some are innactive. Elder Chappell and I first taught a lady named Mary Ann Smith who is about 50 years old. She was a Latino woman who had moved from Peru and she didn't speak any English. She had been a member for a few years now but her family was all Catholic and pretty much wanted nothing to do with her since she joined the church. We wanted to just give a brief lesson about the atonement so we started talking about Jesus Christ and how through Jesus Christ we can overcome any obstacles we might face. We told her that in our lives the atonement has helped us in many ways. We then asked her what difficulties she had in her life...she immediately started crying and starting talking a hundred miles an hour! She said something about how her family won't listen to her about the church and something about abortion? and how she wants to serve a mission but she's not married. We were trying so hard to pick it all up but she talked really fast and had an accent so it was tough. She then shared her testimony with us about baptism and the atonement, and how she knows that her baptism was the first step to returning to her Father in Heaven. After about 10 minutes she stopped, and at this point even I was nearly crying! (Not Elder Chappell though, he's a lot tougher than I am. I don't think he ever cries!). Her testimony was so strong and even though I didn't understand it all, I could feel the spirit so strongly through her testimony. Elder Chappell and I told her that we were grateful for her testimony and that we could tell she was a very strong woman. I told her that we could tell she was a great example to her family and that she would receive a lot of blessings for her faithfulness. We then shared our testimonies with her and closed the lesson. It was such an awesome lesson. It was also really fun to talk to someone who was a native spanish speaker!
The TRC was short on Spanish speaking volunteers that day, so we just taught a short lesson to our teacher, Hermana Larsen. We shared our testimonies with her about prayer and how it is evidence of God's love that we are able to communicate with our Father in Heaven. We then asked her if she would share her testimony with us and she did. She also promised us to try and make her prayers more sincere. Afterwards she thanked us and said she always loves an opportunity to share her testimony and hear ours.
I saw Ethan Bennett yesterday. He just got here on wednesday, and is going to Bankock, Thailand. He told me his first few days of speaking Thai have been really hard! I just tried to encourage him that once he got settled in it would get easier!
I hope you liked the pictures I sent in my last letter. The pictures of me walking up the wall are just me laying down on an ironing board! Haha. It is bolted to the wall so everyone takes pictures on it and covers it up with their suit so it looks like there's nothing there. Love all of you! Have a good week!
