Hello family!!!!
So I have to make this email pretty short and sweet today, but thank you everyone for your letters and support and most importantly for your love!
We have a little less than three weeks left before we leave for Russia, and it still hasn't quite hit me yet.
Tonight, me and Sister Carver are participating in a workshop called "How to Begin Teaching" for the new missionaries. We'll be going around to three different rooms that are set up like an investigator's actual living room and "knocking" on their door. This is what we did our first day, and Elder Turner and his companion were the missionaries who "knocked" on our door. We get to teach the investigator (who's an actor) for ten minutes before the workshop director tells us to stop and then let the new missionaries have their chance to teach. I remember being in that workshop the first day and being TERRIFIED!!!!!
It's pretty crazy to think back to two months ago and to realize how far we've come with the Lord's help! I feel like this might be an opportunity to make up for that first day when I was too scared to talk! What's nice about it is that it's in ENGLISH, so we actually will be able to get to know the person a lot more and I'm just hoping and praying that the Spirit will be there and that we will be able to love whoever we will be teaching and that we will be calm.
So that's pretty exciting, and I'm really grateful to have the opportunity.
This past Sunday was Father's Day-Happy Father's Day dad-I love you!!!!!
We had two of the most amazing speakers this past Sunday-Elaine S. Dalton, President of Young Womens, and then Sheri Dew!!!!!
We actually got the opportunity to give Elaine S. Dalton a hug after relief society, and she is so loving and gave us a list of scriptures to take with us out into the field.
Sheri Dew spoke at the Sunday fireside and it was my fist time hearing her speak, and I have the greatest respect and admiration for her! She speaks with POWER and AUTHORITY, and I love how direct and genuine she was. It was interesting because typically we hear from a male speaker and their wives will speak first. I always enjoy this, but sometimes wish that their wives were given an equal amount to speak. But Sheri Dew was the sole speaker Sunday and she is such an example to me! She is clearly a righteous woman who, instead of complaining or being bitter about being single, has gone out and made herself into something and has helped build up the Lord's kingdom regardless!
She said some really cool things: 1) Life isn't just about this life but what comes next. 2) The greatest evil of Satan is to try to make us forget that we're sons and daughters of a king and that we have an ETERNITY to prepare for.
I really enjoyed hearing her speak and was glad to have the opportunity. This upcoming week there will be a new mission president's conference and all of the 12 and first presidency will be hear and there will actually be a 2 hour special devotional next Tuesday, so I'm excited to see who will speak and grateful that I'm here at the MTC during that time!
This week I was feeling a little bit like I had hit the wall with the language and really feeling that I wasn't going to make anymore progress until I got to Russia. But then I felt that since I'm here for 12 weeks instead of 9 it's obviously for a reason and I need to make the most of it! So I've decided to try to memorize the chart that our teachers have given us with the 6 cases, because I want to do my best to show the Lord that I'm making the effort to be diligent, and then he will make up for the rest!
So just something funny: our teacher Brat Savage told us that during one of our first lessons with our "investigator" Koctya, (which was about 6 weeks ago) we asked him to read a verse out of the Russian Bible and apparently we gave him the wrong verse because it was something in Genesis about a man eating something. So he said that he had no idea where we were going with our lesson and had him read another verse that mentioned something to do with food also, but was actually about the topic we were going to talk about (the Holy Ghost). So we asked him what the verses meant to him and he said that he told us in Russian:" .....They both have to do with food????" Which we clearly didn't understand. So he told us he just nodded our heads and said, "Yeah! The Holy Ghost!" and just went with it!
So we've come quite a long ways since then!
Thank you all for all of your letters and love and support! I only have three weeks left before I go into the field, but after that, email will probably be the best way to communicate with me because our Branch president (who was also a mission president in Russia) said that they take more than 6 weeks to get to us.
Dad: I'm so happy to hear that the office is going so well and I hope that you guys had a good time on your trip to South Padre! And I'm excited about the backyard update =)
I love you all!
Love, Laura
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