Hey Everybody!
I'm not
actually sure if aprendimiento is a word in Spanish, but it's supposed
to mean learning. Aprender means 'to learn', and -iento is the same as
-ing in english so I hope it is a real word. :)
It really has been a week of learning though; I've learned a lot spiritually, and also from trainings that we've had. On Wednesday
we had a 6 Week follow up meeting for all the missionaries who are
halfway through the 12 week program. It was such a good meeting! We
spent a lot of time on how to be a good companion, and I thought it was
hillarious how often President Hall drew from his marriage for examples.
President and Sister Hall are so cute! While I did learn a lot from
that part of the meeting, mostly I was just so glad that I got such a
wonderful companion in Hermana Whetten, and that we've been able to work
so well together.Three things I liked best from this section were that
'by becoming a better companion you get a better companion.' I also
loved that President Hall emphasized 'hints don't work and they don't
count. If you need or want something ask for it.' The last thing I
really liked from the companionship section was that we need to be our
companion's biggest advocate in public and in private. (AKA in our words
and our thoughts!) In the rest of the training there was one thing that
stuck out to me more than anything else; so often repentance is thought
of as, "oh I did something bad now I have to repent." Even when we talk
or teach about it in the correct sense, it's hard to think about it all
the time in the correct sense. In reality anything that brings you
closer to Christ and helps you be more Christlike is repentance! That is
such an exciting concept, and it motivated me to want to use the word
repentance more often and in the proper context so that everyone can
gain this understanding.
Thursday
was weekly planning, but last week we had training on how to do weekly
planning exactly the way it says in Preach My Gospel sentence for
sentance (you read each sentence and then say "Okay, let's do that
now!), and we knew it would take more time than usual. What we weren't
expecting was how much more time. Other than the two appointments and
dinner we had scheduled we spent all day Thursday weekly planning. Then we spent almost two hours on Friday weekly planning, and then on Saturday
we spent about an hour finishing up weekly planning. Hermana Whetten
and I joked that weekly planning was going to take all week! We learned
our lesson though, and didn't schedule anything all day next Thursday.
It will just be 8 straight hours of weekly planning. Truthfully though,
it was such an amazing experience! We learned so much about how we can
help our investigators more, and we really filled our planners with
meaningful and useful activities next week.
In our mission President Hall and a lot of the
missionaries have what we call a 'Book of Revelations'; this is just a
little notebook that you carry around with you everywhere so that when
you receive revelation you can write it down. This is intended to show
God how much you value the revelation, and take responsibility for it so
that He will give you more. On Saturday
I wrote this in my Book of Revelations: " Right now we are trying to be
'Preach My Gospel' missionaries by doing exactly what PMG says to do in
how to do missionary work. In our lives we can better become like
Christ if we do exactly what the scriptures say. I thought of this
because of Alma 37:37 which was quoted in a conference talk by Bishop
Dean M Davies. My instinctive response to the verse was "Okay, let's do
that now!'" I know it doesn't work quite exactly as well since PMG is
meant to be applied practically, and the scriptures aren't always, but
it was a cool connection to make.
Then this morning in my personal study I read 1 Nephi 17:45-46.
Nephi is reminding Laman and Lemuel that they have seen and talked to
angels and heard the voice of God. They know of his power, and still
they harden their hearts against his words. This was such a good
reminder to me that faith has to precede miracles or the miracles don't
help our faith at all. Knowledge without faith is empty. It also makes
me think about how when we lived with Heavenly Father in the premortal
life we all had to have faith to choose His plan. We didn't 'know'
exactly how it would all work out in the end, but we had faith in Him
and chose to go His way. Faith really is an eternal principle, not just a
principle of here and now.
I'm sure I'll have more stories about our experiences and investigators this coming week. I Love you all!
Love,
Hermana Marin Hardy
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