Tuesday, October 1, 2013 last week in the MTC!

Lauren Whitney < lauren.whitney@myldsmail.net>	Tue, Oct 1, 2013 at 12:43 PM
To: Pamela Whitney <p.whitney.baird@gmail.com>
Hey All, ONE WEEK MORE!!! I can't believe how fast the time has flown by in the MTC. It is incredible. So, because I haven't received my visa yet (along with all the missionaries in my district), I get my reassignment on Thursday. I am dying. I want to be in the field so bad, but at the same time, I'm trying to take advantage of all the study time at the MTC. Missionary problems. Anyway, this week has been just as awesome as all my other weeks. I taught my first lesson on Chastity. That was quite the experience. I thought it was going to be hard to say the things we needed to say (you know how shy I am about that stuff), but it wasn't hard at all. I think it is because the law of Chastity is a commandment from God. He has given us this commandment so that we can be safe and happy. Once I understood that, it was super easy to teach a grown man (my teacher/investigator) about chastity.  Another cool experience this week was TRC. During TRC, we have gospel discussions with volunteer members. This week we did it over skype. AND, our volunteer was from Portugal. We were literally were talking with a native Portuguese speaker from Portugal, in Portugal. It was crazy fun, even if he was super hard to understand. In portugal, they use more of a shhh sound for their "s". As a result, we struggled though our discussion. But he, Julio (Like Shh oulio), was very kind and only laughed at us a little. I loved it. Since my district is one of the older districts here, we were able to be host missionaries for new missionaries arriving at the MTC. It was so dang fun. New missionaries pull up with their families, hug it out, and then we get to help them settle in. I was able to host 4 missionaries. ONe of the sisters, Sister Hemi, was from Australia and had a wicked awesome accent. She was incredibly nice and I am so happy that I was able to help her out. I loved being around the new missionaries because they are so excited to get to work. If you think I'm excited, you should hang out with new missionaries. Talk about Enthusiasm.    Laundry Break.  [Quoted text hidden]

Sorry about the long wait. I had a lot of errands to do.   Anyway, I think the overall theme of the past week has been trials and how to overcome them. On Sunday, I watched a talk by Elder Bednar (?) on teaching investigators. He explained why it is important to have trials and from that, I thought up this analogy in my head. Trials are like working out with weights. The only way to get stronger is to bear the weight and eventually add more. But, you have to be careful because too much weight can injure you. The only way we can learn and become stronger in this life is to go through trials. They're hard and sometimes we may think that we have too much to deal with, but we can do it. The Lord knows how much we can take and will never set us up to fail. He's our number one fan and our joy is His joy. If he just took our weight (trial) away, there's no way we'd ever be able to get stronger and progress. That's why the Lord will always help us in our trials, but never take them away completely. There's a scripture, 1 Corinthians 10:13, that states that the Lord will never put temptations in our path that we can't handle and turn down. It's the same with trials. He will never give us a trial we cannot handle. All we have to do is have faith in the Lord and ask for his help.   I know that the Lord supports us in our trials. I know that even though they suck and are hard and sometimes painful, we can overcome them with the Lord's help. I know He loves us and always wants us to succeed. I know that He loves to help us and is just waiting for us to ask for Him to do so.   Esta e a Igreja verdadera. Deus ama nos muito e quer nos ser felize. Eu sou grata por provocoes. Eu sei que eles ajudam mim com minha vida. Eu amo esta Igreja e Eu sou grata por a opportunidade servir um missao. Eu amo voces Muito!!!!!!   Sister Whitney  [Quoted text hidden]

I loved the Sweater!!! It was the best and I totally needed a long sweater. Thank you so much!! So, I'm not sure when I get to call you. I know after we get our reassignments, we get to email you but I'm not sure about calling.  Though I do get to call you from the airport if I go out of state. Yay!! So fun.  Also, this week, Sister padilla and I get to be a part of the new missionary experience. All the new missionaries gather in a room and we act out a scene. There's an investigator who is waiting to speak with the missionaries. And this week, the missionaries are me and sister padilla. Cool right? I'm really excited. It's tomorrow night.   I'm excited for my reassignment and I love you so much.  -Sister Whitney:) [Quoted text hidden]