I feel like a ton of stuff has happened this last week. I have gone through so many changes. Our new Spanish teacher is a bit hard for me to be patient with because he seems to not have a filter or something. He comes off as harsh and unfeeling sometimes and he's said some things about sister missionaries that weren't very nice. But Heavenly Father helped me see that wasn't okay to focus on the things about him I didn't like because we are all learning and we're all so different. It was a sobering experience for me because I know I have so many things that I need to work on. Guess what is so great! I have calluses on my knees!!! Its evidence that I am praying all the time. Oh I had a dream that I was called to serve in Texas a couple nights ago. Weird huh? I am interested to see if it was put into my mind to help me prepare for that or if it was just a wacky dream. We gave our first lesson in Spanish. It was so amazing. This gift of tongues is so real. Words came to me and I was able to put sentences together that mostly made sense. I also bore my testimony and felt the spirit so strong. Missionary work is so amazing it is truly helping me become who I really am. The reason why I say that is because we had a member of the seventy come for the devotional yesterday and he was so powerful. It was a huge blessing to have four apostles come and then a member of the seventy because I was able to see that God speaks through them just as powerfully as the apostles. Honestly I was just flooded with the spirit. I was fighting back tears the whole time because he was speaking straight to my heart. He talked to us about how knowing we are disciples of Jesus Christ makes us act differently than we would if we didn't know that. He asked us to look in the mirror every morning as a child of God and not just the person we think we are. Because we have no idea what we are capable of. I could go on and on about the things he said but just know it was incredible. We are speaking a lot of Spanish lately. It’s hard but so worth it. I just keep thinking that I am assisting Heavenly Father and Jesus in their work to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. How incredible is that.

And we all have that opportunity, not just missionaries. I just want you to know that I know the Savior lives and through His atonement we can change and become who we really are. It’s happening to me little by little every day. There are Christmas decorations up in the bookstore here already. I am so excited for the holidays!

I'm most likely staying here instead of going to Peru. Elder Bednar and his wife came yesterday! I am really starting to wonder what is going to happen on my mission because I feel so much help and support from the Lord right now. Maybe I'm going to really need that later. I'm sure I will it just makes me curious. Anyway he talked about how any answer can be answered with doctrine. And it should be answered with doctrine. I loved it because its so true and it helps people learn how to become spiritually independant. We also got to hear from Sherry Dew. She was so amazing! I loved hearing from her. She talked about how short our time here is and that once someone told her to think of this life being three minutes long so she asked us if we thought we could be good for three minutes haha. It really puts things into perspective huh? This life has such a huge impact on our lives after this. Every day I am more amazed at how wonderful the plan of happiness is. So things are going pretty good with my companions. They make me laugh a lot and they're both so strong. I feel so blessed to know so many good elders. The ones we have in our district and zone are all really impressive. They have such testimonies of the gospel and they speak with a lot of power. I love it! The elders in our district make me laugh so hard. The other day they were singing the phantom of the opera in spanish. It was hilarious. Elder Prince teases me a lot. I wear both my jacket and my raincoat to class because the elders refuse to turn off the ac and he always points out that I am freezing most of the time. Our teachers are the only ones who take pity on us and ask the elders to turn down the ac. I am really loving teaching. It’s honestly my favorite part of being here. I 'm learning how important it is to teach with the spirit. It feels so good to teach to someone’s needs and know that you've said something important for them to hear. Spanish is coming along. I still don't know enough to sound older than a five year old haha. But it will come, I know it.

Week 4

I love you all and miss you everyday but its a blessing that I can know how important it is to be here and the fact that I sacrificed the thing that means the very most to me,to serve a mission makes it so much more meaningful. We got to hear from Elder Ballard yesterday! Isn't that awesome, three apostals in three weeks. That never happens usually. I'm so happy that we have the opportunity to hear from them. He had so many wonderful things to say. I'll always treasure the times I've had here and the things I've learned. Oh I'm not going to Peru today. We found out last week that our visas didn't come so we have to wait and see if they come before the halfway mark of our MTC training. If they do we will be sent to Peru. I want you to know I recieved an answer to my prayers. We've had four different teachers in our three weeks here so we are way behind the other districts. It was not a good feeling. Most of the time I felt so lost and overwhelmed and thought I'd never be able to survive being in Peru because I hardly know Spanish. I almost cried in class a couple times because we have been pulled in so many different directions by the different teachers. They all have different ideas of how we should do things and what we should focus on. Anyway, we finally got a new (hopefully permanent) teacher.He is so great! He is one of the most organized people I've ever met. He has everything planned out for us so that we make the most of our study time and he has goals for us to achieve daily, weekly, and monthly so that we are fluent by the time we leave the MtC. It was exactly what we needed. I am definately being strengthened and helped through my trials. You know whats really funny I think I've only had a couple days so far where I've felt good. I got sick a few days ago because Elder Brown sits next to me and he was sick. So I've just gone on acting like everything is fine. It just makes me laugh because that seems to be one of the most used trials of my mission so far. But I'm just grateful it is bringing me closer to the Lord and all my experiences are refining me.