I was really struggling to sleep - I guess because it was a new place and UTAH air is really dry and awful, so I was always waking up coughing. I would take like an hour to get to sleep, then wake up at 4am and not be able to get back to sleep. It seems simple, but I know that my prayer to Heavenly Father for just one good night's sleep was immediately answered and was seriously needed. I've been doing a lot better now, even though my throat is nearly always dry.
I know that the companionship assignments are inspired. My companion Sister Oliver is awesome (Otimo!) because she is so dedicated and hard-working. We are also so well suited because we love singing and have joined the MTC choir along with some of the elders in our zone. We are growing together so much as we already have to teach 'investigators'. So on the 2nd day they assigned us a person that we were going to teach in Portuguese for 20 minutes. We managed about 15 minutes and didn't even have to use our notes. We spoke about God's love for us and his plan for our life on earth. It was so intense! Then we get feedback and it sounds like our Portuguese is good, so we don't need to focus on that so much at the moment. Instead we really need to learn the principle of teach the person not the lesson, because we were afraid to ask questions as that would mean we would need to understand his answers. However, next time we asked a lot more questions and are learning to repeat back to him to show we understand and to dig a little deeper if he gives us short answers. We prayed so hard together for our 3rd lesson (we teach most days) and he prayed for us. Seriously, even in this role-play environment, when they keep a commitment or accept a challenge- you are so excited!
Sunday was great. We had a devotional from Chad Lewis who plays football and teaches at BYU. He is super uplifting and showed us pictures of his trek up Kilimanjaro with some veteran amputees. It was really emotional to hear about those that had to turn back, and they even carried the prosthetic leg of one right to the top so a bit of him made it. It is a great lesson in not giving up and working as a team. Then we got to watch a talk by Elder Bednar as 'movie time' just for the missionaries. It was about the character of Christ and how we, as the natural man often look inwards, when he looks outwards to others. He did a hilarious 'cookie monster' impression- making the point that it is not about us and we should not say 'I want cookie/ baptism NOW!'. It was just what I needed to hear about charity. He also said that some people leave because they are not converted to Christ and stated that 'the Church is still true, you're just not being true to it'. It was very forceful!
I know that the companionship assignments are inspired. My companion Sister Oliver is awesome (Otimo!) because she is so dedicated and hard-working. We are also so well suited because we love singing and have joined the MTC choir along with some of the elders in our zone. We are growing together so much as we already have to teach 'investigators'. So on the 2nd day they assigned us a person that we were going to teach in Portuguese for 20 minutes. We managed about 15 minutes and didn't even have to use our notes. We spoke about God's love for us and his plan for our life on earth. It was so intense! Then we get feedback and it sounds like our Portuguese is good, so we don't need to focus on that so much at the moment. Instead we really need to learn the principle of teach the person not the lesson, because we were afraid to ask questions as that would mean we would need to understand his answers. However, next time we asked a lot more questions and are learning to repeat back to him to show we understand and to dig a little deeper if he gives us short answers. We prayed so hard together for our 3rd lesson (we teach most days) and he prayed for us. Seriously, even in this role-play environment, when they keep a commitment or accept a challenge- you are so excited!
Sunday was great. We had a devotional from Chad Lewis who plays football and teaches at BYU. He is super uplifting and showed us pictures of his trek up Kilimanjaro with some veteran amputees. It was really emotional to hear about those that had to turn back, and they even carried the prosthetic leg of one right to the top so a bit of him made it. It is a great lesson in not giving up and working as a team. Then we got to watch a talk by Elder Bednar as 'movie time' just for the missionaries. It was about the character of Christ and how we, as the natural man often look inwards, when he looks outwards to others. He did a hilarious 'cookie monster' impression- making the point that it is not about us and we should not say 'I want cookie/ baptism NOW!'. It was just what I needed to hear about charity. He also said that some people leave because they are not converted to Christ and stated that 'the Church is still true, you're just not being true to it'. It was very forceful!