Week 2: Last week in the MTC!

Hellooooooooooooooo everyooooooooooooone!!!

I hope you're all doing well. Know that I love you and pray for you often! Seriously I do. We say like 80 prayers a day here. Its awesome.

It has been an amazing week! And it has seriously FLOWN by. ITS CRAZY! Time blows my mind, i can't even think about it. Every day here feels like Sunday haha, so I never know what day it actually is. Its weird!

So last Friday was a pretty hard day. We taught an investigator and it just did not go well, it was all over the place and I was like WHAT JUST HAPPENED. I think one of the biggest temptations here in the MTC is discouragement. It is so easy to get discouraged after a lesson doesn't go well, or after you mess up or something. But that is exactly what Satan wants! He wants me to get discouraged because he knows that will distract me from the work and take me away from my Heavenly Father. But God knows my potential so I just have to trust in Him and trust that I can reach that full potential through Christ.

Sunday was AWESOME though! I was on a spiritual high all day, and it totally made up for friday. Sister Gunter and I taught relief society and it was AMAZING! We taught on repentance and the sisters were all commenting and it was so great. We could all feel the spirit so strongly. I heard this week that people often say "the spirit was so strong" but in reality, the spirit itself is always strong! It is just up to us to feel it. Having the spirit in your life takes a conscious effort and hard work! There is nothing passive about this gospel, it always takes ACTION!

We also had choir and devotional on Sunday and it was ameeeeeeeeeeeezing. Choir is SO GREAT. SO MANY MISSIONARIES go to choir and every time we sing I'm just like YEEEEEEEEAHHHH THIS IS AN ARMY OF THE LORD WOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! I get so pumped hahaha. Plus the choir director has an amazing combination of humor and spirituality, so it is always an enjoyable experience. I love it.

Weird things my district does*:

-talk about gas. that's all i'm gonna say. i have no idea why that's a thing but it is.

-we chant "do it and you're cool! do it and you're cool!" usually when we want Elder McDaniel to fit his whole hand in his mouth.

-shoot rubber bands at each other

-laugh at our teacher Brother Robins when he falls asleep during the lesson. hahahaha

-flatten out the sand while we play volleyball

-talk in Indian accents and say "PAR-TEE TIIIIME"

*note: I promise we have amazing spiritual experiences together and that this is not all we do. We do take advantage of our study time and I think that is why we are all so close, is because the spirit is involved! We enjoy our time together. :)

I AM LEAVING NEXT TUESDAY TO GO TO CALIFORNIA! AMAZING! Also since I am the oldest, I am the "Travel Leader" for our group so I am basically responsible for my whole district while at the airport. Which includes like 7 elders. This is gonna be fun. Haha I am so excited though! Seriously its gonna be awesome!

Oh this Sunday, Sisters Gunter, Houston, and Sjoblom and I are all singing a Capella "Nearer my God to Thee" in sacrament meeting! I am so excited! I love singing and am so glad that the sisters in my district do too.

I heard a story this week: an elderly lady was baptized into the church, probably at like 80 years old. A little after that she got her patriarchal blessing, and it said she would have received the gospel 50 years ago if a boy had gone on a mission, but he didn't. CRAZY! It just made me glad to be where the Lord wants me to be, because he knows best!!!

So one of the best things we do with my teacher Sister Smyth is our Book of Mormon read. This is how we go about it: (and I challenge you all to read your scriptures this way every once in a while!) Basically we start with a question that we have, so we are reading with a purpose, and then we read one verse at a time and don't move on until we get something out of that verse. We do that by picking one word from the verse that stands out to us and then discussing what everyone picked and what they think about it! And it is so cool, because everyone has different questions so even if people pick the same word, they get totally different things out of it. So much spiritual revelation! It is AWESOME. So yeah, I challenge you all to read your scriptures that way every once in a while! I get sooo much out of it every time!

So, next time I email I will be in CALIFORNIA! I'm so stoked. ahhhhhh yessssss. so stoked. I hope you're all doing well! Remember how much God loves you and knows EACH of you individually! I love this gospel!!!!!!!!!!!

I LOVE YOU ALLLL

Love,

Sister Brown