Aloha :) June 9, 2014

Well Hello there, everyone!!

This week just FLEW by, I cannot believe it! This last week was so great. I cannot believe how much we are able to pack into 24 hours. It is a miracle honestly.

Speaking of miracles, I got my flight information!! I am leaving June 16th around 12. Starting this Wednesday I am doing special Visitors' Center training with a few other sisters. We will be going to Temple Square and everything!! I'm the only other sister that did not learn a new language. English all the way, baby!!

OH and thanks to Jacob Cooper, Tater Tot, Kelsie, Grandma, Sister Lamp and my mom for the letters/dear elders. It makes my day when I get mail!

So today since it is P Day we got to go to the temple and guess who else was there??? DAVID ARCHULETA. We just missed him, he came in right before we left but as we were leaving the temple worker said that he had just come in. HAHAHA random. In my past life I would have waited outside the temple doors for 2 hours to wait for him to come out. :D

I am so grateful for the opportunity I have had to be here and study at the MTC. It is not easy, but it is completely worth it. This past week was a little rocky for me and my wonderful companion, sister Christiansen. We were teaching three investigators (two were real, one was just our teacher). I'm just going to share one story, and I'd like to call it the Fortune Cookie Miracle haha. Gabby was the new investigator we took on this week, and our first meeting with her was crazy. She was suuuuper sweet, but very cold hearted and told us that she was not interested at all in the church, but she just wanted to learn about what we believed. She had many questions, but we were scared to answer them because we felt like she would kick us out if we shared our testimonies. I asked her to read a scripture from the Book of Mormon and she refused, and would not touch it. She would not read from any of our pamphlets either. At the end of the lesson, we were a little distraught. The next day we had an appointment to meet with her again and before the lesson, sister Christiansen and I prayed fervently that she would be touched by our message and her heart would be softened. That lesson, we taught about the Restoration of the gospel, Joseph Smith, and not only did she read from the scriptures, but she agreed to take a pamphlet! It was amazing. The third lesson we taught her, the spirit was so strong and we could tell that she was feeling it. We talked about the Plan of Salvation and we were reading through Doctrine and Covenants when she asked sister Christiansen why she had so many things hilighted in her scriptures. Sister C explained that it was because they all meant something to her. She read a random one about seeking truth and bewaring deception and Gabby started hysterically laughing. She said that the night before, she had eaten a fortune cookie that had said the exact same thing!!!!!!!!! I think that was a miracle. After that, Gabby was very open to what we were teaching and we could tell she wanted to hear more but we ran out of time. At the end of the lesson, we were finishing speaking about the plan of salvation when we said that we can all live with God again if we accept Christ and utilize His atonement, but in the end it is our choice. She said, "Who wouldn't want to live with God again?" Exactly. That was our last lesson with Gabby because she was being deployed with her husband later in the week. We took a picture with her and said our goodbyes. 

I am so grateful for the chance we had to teach and learn from Gabby. She is an amazing woman, and I love her. My heart ached knowing that we didn't get to have more time with her. I've learned this last week that the most effective teaching occurs when we have love for those we are teaching. All the miracles we had with Gabby were not due to our abilities as teachers, but because we were able to listen to her and guide her to learning of and coming closer to Christ. The spirit is the teacher, we are just the loving guides. 

From teaching Gabby, I now know that I CAN be an effective servant of the Lord in helping bring people closer to Christ. I am confident in this because I am confident in His love for all of us. Everyone deserves to know that they have a loving Heavenly Father, and that this Gospel blesses families, and that it is true. We as missionaries cannot force them to the truth, but rather testify of what we know to be true, and guide them to finding out this truth for themselves. We all need to exercise faith, no matter where we are in our lives. I put my faith in the Lord as I wake up every morning and put His name on the missionary tag over my heart. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY.

Love you all!! 

Love Sister Willardson