This week has been incredible! So many amazing experiences I will never forget! The MTC is an amazing place, there's no where else like it. I cannot believe I've been here 6 weeks - it's been too fast! I love everything I feel and learn here but it just makes me more and more excited for the field!
On Friday I did finish the Book of Mormon. I saved the last chapter to read in the Celestial room and prayed about it there. What an awesome opportunity!
So on Saturday we taught our progressing investigator, Daniel (our first teacher, H' Alexander, taking the persona of one of HIS investigator Daniel from the mission) and it was so weird! But great! We have taught Daniel 3 times and he really hasn't been progressing. He had an affair and has a bad relationship with his family as a result of that. He doesn't feel God's love and doesn't know he's a child of God. We've taught repentance to him three times and completely thrown out lesson plans to focus on his needs. I think we did it the wrong way but we did the best we knew how. It was so frustrating because when you're doing these role plays at lest for me I get involved with them as if they're actually real people. It broke my heart when he told us he didn't feel worthy to pray or didn't know he was a son of God. But those are the times I testified in my awful, broken Spanish what he needed to hear. My companion was frustrated and wanted to give up and drop him because he wasn't keeping any commitments. I told her we can't do that because we haven't exhausted every effort on our part. If he's not understanding, we're not teaching well enough and we're not showing him how important this message really is. Well we didn't teach for awhile after that things got crazy in our schedule and by the time we were to teach again we were just annoyed. We we're talking about how others have had success, had investigators pray in front of them, baptism dates, we had NOTHING. What were we doing wrong? We went into the lesson ready to back track and start from square one to focus on faith and prayer because those are the simple building blocks of testimony which is what we felt he needed. We get in there to teach and he said his faith had grown, he's praying more often, feeling God's love. WHAT?! There goes our lesson plan... So we threw that out and started teaching the Plan of Salvation. It's so cool when things like that happen and you and your comp are on the same page and go the same direction without having to say anything. Well after we tried our best to teach by the spirit with no preparation on this lesson we asked him to come to church for Easter. He said yes! We asked him when he came to know our message is true if he would get baptized, YES! And then we asked him if he would offer the prayer and guess what? He did! It was so great!
Easter Sunday... oh my! So much to share! What a beautiful and glorious day to be a representative of Jesus Christ who gave His life for us! I'm giving my life in a different way to Him!
I missed all my family and friends but there was no place I'd rather be than here. I know this is where I'm supposed to be. The spirit was in great abundance as we rejoiced in our Savior, Jesus Christ! In the morning we had a special Sacrament Meeting with ALLLLLLL the missionaries. We stood outside the devotional hall for an hour, in the cold Utah morning, waiting to get in to get a seat. We were asked to be quiet in order to meditate on the Lord and His resurrection. Obviously it's really hard to keep that many young missionaries quiet for a long period of time haha so we started singing praises to Him! To invite the Spirit we sang I Need Thee Every Hour, EFY Medley, I Know that My Redeemer Lives, The Spirit of God, etc. It was incredible! Later on in the day Bro Doman (1st counselor in branch pres) said he walked by when we were singing The Spirit of God. He said how amazing it was to be at the MTC on Easter, to witness us missionaries singing that Hymn, waiting an hour early to sit in meeting upon meeting on Easter away from our loved ones - What a PECULIAR people!! hahahaha
Well the sacrament meeting was fantastic. The Sacrament was administered to over 3,000 missionaries and only took about 15 mins. As it was being passed they showed a slideshow with pictures of Christ. I have never felt the spirit more fully during Sacrament than I did this day. It made me think of when Christ gave the sacrament to the multitude or what it will be like at Adam-ondi-ahman. So amazing.
I had to teach a member on Wednesday morning with Hermana Griffin because my comp was at Phys Therapy. Sis Griffin has cerebal palsy and is a little slower with learning. She's so great though I love her. I was worried because we both know little Spanish and Hermana McBride usually takes over. But you know, when I had to switch roles and take the lead, when I had to speak, I did! It was probably our best member lesson yet. I spoke with nothing really in mind and he understood and loved our message. Even Hermana Griffin did better than she thought. She asked me how to say something and I told her if you don't know the words use other words to say the same message and it clicked and she did all on her own! It was a great experience and made me realize the Lord helps me when I put forth all possible effort to open my mouth!
I got to host the new missionaries on Wednesday! It was so fun! One of my sisters was overwhelmed and to tears when she got there so I helped her adjust and gave her a little pep talk. Funny how 6 weeks ago that was ME! haha I loved it though.
In-field orientation was yesterday. That was super fun but longgggggg. It got me stoked for the field! I know it will be so hard but so great. We had to say goodbye to H Clifford last night. All the Hermanas were crying. He's the best teacher we could possibly have asked for.
Well my time is up for now. Love you all. I pray for all of you each night and I hope you are doing well.
Love always and forever, Hermana Gutknecht
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