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| Our District - Saint Paul Spanish |
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| Sister Chavez |
So many things have happened this week. I feel like that is happening more and more. Before, the weeks seemed pretty uneventful but I think the longer I'm here the more and more things that happen. I don't know if that makes sense. Figuring out how to manage our duties as Sister Training Leaders and working in our own area is an interesting experiment. I am really grateful that Heavenly Father knows what he's doing. He doesn't let us mess up the work even when we have no idea what we are doing!
We had the chance to go to MLC this week. MLC is mission leadership council. It is all the zone leaders and STLs in the mission. Hna Chavez and I are the only companionship that are completely new to being in leadership. Everybody else has at least one companion that has done it before. I'm telling you, the adventures never end. The meeting was so god. Basically President just gave us a main theme "how can we reach our mission goal of 100 date sets this month?" and we just counselled. We talked about all sorts of things, but mostly about the quality of our work as missionaries and training. In the next two transfers we have 60 new missionaries coming to the mission. In other words, more than half the mission will be training! So we talked a lot about the quality of training evaluations and how we can build up the next "generation" of missionaries. A sister from the Minneapolis Stake came and gave a training on asking inspired questions. She does trainings for major corporations for a living, and she is an incredible speaker. She talked about inspired questions and how we can be so much more effective if our questions are good. Specifically she talked about helping people to remember or imagine times that they have felt the spirit and then asking questions according to their experiences like, what do you notice? What does that mean? What are you going to do? etc. It was so good and I've been trying to use it more in my work. I felt really privileged to be a part of that group. I definitely had the thought "what am I even doing here? What do I have to offer?" It's been good reflection for me. I also got to see all my friends:)
Hna Chavez and I are adjusting to each other. We get along well and I think she is most like me out of all of my companions temperament-wise. She is from Provo and graduated in 2008. She is the oldest sister missionary I've met I think. Her parents are both from Mexico City so she grew up speaking Spanish. She has only been in the area for 6 weeks and so we are both still learning the area. It's kind of a weird dynamic because she is older and her Spanish is obviously better, but I've been on my mission for a lot longer, she's only been out for 5 ish months. So it's kind of intimidating to give suggestions sometimes. I like her a lot, we have fun.
I've decided/discovered that two of the things that I want to take away from my mission are 1) the ability to communicate with God through prayer and recognize revelation that He gives, and 2) the ability to study meaningfully and know how to look for answers in the scriptures. This week I had been praying about how I could make my studies better and the answer I got was that I need to study more about the Savior. So I made a list of all the events of his life that I wanted to study. So this last week I've been studying Christ as a premortal being, the prophecies of his life, his appearances to prophets before his birth etc. I have LOVED it and have never been so excited to study in the mornings. It has even affected my study during the day. I just want to read all the time. It was cool because the prompting I received to learn more of his life came from a conference talk that I was reading during lunch. I've been trying to read one every day. Revelation is real!
Something less spiritual but cool that we saw this week was more cool to my engineering brain. There was an intersection where the police officers were monitoring how effective the intersections were. The were timing how long it would take for people to be able to turn, how often, etc. They would send pedestrians across every so often and would nail any car that didn't stop for them. It was really interesting. I was fascinated. For the record, that intersection really needs a stoplight.
More experiences this week included going to the temple on Saturday! We attended a session in Spanish! I was really nervous that I wasn't going to be able to understand anything, but I actually understood basically all of it. Just a few words here and there. Plus they used the vosotros form which we never use. I loved it. It was a really neat experience, and I think it helped me feel even more love for my Hispanic family, and I saw some of my friends from Lakeville and Minneapolis.
After the temple we were supposed to have a member come with us to a lesson with an investigator but the investigator wasn't there. Classic. I swear, if you want to make sure that a lesson won't happen, invite a member. I'm kidding, but that's how it feels haha. This member was so good about it. He returned from his mission in 2011 and still has a lot of passion for the work. We went and knocked a couple of other doors, and he brought a pamphlet with him, gave it away, and basically lead the discussion we had with a lady on her doorstep. I want to be a member like that. Also by the way, he has been working three shifts to take his wife on vacation. He works 13-17 hours a day loading big FedEx trucks. I was really impressed and touched by his desire to work with the missionaries. I love these people.
In response to your emails, I have some stuff to say! First off, Kali's pregnant????!!!! That's so exciting. Hna Chavez knows who Kali is btw, they went to the same high school. It sounds like all the graduation festivities went well and everyone had a good time. I'm proud of Ryan for working hard. everyone is getting so old. Dad, I like your Portuguese, hola mi hija is Spanish;) How cool that Vicki Scott is getting baptized, and even cooler that Hunter gets to baptize her. That will be an incredible experience for him. I also want to meet this Spanish teacher man. Aka, baptize him so that I can meet him and talk to him! Which reminds me, remember Leonor? The old lady in Lakeville from Spain? Her daughter lives here in Saint Paul and want sot meet with us. We live at 1776 Maryland Ave E #208 St Paul MN 55106 if you guys ever want to send me stuff:) Ryan! read this talk-
I thought it was perfect. These are all the things I would suggest too. I will follow up to see if you've read it!
Dad, I want to hear some of you mission experiences. Tell me stories! About anything.
I love you all, I'm glad you had a good week! Keep me updated!
Emily
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