My last week in the MTC is almost over!! Our Elders left us Tuesday&Wednesday, and we started our Visitors Center Training on Wednesday! Tomorrow we take a field trip to Temple Square, and then Wednesday we head out to Salt Lake to stay! It's coming so fast! It's a little crazy thinking my time in the MTC is almost over. I've got this weird mixture of feeling like I've been here forever and feeling like I just got here. It's crazy! Here are some highlights from the week....
1) I've grown to really love role playing. It's a lot of fun getting to practice on each other and see what they do well that we can incorporate into our lessons and getting to practice a few times on someone we can't mess up on ahaha. On Monday we were role playing and I was the investigator for Elders Kay and Bullock. I was sitting in a park watching my kids when the missionaries were practicing approaching me. They started teaching me a lesson, and they were doing such a good job! And then Elder Pace walked up in between us looked at me and said, "Honey are these guys bothering you?" It was so funny. It was so hard keeping it together, we're not sure what possessed him to enter the role play as my husband but it was so funny. The poor Elders that were teaching ahaha. It was fun though.
2) We started Visitors Center Training! There are a ton of us and we represent so many different countries and languages. We have Sisters in there with us from: Thailand, Japan, South Korea, China, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, El Salvador, England, and Nigeria! And then there's us lowly Americans. We try to feel cool too ahahaha. Most of us are going to Temple Square, and then there are 4 Sisters going to Winter Quarters, Nebraska, and one other Sister going to Washington DC North, Visitors Center.
3) We started online teaching this week. It's actually way fun! We love it! It's so cool, we get to teach people from all over! It's really fun. We answer calls, send emails, send text messages, participate in chats, call missionaries serving in other parts of the world to send and check on referrals... it's a lot and it's way fun. I had one guy named Jack call the other day wanting to know about the church's stance on gay marriage, and I had two sweet ladies from the south wanting free Bibles because there's had been lost in flooding. One of them even accepted a visit from missionaries and a Book of Mormon! It was cool because whenever we call anyone to see what they need or check a referral, we always try and share a message with them. We don't just answer questions, we share discussions and help them get closer to Christ. I was able to share the restoration with one lady who called from Florida wanting a Bible. She wants to meet with the missionaries now and is excited to get her Book of Mormon! I'll get to call her after the missionaries meet with her to follow up and keep helping her come closer to Christ. There's a lot more to online teaching than I originally thought haha.
4) My Visitors Center companion! Her name is Hermana Gonzalez and she's from Mexico! It's fun for me because she calls me Hermana and we get to speak and teach in Spanish together! Since I speak at a "native level" I'm allowed to teach online in Spanish! We taught a guy from Columbia on Wednesday! It was so cool!!! It's amazing to me how many people are looking for the truth and are able to find it online. The technology we have really is an amazing tool to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. How awesome is it that someone in Columbia wanting to come closer to Christ was able to talk to two 19 year old missionaries in Provo, Utah about how he can come closer to His Savior and find relief from guilt and sorrow. Pretty amazing.
5) We got to give a tour of T4 and T3, the new MTC buildings, this week as part of our Visitors Center Training! It was fun! We got take investigators around the buildings. Our girl was named Aubrey, she was super sweet. She didn't think that Mormons believed in the Bible, so it was fun getting to show her T3 with all the huge pictures of Christ from the Bible videos with the Bible scriptures on the wall and tell her about how Christ is the center of our faith, the center of our name tags, and the center of our buildings ;)
6) This week the Branch President assigned me to be the Sister District Training Leader. Basically what that means, is that since all our Elders left and we're now a District of Sisters, I'm the leader of our district now. So that's exciting! I get to go to Branch Council now and I'm in charge of the mail and making sure that all the Sisters in my district are doing okay. We leave Wednesday, but it will be a cool experience to get to serve for these next few days.
7) Sister Madeux and I performed "His Hands" for the wives of the mission presidency. And they really liked it! So they asked us to perform it at a Welcome Devotional for all the new Senior Missionaries. We're excited!! It's this Monday, we're really glad that we get to perform it.
8) Exercise is still rough lol. I ran a mile a few times this week and planked for 2 minutes straight so that's the highlight. Mind you, the plank was not without much suffering ahahaha.
9) Elder Kearon from the Presidency of the 70 came this week to talk to us. It was awesome! He's from the UK so that made it even more exciting. He talked a lot about things we can do to really be better missionaries, and overall better people that are more able to serve God. He said there are 3 things that the children of our Heavenly Father must do, and do like they mean it, if they want to be able to serve God to the fullness of their potential and ability. PRAY like you MEAN IT. STUDY like you MEAN IT. EXERCISE like you MEAN IT. If we fail to do any of those 3 things to the best of our ability, we won't be able to serve God like we MEAN IT. I really loved his talk. It made me think about how I can do better in all of those areas. How often have I just said a quick prayer before plopping into bed or night, skimmed a few verses or a chapter of the scriptures and called that my study for the day, or stretched for 10 minutes and called it exercise. If we don't perform the little things to the best of our ability, how can we expect to be able to help our God with the big things and perform them well? I loved it. Really made me think.
I love you all!!! Thank you so much for the emails!!! I love it. I'm sorry I don't respond to them all, but I read and cherish each one. Thank you so much for your prayers and support. You're all amazing!
Sister Black
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