Week One- July 2

I learned sooooo much this week! I have just been learning learning learning! I'm not going to lie its been a tough day or so as far as teaching goes. It's weird because you know my feelings toward acting, but these role plays have been doing wonders to help me learn how to teach! Elder Brotherson (my companion) and I were even upset when our TRC investigator didn't show up to the appointment we had set up. We were so excited to teach him, and it's not even real! haha Another frustrating thing is the investigator that we had taught twice before is stuck because he can't believe that God loves us, and that we are his children. It's hard because we want him to understand that before we go on. So it's been hard, but I've learned so much that I'll be able to apply throughout my life!

It's really weird being with a group full of guys straight out of high school. Oh and Mom ready to have your socks knocked right off? I totally got a "commendable" on my part of the room! I make my bed every morning, and my desk space is way super organized (is that a double positive? Oh wait no that's a catch 22?;) )! It's funny because I'm the only one who uses the desk space, and that's mostly because that's just how it was in college. Haha

The district I'm in is amazing! Everyone knows so much about the gospel. We have had some amazingly deep conversations. God really does prepare a way for His work to go forth! It's crazy!

I'll leave you with a couple fun things that I've learned. First, I learned from a video of Elder Bednar (no I haven't seen any apostles yet) about the True Character of Christ. It was amazing because he talked about how Christ always turned outward and focused on others when everyone else would focus inward. He described the natural man as the Cookie Monster. "I want cookie now!" Haha so substitute anything you want for cookie! But yeah he talked about how when we learn to always focus outward, that will help us grow. "When we are always helping others, we'll find ourselves, but we will never find ourselves where we are looking." Another thing I learned is the importance of prayer. The Bible Dictionary tells us that prayer aligns the will of the children with the will of God. Isn't that beautiful? Prayer is so much more than talking to God. It's what allows us to receive all of the blessing He will give us and to help us do things His way. If we do things His way, well lets just say His way will never be the wrong way. One last thing is that God will perform miracles not to increase our faith, but to confirm our faith. Miracles don't build faith. It's interesting because a speaker promised us that if we had a question we wanted to know, we could open to ANY page in the Book of Mormon, and we will find the answer. I tried that with this principle, and it works! I wanted to know how to feel God's blessings because our investigator isn't feeling the blessings when he prays. I started from the beginning of the Book of Mormon, and in Nephi it shows multiple times in the first few chapters that because of the faith of Nephi, God was able to bless him. Look at when he wad bound by his brothers. He said, and this isn't a quote, just kinda what he said. "Heavenly Father, I KNOW you can help me break these bands. Help me break these bands so I can live." The scripture says that the Lord blessed him according to his faith.

I've seen so many people I know here and they're all doing great! 

CTR everyone!