Hola familia!
Wow what an eventful week this has
been! Raise your hand if you loved General
Conference! I know I did! I have to say that I enjoyed every speaker
and therefore don’t have a favorite -- they were all just so good! I have pages worth of notes in my notebook
and it seemed like I couldn't write my thoughts down fast enough! This conference seemed much better than others
have been, but maybe it's just that I am a missionary now and am spiritually
hungry for knowledge! I think a recurring
theme of these sessions has been eternal marriage and families. It reminded me of how I have a duty and
responsibility to not only help my investigators come to Christ through
baptism, but I should also be helping them to progress on their way to the
temple. How important my job is! Never in the history of the church has the
importance of families and temples been so emphasized!
One cool thing that happened to me
this week was the workshop that we had just before the Saturday morning session
of General Conference. The teachers
wrote some questions on the white board that our future investigators would
have, like . . . . where did we come from?, does God love us?, etc. They asked us to pick one question and study it
for about 10 minutes, and I chose "does God establish absolute truth?"
I picked this one to challenge myself
because I’m not as familiar with the scriptures that address this question. After a lot of pondering and scripture
searching, I was called up out of the audience to share my thoughts and write
them on the board. This kind of worried
me because I felt like I could use a little more study time. Nevertheless, I tried to be fearless! I walked right up there and wrote down the
following: “absolute truth resides in the hearts of men and women who abide in
and obey the doctrine of Christ; and when we do this, we will have absolute
truth (John 8: 31-32).
Once all those who wanted to share
their input finished writing on the board, one of the teachers called me by
name and told me that my thoughts were very insightful! Booyah!
He even took a picture of the
white board and posted it to his Facebook!
I am officially quoted! I’m so
grateful for the time we’ve had to study the scriptures here at the CCM and that
the Lord has blessed our efforts with increased knowledge and testimony.
Do y'all remember how I said that I
was going to study the Libro de Mormon in Spanish as counseled by David A
Bednar? Well, my study of the LDM has
been absolutely great so far!! I have
been noticing a lot of translation differences and marking my copy up a bunch
with my thoughts. I have also been
studying the Preach My Gospel manual more intensely and have been trying to
apply the principles in all of our practice lessons with our role play
investigators. One quote that I remember
from my study is, “Heaven is a continuation of an ideal home.” As a missionary, we will be asking people to
conduct Family Home Evening and participate as a family to strengthen
themselves spiritually. I was given a
copy of “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” in Spanish and I am reading
it during my morning studies. I'm
finding every day that there are so many great things to study, and not enough
time to do it!
Every week we are assigned to teach
our role play investigators (usually CCM teachers) at least twice a day. But on Thursdays we have what is called TRC,
which is a chance for outside volunteers to come and help the missionaries on a
one-time teaching basis. It’s so awesome! And this week we met with a 15 year old
recent convert girl named Gemela. It
went wonderfully, as we all shared our favorite scripture. I felt bad afterwards because I was staring
at her so intently the whole time! I was
just so excited and appreciative to be with a young woman who has the kindness
to listen to a bunch of beginner missionaries who struggle with the language but
who demonstrated love and patience with us anyways. The light that shone out of her was so real
and her faith was so palpable!! I couldn’t
believe my eyes! I loved her, even
though I barely even knew her, and she didn’t know me either, yet she loved me
too! She absolutely reminded me of all
the young women back home in the Sienna Plantation ward! I am so glad I had a truly wonderful and
spiritually-strengthening experience in the Young Women program, and have a
love for all of those young sisters individually. My YW experience definitely helped me during
TRC, and I know it will help me in the future.
Will someone please tell those SP young women that I am thinking of
them, praying for them, and can’t wait to hug all of them when I return? That would be great -- thanks!
Lots of funny moments this week,
especially with the language. I’m not
going to lie and say that I haven’t learned some Spanish words the hard and
embarrassing way, ha-ha! I can’t wait to
be that missionary when one day I discover I’m speaking fluently! In fact, I hope it comes soon! The gift of tongues is certainly the most sought
after blessing in my prayers. Do yall
remember the movie “The Other Side of Heaven,” where Elder John Groberg had a
rough experience as a new missionary speaking to the people of Tonga and embarrassed
himself in front of the entire church congregation? To solve this language barrier problem, Elder
Groberg spent 3 days on a secluded island reading the Book of Mormon in the
Tongan language right beside the English version? Well, I’m hoping that my study of the LDM will
have a similar impact and that I will have an Elder Groberg moment where a
native speaker will come up to me and say, “Kolipoki! You speak!” Just kidding -- but I am anxiously awaiting the
day when I will be able to speak Spanish and not even realize it.
Sunday was the end of daylight
savings time and I feel cheated out of some study time! But on the bright side, the Easter Bunny came
in form of Hermana Christensen! Her mom
sent chocolate, as did other moms, and we had a great time eating and visiting!
This week is going to be a busy, yet sad
too! This last week at the CCM is completely packed
and I still have so much to do, like pack and say goodbye to all of my close
district friends. I kind of don’t want
to, but on the other hand I do because it means that I’ll finally be getting to
my assigned mission field! We had to
take our district picture for our farewell slideshow that will be shown on
Sunday night. It was a very somber
experience.
Hope yall also had a Great Easters! (Nacho Libre reference). Love yall bunches!
Hermana Moss
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