Hi Family!
This week has been super crazy!
This is the first and only P-day that I will have here. I feel like the
schedule is non-stop all day, every day (or "erry day" as one of my
companions says). I have two companions here in the MTC, Sister Holt and
Sister Lisonbee, and surprisingly, we are also the only sisters in our
dorm room. We were expecting new sisters to join us yesterday in our
room, but we got lucky! There are three bunk beds and three desks in
every room, so we are glad that we still all get a bed and desk to
ourselves and little space to spread out. In our district there are
three sisters (me and my companions) and five elders (Elder Marshall and
Green are going to Everett, and the other three are going to Baltimore,
MD). I love our district so much! We all just clicked instanty, and we
learn great together and also have a good laugh together (probably more
than we should, haha). One of the Elders in our district just turned 18
about two weeks ago. When he walked in all of us sudden I felt really
old. But he is super funny and makes us all laugh so much. He may even
be the best teacher in our district. He is really good at teaching with
the Spirit and portraying love to the investigator. I hope that I can be
as good as him! Our distric leader, Elder Marshall, also makes me laugh
a lot. He is tall and blond like Emmett and the other day he made a
face at me and all I could think was, "Oh my gosh, you are my brother." I
had a hard time coming back from that one. My companions are super
great. Sister Holt is from Draper, Utah and believe it or not, we have
the same exact birthday. We are totally different but are learning good
things from each other. Sister Lisonbee is 19, and I don't think I could
have asked for a better companion. She was even our "senior" companion
this week. I love when she shares her testimony. It is so pure and
heartfelt.
Last Thursday, we met with our branch presidency and
they did some zone and district organization for us, and they called me
to be the "Sister Training Leader" which is the equivalent to a sister
zone leader. So, the last two days I have been in charge of helping do
orientations for the new missionaries coming in, in addition to all the
other crazy that the MTC is. I am super intimidated by that calling
because I have only been here a week, and I am still asking questions
about everything myself. But it has been a good opportunity to learn and
grow. I don't feel like I am always the quickest to love others, so
this has been humbling for me to rely on the Lord to help open my heart
to people who are still complete strangers. I have gotten to know the
zone leaders, Elders Webb (from San Tan Valley) and Brooks. They are in
the other district, but they are going to Everett as well.
We started practicing with investigators practically
the first day. At first the investigators were our teachers, but this
week we started teaching investigators in the TRC (I think that stands
for Teaching Resource Center?). We had a super challenging investigator
that just didn't want to do anything. She thought that she needed to
figure everything out BEFORE she asked God about it. We came out of our
first lesson just feeling sick. She refused to read the Book of Mormon
or pray with her husband (in-active member) and even though she said
she would pray about the message we left her, she didn't.
But yesterday, we had a great turn around. We relied HEAVILLLYY on the
Spirit and were successful! We had planned to talk to her a little bit
more about Jospeh Smith and the Restoration because she was really hung
up on it the last lesson. Thankfully, the Spirit directed otherwise and
we were able to answer deeper questions about those topics. We were
prompted to teach the Plan of Salvation, contrary to our plans (my
companions related afterwards that they had both turned to each other
and mouthed "The Plan" as I told her that we would like to teach her
about God's plan for us. Even thought be barely got into the lesson, it
opened up opportunity for her to ask the questions she really wanted and
we really felt the Spirit and I am sure she did too. Then we had her
think of a question that she had and read the first chapter of the Book
of Mormon with her as she thought about it. She was able to start to
really have an experience with the Book of Mormon and soothe some of her
fears. I think that the scripture that really rang true with her was
Moroni 7:13 (you should read it). She then agreed to read the Book of
Mormon and pray about it. We came out of that lesson holding back tears
of relief and gratitude that we had been successful!
I have also been grateful to see one of my besties from
BYU, Sister Vanessa Webster several times this week. I know that God is
watching out for me to have a good friend here to encourage me!
Well, I have to go teach a training, but thanks for all the letter
and packages that you have sent my way! I hope you are all doing well!
Love,
Sister Turley
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