Mission Presidents Week in Review

Hola familia,

This week was wonderful, as expected. There were 128 mission presidents in the house last week and every apostle was here. On Friday there was a special devotional given by Elder Bednar and we got to see Elder Ballard, Elder Nelson, Elder Oaks, Elder Andersen, Elder Holland, and Elder oh my gosh, it'll come to me later. There were seven apostles on the stand and I was singing in the choir and was on the big screen, so maybe an apostle has seen my face. :)

Elder Bednar talked about being a Preach My Gospel missionary. Absolutely everything in his talk was pure doctrine--just absolutely delicious. I was trying to write down notes so quickly my hand was about to fall off. I usually just write down things that are really important and that I love and every word that came from his mouth was gold. I need to work on being more of a Preach My Gospel missionary and I know that this book is useful for every member of the church--even if you're not a full-time missionary. My companion said that she's going to have a Preach My Gospel family. Her family was less active for most of her life and so she's trying hard to learn from our Branch President's wife and everyone else how she can raise her family well.

Sacrament meeting was pretty crazy because we had about 13 combined districts since the main building where we usually have church was off limits (apostles and prophets roaming the halls and such). Ten elders were behind the sacrament table and 20 elders passed the sacrament. The neat thing about this Sunday was that our teachers challenged us to go to sacrament meeting with a specific question in mind about the Plan of Salvation. They wanted us to have a question and to receive personal revelation so that we can teach our investigators that they too can receive personal revelation at church. It was the neatest experience. I've reasoned everything in my mind concerning the Plan of Salvation and I know it's true, so I went to the meeting with a question in mind that many investigators have already brought up and I have never had a brilliant answer to. If God is our loving Heavenly Father, then why is there so much suffering in the world? My prayers were answered during the first two talks given by missionaries. I can tell you my response later but invite you to do the same thing. Go to sacrament meeting with a specific question in mind that you want answered and I know that you will receive those answers whether it be through a talk, prayer, hymn, reading the scriptures, or pondering. That was a neat experience for me and I'm going to do it next Sunday as well.

The managing directors of the international MTCs were also here this week and we had the opportunity to have the main dude of the MTC in Spain come to our class and practice his teaching on us. He then listened to us teach our companions; it's really awkward having people come up to your desks and stare into your face as you're trying to teach your companion or "investigator." He said that he had met with the apostles and prophet this week and had been to the temple but that he felt the Spirit the strongest in our classroom. Our district is really wonderful about trying to resolve contention (although they're all goofballs most of the time) and testifying so that we do have the Spirit in our room. I love our elders and sisters--and the elders like the sisters, surprise surprise. We haven't gotten on their nerves too much yet.

The temple will be closed for the rest of the time I'm in the MTC (other than today--we are going in about an hour). We have been given the opportunity to clean the temple for 3.5 hours on July 16. How cool is that!!! And happy anniversary, Jordan and Quin. :) So we go in tennis shoes and street clothes and they'll give us temple cleaning clothes to wear. We use toothpicks and toothbrushes to clean chairs and little places. It's going to be great--we're all really excited about that.

I got to meet my mission president and his wife last Friday! President and Sister Lewis really are dolls, as Grandpa said. He saw their picture in the Church News and thought they looked neat. They're sort of quiet--I imagined all mission presidents to be very charismatic and excited, but he was very relaxed and soft spoken. He's a financial guy in Salt Lake City. They have six children (all married) and 27 grandchildren--3 grandchildren were born the week before they came into the MTC and Sister Lewis said that was a tender mercy that they got to hold all of them before they left. One grandchild was in ICU and they wouldn't be able to hold him/her before they came but miraculously the baby was healthy enough. So there are 12 languages spoken in my mission--I think that means we're one of the most diverse missions in the world. How cool is that? Oh so perfect for me. I met an elder going there who's learning Cambodian and a sister from Kiribati (I think it's near Fiji, Tonga, Samoa) and she's learning English. There's also Vietnamese and Sign Language and 6 others that they don't teach in the MTC. I'm so excited!

I love you all. Thank you for your letters and for updating me on the reunion. Sounds like you had a blast. Sunburns no bueno.

Loves,

kates