MTC No. 10

Nov. 19, 2010

So this week VC training has been .... wow. It's completely different--kinda--from what we're used to. Instead of sitting down with role-playing investigators, you're walking around a VC and using a lot of media to teach lessons. Last night we had what's called a TRC where the whole district goes and role plays with volunteers from the community. Super effective. In my last district we taught lessons first in English then in Spanish and contacted and we had different scenarios every week and different Spanish vocab to learn etc. This week, we set up our own VC with pictures and the Christus and gave them tours. Sounds kinda pansy-ish yeah? WRONG. It was the most powerful TRC I've been in yet. And it was crazy. I taught the first lesson in just 20 minutes without even consciously trying to. And the challenging thing about VC training is that it's not as linear as the normal lessons, but it's so powerful. You incorporate the 5th lesson and the 4th lesson with the first. And you can do that anyway, I know, but it's so much easier somehow in a VC setting. And there's no time for you to get to know them, leave, pray, make a lessons plan, and then come back like in usual missionary work. You REALLY have to rely on the Spirit and ask good questions in order to know what they need in the first, oh, 60 seconds.

Last night, I was teaching a non-member (alone) and the Spirit was very strong the whole time... but it was SO abundant when I bore testimony. I love being able to look someone in the eye and tell them that I know that Jesus is the Christ and that Joseph Smith was the prophet whom He restored His gospel through out of His love for us. I did not expect to do this, but when in front of the Book of Mormon/Joseph Smith display, I recited the First Vision to him and then bore testimony of it. It was amazing and I thank God for the Restoration. Without it, we haven't a church. My companion, Hna. Birch, also had quite an amazing experience. She was committing someone to pray with his family for missionary opportunities and he started to tear up because he said it was exactly what he'd been praying for. His family had been having a really rough time (this was when we taught members, not non-members) and they really needed family unity right now. He'd been praying and praying for something to bring them together and he felt that that was exactly the answer he'd been looking for. And I got a referral (yes, a real referral) for an Argentinian lady currently going to medical school in Michigan. Kind of a long story there too.

The other sisters in our VC district are awesome. I love working with them. I love learning with and from them. Our teacher said it was one of the best TRCs she's ever had based on what she heard and from the volunteer feedback. And I KNOW that the success we had last night was only because we all relied on the Spirit of the Lord. It was only our second day of VC training and believe me, we were all humbled and overwhelmed. We knew that any chance for success we had to hope for would be through He who knows all people and that we needed to be sufficiently humble enough to be the kind of instruments He needs to work through in order to really touch people the way He wants to touch them.

Also, yesterday in class we practiced studying our site history and then sharing that with someone and tying it to the gospel and a commitment, etc. I studied two stories. The one of when JS was held for about 2 weeks in a house in chains (when he says, "SILENCE ye fiends of the infernal pit!") and Liberty Jail. I made my outline for the Liberty jail story and mostly focused on that one. When it came time to share, however, and I was totally prepared to share something about Liberty Jail with the sister I was doing the activity with, I could not mentally focus on Liberty and the other story kept coming to my mind over and over so strongly. I stopped for a minute to try to gather my thoughts and see if I could change over and make sense of why that story was coming to mind even though I didn't know where I was going to go with it, and it still didn't make sense and the Liberty Jail one was clearly better in my mind because I knew where to take it.... but I swear to you I could not talk about Liberty. It felt like someone was blocking it and steering me very obviously toward the other story even though it didn't make sense to me at all. So finally I gave in and just shared the other story. I hadn't known where it would lead, but eventually it lead to my testifying of the ministering of angels, the literal, tangible assistance we receive from people on the other side of the veil. How when we are in the right and we seem outnumbered by the wrong, that we are never a minority because the angels are around us and make the right the majority. Not to fear those who may disagree or revile, etc. I somehow knew this is what that sister needed. Naturally I have no idea how or why, but it was so ..... I've just never had my thoughts so blatantly guided before. It was really ..... humbling. Because what she needed to hear was much more important than what I wanted to share and talk about.


Sorry for being slow in letter-writing. I'm seriously tryin'! But there's just no time and p days are the only days and they're chuck full!
But I still love y'all!!

Christ lives.
This is His Church.

Con amor,
Hna. Underlin