MTC letter No.6

Mi querida familia~

Wow, it has been yet another great week. I am amazed every single day, not only by how much I learn, but by what I'm becoming. The mission seems to take all of your good qualities and blow them out of proportion. Let me rephrase that. The Lord has an amazing way of moulding us into the most helpful people we can be with our given talents and gifts for the benefit of others. And I'm convinced that this is the only reason why--so that others can benefit. I know that I have benefited so much from others' abilities. And once again, I know without a doubt that I am exactly where I ought to be, doing what I am supposed to be doing. I had a thought the other day about my future investigators. I haven't met them yet, but I anticipate it so much. I can't wait to meet these people whom I will love for the rest of my life here and beyond. I have a strong desire to learn this language--although it's soooo hard right now--and get to know these Latino people on an intimate basis. To understand them, serve them, love them, teach them.

This week the hermanas and I have been refining our planning skills and goal-setting and goal-achieving skills. And it has been so rewarding and the Lord has helped us a great deal. We plan much better then we used to, we're more strict about completing the things we've made as goals, we're very specific in what we want to accomplish, and it has made a world of difference. We're a closer companionship (and we were close before!), we're more effective, and because we aren't worrying about those things anymore we are able to move on and focus on other things so that we can become better missionaries and be better enabled to teach these amazing children of God. After all, that's the whole point. :)



So I loved this quotation this week that one of our teachers' dads used to say: "Wherever you go, there you'll be." :) Kinda profound I think. And a good reminder to always do regular 'Check-ups from the Neck-up'.

Now to the blog readers:
Rachel P - I was prepared to say WHERE IS MY LETTER??...... but then it came a couple days ago hahaha. So thank you. I'll write back as soon as I can..... which probably won't be terribly soon sorry because I'm so behind on letters. No time to write! We taught lessons all yesterday instead of slept or wrote letters, bah! ha
Linda C - I hope you got my thank you letter! And I hope you and your family are doing well. I just got a letter from Trev.
Ervin - Yeah, I realize I'm super late on getting back to you, but like I already said, I'm super behind in letter writing!
JP - It's comin'!

I love you all so much and thank you for your support and love and examples.

Hermana Underlin

MTC letter No.5

This week was a very interesting one. Hna. Birch was very sick at the beginning of this week so Hna. Vickers and I had the opportunity to take care of her. There's a solo sister in our zone as well, and in our room, so she stayed with Hna. Birch much of the time while Hna. Vickers and I taught the lessons to our investigators and essentially went about our day without Hna. Birch for a couple of days. This experience helped our companionship to grow even closer.
On Tuesday night, we had a marvelous devotional. The speaker was Richard E. Edgely of the presiding bishopric and who had been on the executive missionary committee for like 18 years. It was VERY good and we all got so much from it. Then, in our district devotional review afterward, I learned even more. The Spirit of the Lord taught me something with a lot of clarity. It was a concept I've known for a long time and have always believed, but the Spirit carried it straight into my heart. All the matters, all that matters, is submitting to the will of the Father. In all of our being reminded to be obedient, to love, to serve, to study, to work, to pray.... everything turns out right when all we are focused on is listening for and then submitting to the will of the Father. I testify that when we are listening intently for it to be communicated to us through the Holy Ghost, it comes--particularly when we listen with the intent to act on whatever we're told, immediately. I really strove to follow this and I was more loving, more patient, for effective, more inspired, more hard-working, more everything-that-I-should-be when I was trying with all my mind, might, heart and strength to live by this knowledge that the Spirit had communicated to me. Yes, I want to be obedient. I usually do--it's my personality. But I am SO much more motivated to be exact when my motives are not just follow-mission-rules-so-I-can-teach-with-the-Spirit, but when that is an apendage and when the actual root of the reason I obey is because I love my Heavenly Father enough to submit to Him, because I know that ..... really, that's the whole point of everything. He's the only one who knows how to bring us back into His presence. Jesus Christ is who knows how to guide me, coach me, lead me to exaltation. Not to mention, the Godhead are the only Ones who know how to best utilize me in order to bring others of their children back as well. That's why I'm here.

There have been many instances this week where the Lord's hand has been so very evident in our lives. When Hna. Birch was first getting sick, Hna. Vickers and I insisted that she rest because her whole body, we could tell, was screaming for it, but she stubbornly refused. That evening Hna. Birch had a dr. appt. before lunch that I went to with her. It lasted a lot longer than we expected and as a result we went to dinner at a later time than is scheduled and missed two lessons we were supposed to teach investigators. It this wouldn't've been the case, we wouldn't have sat down by a senior couple at dinner and long story short, they're going to Oregon when Hna. B's family lives who're inactive (off the deep end in fact) and these missionaries promised to contact her family. Another one, while I was waiting for Hna B in her appt. I was studying Spanish when the sudden inspiration came to pray that the doctor would demand that she go to bed immediately. At dinner, when I asked her what the doctor had told her, she admitted that he'd told her.... to go to bed immediately. PRAYER WORKS. Now yes, the doctor may have told her that anyway... but for some reason I know it was no coincidence that that thought suddenly came to my mind and prompted me to pray. It reinforced my testimony that the Father is eager to bless us, but we do have to ask. Prayer can literally "change the night to day." I learned that through practice and from the Book of Mormon.

I want to share much more from this week, but time is short.
1. Mi Maestra's sister lives in Kansas and we are going to find her and bring her back to the gospel.
2. We shared our favorite scriptures on the Atonement on Wed. in class and I got much more emotional than I expected. I shared Alma 7:11-13. I love the Isaiah 53, but I was reading Alma 7 when the Spirit bore strong witness to me for the first time that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. I again bear testimony that this is true.

MTC letter No.4

Hola

Yet another week down!

This week was once again full of lessons and Spanish and devotionals etc.
We're currently working on getting the second lesson down... but it's really hard for some reason. Like it just doesn't flow in my head for some reason like the first lesson does. I'm trying to get it so it does, however.
Here, we teach lessons to other missionaries or teachers or volunteers who role-play. It's most effective when they role-play someone they know really well so that it's more accurate. One of the people we teach is a less-active (inactive, actually) named Alex. His dad is LDS and when Alex was a kid his dad severely abused him, his brother and his mother--almost killed them at times, in fact. Alex HATES his father and has based his life around being nothing like his father. His dad is now back into full fellowship in the church, but Alex says he never received an apology. So the big issue with Alex is that he simply does not believe that he can be healed the way we promise him he can. He can't join a church that requires him to forgive his father. And he doesn't deny that Jesus Christ suffered for him, but that He knew that Alex wouldn't really ever come back so.... yeah I don't know. It's confusing.
So for some reason I am soooo emotionally invested whenever we teach Alex. Like we teach a LOT of other people with problems of their own, but for some reason when we teach Alex, teaching about the Atonement of Jesus Christ becomes so much more real to me. Since the subject of forgiving his father is so huge and sensitive, we usually try to avoid attacking it directly and instead focus on other aspects of the Gospel that will help Alex in time forgive his father. We know it won't come immediately--or anywhere close to immediately. But since it's such a huge part of him, we can't help but come around to it during the lessons, which then inevitably leads to testifying of the power of the Atonement. The first time we taught Alex was the first time I teared up while looking into his eyes and testifying to him that the Savior literally has the ability and willingness to take away his burden. I am very sincere in lessons, but I rarely cry. The only other time I have was once again, in a lesson with Alex. This one was yesterday. It was incredible. It was an hour long (double the usual) and the entire time I just tried to listen to the Holy Ghost tell me what the real problem was within him, what I could address to nip it in the bud to be able to better help him know how to come unto Christ with real intent, believing that he could be healed by Him. I teared up sharing with him my own experiences with the Atonement and pleading with him to believe that he could have the same joy that I had experienced when my burden had been lifted. It's amazing what comes out in lessons when the Spirit of the Lord is very present. People share very, very intimate experiences--not necessarily in great detail, but intimate experiences nonetheless with the people who're being taught, the "members" in the lessons included.
When people have sincere questions about the Gospel, I can't wait to answer them to the best of my knowledge. The Gospel just makes SOO much sense to me. Most of the time I half to pick through the doctrine to make sense of it and to walk away with the logic of it all, but when I do it's so good. Like My companions and I were discussing the story of Adam and Eve the other day and I didn't understand some things, but after a couple minutes I felt like I had made sense of the initially illogical parts. Not the I have the whole thing figured out by ANY means....


Love,
Em

MTC letter No.3

Hola mi familia~

Once again, it is always good to hear from you but STOP EMAILING ME AND INSTEAD SEND ME A LETTER VIA DEAR ELDER DURING THE WEEK SO I CAN RESPOND TO IT DURING EMAIL TIME AND IT DOESN'T TAKE UP EMAIL TIME READING YOUR EMAILS. Get it? Thanks. :)

Being on a mission is truly a privilege, as my Patriarchal Blessing says. You don't realize how lucky you are to be out here until you're actually here, though. Heavens to Betsy! I get to be part of the Greatest Work In The World! There IS no greater work. I get to participate in the work that God Himself called His work and His glory. For a straight 18 months I am able to work among my brothers and sisters doing the work of the salvation of souls. What a privilege. Why anyone would want to go home or to not go if given the opportunity simply astounds me. Yeah, stuff bugs me about it. Yeah, companions get on my nerves and I get on theirs. Yeah, it's super super busy and hard. Yeah the language is tough and half the time I feel overwhelmed. But it's SO worth it. I can feel it, even though I'm not even really out there yet.

Well this week has been another good one! Goodness, what a blessing conference is. I can't imagine NOT being able to hear modern-day prophets speak on a regular basis. As you can probably imagine, I got more out of conference this time than possibly any other time. As missionaries we all meet in the big gym/chapel where we have our devotionals and watched it all together on huge projectors. :) What were your guys' favorite talks? I must say that Elder Holland's had almost every single missionary bawling right off the bat... but my favorite talk was Elder Christofferson's talk on a consecrated life. I LOVE THAT MAN. I couldn't keep up my note-writing with his speaking. Every sentence was note-worthy so I can't wait until I have that Ensign in my hands. As usual. :) Also, the talk that Pres. Monson gave in the General Relief Society meeting on compassion, charity and being non-judgemental was very touching and powerful. I wish I have time here to really explain how I felt while listening to conference, but alas I don't. I did write in my journal, however. :)

This week we've taught many lessons and been trying to refine teaching with the Spirit. It's amazing how the experience of something that you always did believe in makes it so much more real to you. When I read about Jesus' life in the NT and think about it, it dawns on me how incredible His reality is and the fact that He really does lead this church. Also, being able to teach with the Spirit so often and realizing how essential it is makes the concept so much more personal and real to me, even though I always believed in the concept before.

Do you guys ever have like personal testimony meetings just with you and God at night in bed? Maybe that's just an Emily-thing, but I had another one on Friday night. I've already told you a lot of what I pondered about that night. I loved learning how the Lord communicates with us on an individual basis. Many times He speaks to me through my own words, or rather, while I'm praying and opening up my mind and heart to Him, He'll say what I need to hear through my mouth when I'm praying. Hopefully I'm learning the true order or prayer as it talks about in the Bible Dictionary and how prayer is for us to bring our will in accordance with His. I don't pretend for this to happen all the time, but it's definitely amazing when it does. It's a little harder when you're trying to pray completely in Spanish, however. :)

Today in the temple we got to do sealings. My first time! What an interesting experience. It'll be neat to do sealings when I get home.... Not to mention my own, haha. What beautiful blessings and promised to those who are faithful.

One of the reasons Elder Christofferson's talk was so poignant to me was because I had been thinking lately about really keeping temple covenants and what means in the mission field--to give EVERYTHING to the Lord and His church. I guess the mission field is one of the best possible places to learn that concept. It is very easy, however, to NOT keep that covenent in the field. When you feel busy all the time it's easy to justify slowing down or taking a few extra minutes for yourself. But you have to push yourself to keep going because you're on the Lord's time.

Well, I'm outa time!

I love you all sooooooooooooooooo much and miss you terribly. :) <3

Un abrazo!

Hermana Underlin

MTC letter No. 2

Hola!

Whoa-kay, I have to SPEED through this because 29 minutes is so not enough time to cover everything. So just as a disclaimer I won't answer your emails. I'll read them and probably answer them next week, but if you really want an answer lol send something via Dear Elder or MTC Delivery, which I have been receiving, by the way so worry not. I got everyone's letters via MTC Delivery like ONE HOUR after I wrote the last email and harped on everyone for not writing me lol. And I also received the surprise birthday package!! That was so fun to get and so nice of you to send. I'm afraid that to "have a little party with the district" just isn't really possible here, but the 3 hermanas managed to have a good time at night with the hats and cake. :) We took pictures and polished off the cake after 4 nights. :) And we all agreed it was SOO good. :) So thank you, Mom! I still haven't gotten to the caramel apple, but rest assured I look forward to it. I just don't know how I'm gonna get a knife to cut it into 4 sections ha. We had another hermana move into our room. Now don't think that because it takes so many days for me to eat stuff or write that it's because I'm unenthusiastic about it. There just simply isn't time! I had a good birthday though.

This week I've been lucky to hear many very good talks and had good presentations. At the LGM (Large Group Meeting) a stake pres. who has this whole presentation of baptismal stats came and I don't have time to go into it, but the presentation was really good and motivated all of us to get out there and BAPTIZE!! Get them IN the gate that leads to Heaven, not just closer to it. Any organization that's good can make good people better. But only we can help them get onto the path. Then during class last week we got to watch Elder Holland's famous talk The Miracle of a Mission... Goodness, GO LOOK IT UP if you haven't heard it already. I'm dead serious. It will make you bawl. In a good way. Seriously go watch it on YouTube afterward if it's there. It was given Jan. 2000. Also we had mission conf. yesterday and the talks were riveting! The visiting GA wwaass hilarious (except he was a BYU fan unfortunately...) and had really good thoughts. Good thing I have a notebook so I can reread all these good talks, or the notes I took, rather. Plus I love how on Fast Sunday you're just more sensitive to the Spirit. Our sacrament meeting was very poignant. The testimonies were in English this time so people could just speak from their hearts.

Since being here, I've learned much more the importance, sacredness and specialness of this calling. This is the most important work in the world. I am so lucky to be a part of it. So lucky. Privileged. It's the least I can do for He who gave me everything I have or will ever have.

I have to go RIGHT NOW bbut I love you all!

Hermana Underlin

MTC letter No.1

Well hi there!!

Gosh, I feel like I've already written this email twice because I had time today before now to write letters haha.

Anyway, it's wonderful here! The Spirit is very strong ALL the time. I'm lucky to be able to suck it up for 9 weeks straight. I've also been amazed at how much I've grown in just 5 days. So much so that I love the idea that I'll be on my mission for 18 months so that I can have lots of time to keep growing and be able to solidify what I've learned. It's very true what people say about it being the hardest, happiest time of you life.

I actually have 2 companions, just like Trevor did! Hermana Birch and Hermana Vickers. Hna Vicker's orginal companion got moved up to a higher Spanish class (and therefore out of our room, district, and zone) and so we became what we call a tripanionship. :) I am very lucky to have the companions that I do. The past couple of days have been a little rough together because we were each dealing with different things, but today has been wonderful and we are very close. Our district is very close, really. These elders love us and watch over us like brothers. On Saturday morning, our teacher shared experiences that touched us and our emotions got the best of us. Then, we all found we couldn't stop them. All the pent up pressure of mission life broke through and there the three of us were on our side of the room, weeping quietly. Hna. Vickers missed her family very much and hadn't been feeling well. Hna. Birch was feeling overwhelmed by all the things we have to do and about learning the language--she feels she's so far behind but she's really not. And I felt spiritually inadequate. We eventually all decided to tell each other what we were all feeling. Then the elders accidentally kept walking in on it. Finally, we just told them too and later that night they gave us all (and one elder) blessings. This was an amazing experience in many ways. Previously I'd wondered if inexperience with giving blessings would freak them out a little, for lack of a better phrase, and that the things they'd say wouldn't be pertinent. But I was oh so very wrong. I'm thankful I had the opportunity to go to Ervin's patriarchal blessing because there I the patriarch asked me to say a prayer before we began and in it I was prompted to say certain things, which I later learned were exactly what Ervin needed to hear--in fact was waiting to hear--and which were also repeated in his very blessing. This experience helped me to have greater faith in these elders truly receiving what the Lord had to communicate instead of anything else. The words that were spoken to me in my blessing were very personal and pertinent. And I know that it was the same for the others who received blessings. This brought us closer as a district. And, in fact, we have a rare closeness. We really care about each other. Everyone's so unique and brings something different to the classroom that we all benefit from. There are 9 of us in the district. Us 3 hermanas and Elder Snasel, Elder Simmons, Elder Thacker, Elder Kakau, Elder Dalley, and Elder Cooley.

That whole of Saturday was spiritual overload it felt like to everyone. We were glad for the Day of Rest.

In my blessing it said something about leadership... which puzzled me a little--I'm not even senior companion. Then right before sacrament meeting the branch president called me to be the CS (coordinating sister) for the zone. Dear me. My first meeting is tomorrow so we'll see how it goes. I'm still trying to understand what all goes on here and to get the hang of things myself so be responsible for orienting new sisters, having them report to me, doing orientations with the zone leaders, and having all these extra meetings is a little scary, but if it's what the Lord wants.... nothing else has to be said, I guess. :) The last CS was amazing. I have big shoes to fill. She was a great example to me, though, as a missionary so I hope that I can have as much of a good influence on other sisters as she had on me. Sister Clark...

Umm I'll be honest, I really don't even remember the first three days. Like I'm dead serious. I remember bobbing up and down, singing, "I'm goin' on a mission!!..." while hugging Mom as she dropped me off at the curb and being so happy and excited the whole day Wednesday, but other than that.... no idea.

Oh boy, only 6 more minutes left!

I love you all so very much and thank you for your prayers in my behalf. They truly help.

Hope to hear from you all SOON! Have a wonderful week.

Un abrazo,

Hermana Underlin

Goodbye!!

Hey all!
This will be my last first-person update for a year and half!
I just want to say that I am overwhelmingly grateful for the opportunity to serve my Father in Heaven as a full-time missionary for His church. To labor to bring His children to a knowledge of the Truth is going to be so hard but so rewarding and I can't wait to get out there and find those whom He'll guide me to!
I know with all my heart that the true gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth. It was restored through Joseph Smith and we are led by an ordained prophet of God, Pres. Monson. I bear witness that Jesus Christ is the Savior of everyone on this earth and that He has the power to heal any wound, comfort any spirit, and cover any sin. I love Him. And I'm grateful that He loved me enough to sacrifice His life so that I can live again.

Thank you all for your love, friendship and support to me.
I love you!



MTC address:

Sister Emily Jean Underlin
MTC Mailbox # 184
MO-INDE 1124
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793

Mission Home address:

Sister Emily Underlin
Missouri Independence Mission
937 W. Walnut St.
Independence, MO 64050