Week 7

June 30, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

First of all, the keyboard I am typing on is very old and so if I have any mistakes in this letter I apologize. Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my dear sister Robyn. I love you. I hope you got my birthday card i sent to you! 

So, on Tuesday we had the most amazing devotional. Because the mission presidents seminar was going on, Elder Christofferson spoke to us! What made it even better was the fact that 5 other apostles were also in the meeting! From memory, I think it was Elder Bednar, Elder Nelson, Elder Oaks, Elder Cook and Elder Anderson. Even though Elder Christofferson was the only one that actually spoke, the spirit of having half of the apostles of the Lord, Jesus Christ with us was amazing. He spoke about the worth of souls. One of the things that stood out most to me was when he said that "Satan's greatest tool is trying to make us forget that we have the potential to become like God." Satan wants us to forget our identity so that we feel worthless and miserable like he does. He also used the C.S. Lewis quote that says something to the effect of "there are no ordinary people in the life. You have never met a mere mortal. Each person you pass will some day be a God or Goddess." It is so true! We need to treat each person we meet with the respect they deserve, even if they are different than us. 

So because our district (class) has 15 missionaries, we only get the opportunity to teach our investigators (teachers) once a week. Most other missionaries in the MTC teach at least 10 lessons each week because they only have 6-8 missionaries in their districts. Our teachers decided we would all create an "investigator" and teach each other during extra study time. This has been an amazing opportunity because not only has it given us more teaching time, but we have learned so much from the other missionaries in our district! Each of us teaches so differently, but because we are all teaching the same doctrine, the spirit is always there! One of the Elders that was teaching me (as an investigator) shared the first vision in Cambodian from memory to me. HOLY COW the spirit was so strong. After that experience I have been making an effort to memorize it! I have it about half way down. There is real power when we testify of Joseph Smith and his experience with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. 

Our investigator Bang Ny was supposed to get baptized on Saturday (after we had already pushed it back), but he told us he has work every Saturday and Sunday now. We had a lesson planned on chastity, but felt it was more important to testify about Church and miracles. We shared scriptures from the Book of Mormon and promised him that the Lord would provide a way for him to be baptized if he had faith. We encouraged him to try and find a new job or some how change his schedule. I am excited to meet with him this week to see if he has found a new job. 

Anyway, the days at the MTC are all starting to blend together as we do the same thing every day. The language is coming along and I can now understand almost everything our teachers say in class (they talk very clearly and fairly slow). I am working to increase my vocabulary right now because I have gotten to the point where I have a basic vocabulary for most every thing church related...so if I don't know a word i can usually describe it. Oh! One other cool thing. Instead of doing the regular TRC thing where we spend an hour each with a volunteer who speaks cambodian, we are now skyping straight to Cambodia! We do it on Monday nights (so last week was our first time). WOW. The Cambodian's speak very very fast!!! But the young 21 year old member we taught was so sweet!!! We taught the restoration to her and she loved it! We understood about 25% of what she said... so we need some more practice. haha. We are skyping again tonight, so that should be good. I will be honest though and say that it makes me very nervous!!! There is nothing worse than asking a question and then having no idea what the response was. 

Our Sunday night devotional was awesome. Elder Allen (over the Missionary Department) spoke to us again! (he came about a month ago as well). But even better than the Sunday night devotional was the Relief Society that we had!!! Sister Marriott (the 2nd Counselor in the YW presidency) spoke to the sisters. My favorite thing she said was that at times we will think to ourselves "I feel inadequate", but we need to always remember that the Lord is not inadequate! Even if we feel that the task at hand seems impossible, if we rely upon the Atonement and grace of the Savior, we can accomplish anything. The Savior makes up for everything that we lack. 

One last thing, today my district got to go and help clean inside the temple!!! As sisters we had the opportunity to clean the chandeliers. It was so incredible to literally be cleaning the house of the Lord. I love the temple!!!

Anyway, sorry this email isn't the greatest! I appreciate all the love and support I feel from you all! 

Love, 

Sister Lindley

Week 6

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has been busy, but every week is busy here in the MTC. I failed to mention last week that my companion and I received the assignment to be the Sister Training Leaders for our zone. We have about 30 sisters in our zone and we are responsible for interviewing them each week so this week was full of interviews. Half of those 30 sisters just arrived on Wednesday and they are all going to Hong Kong. One of the sisters is from Cache Valley (Sister Cox) and apparently knows the cousins that went to Mountain Crest. It was fun to make the connection. From interviewing all these sisters I have really come to see that a couple of them struggle with mental health issues and that they need to be taken very seriously because it really affects not only themselves, but their companion, and the work. It has also been interesting to see that many sisters don't get along with their companions and felt it was impacting their teaching. I felt impressed to share with many of them the story of Alma and Amulek from the Book of Mormon. They suffered many afflictions but because of their unity and give-and-take relationship, they were able to teach with power and with the spirit. I am hoping that helped. I really felt the weight of the sisters of our zone on my shoulders this week because I want them all to be successful and enjoy their MTC experience. It has been humbling.

For the devotional on Tuesday we were honored to have Elder M. Russell Ballard come and speak to us. His message focused on how we as missionaries need to study the doctrine of Christ on our missions and how we have the rest of our lives to study other aspects of the gospel. He spoke about not being ashamed of our message. He said "todays headlines become tomorrows historical footnotes, but the good news of the gospel is always current and constant". He emphasized that we need to look to the prophet and apostles because they will NEVER lead us astray. It also really hit me hard when he said that we are going on His mission, into His world, teaching His children the message of His Father. How great is my calling! I am so blessed!

Sunday was another highlight as we had Sister Janice Kapp Perry speak to us. Her talk was different than most of our other devotionals because it included a lot of singing! She said some spiritual truths are best learned through music. She shared the story of her and her husband meeting and it was a hit. Basically, her husband said a hilarious pick up line and then they kissed in front of all of us and all the missionaries (and the Nally's) were laughing SO hard. She encouraged all of us to write a song with our families. She shared the one that she wrote for her family and it was so fun! I am sorry to say however, that I can't picture our family writing a song. Maybe Megan could do it, but with the rest of our musical talent, I not so sure it would sound great. 

We had to push our investigators baptismal date back to this Saturday because we have yet to teach him some of the major commandments. But we are hopeful that it will go through this week! We taught a powerful lesson to our other investigator about trials and how God won't change the trial but he will change us and strengthen us. We used the scripture from Mosiah 24:14 about God lifting our burdens. We also related trials to Joseph Smith and talked about the persecution that he endured and how God helped him. Our teachers taught us this week not to be afraid to promise miracles, so we promised him that he would receive revelation for his family if he attended church this Sunday and he said we would! Woo! Last week he was hesitant about going to church, but this week he saw the importance!

One thing this mission has taught me is that none of this is about me. A mission is about serving your companion, those in your district and zone, those you teach, and most importantly, the Lord. It seems that some of the Sisters that have come on missions haven't grasped that idea yet and are looking for what the mission will give them. I would be lying if I said I haven't had those same thoughts. However, I would also be lying if I didn't testify that great joy comes from serving those around you. My companion lost her recommend this morning so we weren't able to go to the temple with our district. Apparently the temple is going to be closed for the next 2 weeks, so we won't be able to go to the temple for the next 17 months. At first I was a little frustrated and sad, but I realized that it is okay because instead of saving the dead, I can and will be saving the living. My companion and I decided to go up to the grounds and read our scriptures instead. I am was reading in Alma 28 (ish) and realized that this work truly will bring the greatest joy. Ammon describes it as his soul being filled to the brim with joy. 

Only three more weeks until we head to Cambodia! I can't wait! The language is slowly coming better and better and I can now teach most of the lessons without any notes. It truly is a miracle. I know it isn't my brains that are helping me learn this language, but it is the Lord! I love you all and hope you all have a great week!!

Love, 

Sister Lindley

p.s. We got our name tags that are in all Cambodian this week!!! They are SO COOL and made everything so real!