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