Sister Brittany Elizabeth Fors
MTC Mailbox # 360
AZ-MESA 0920
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793
MTC Mailbox # 360
AZ-MESA 0920
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793
Hi!
Here I am! Before I start, thank you for the letters and the dear elders and the emails and everything! So much!
Ok...so...this week. Well I'm definitely experiencing more of the up's and down's, I now have come to see why the MTC is known for being such a rollercoaster. I've definitely had some hard moments this past week, but some really rewarding ones as well. I think the defining lesson of my MTC experience (at least thus far) has been my relationship with my companion, and the lessons that she has taught me. My comp and I are pretty opposite in a lot of ways, which makes for some hard moments. So the key has been for us to learn how to have a great relationship that is based on something deeper than just similar pasttimes. Up until Sunday, I felt like we were really united, and I was feeling great about it. Then on Monday, stress started hitting, and that led us to having to put more effort into our relationship to make sure things are going well. I've realized that, at least for me and my personality, few things affect my attitude towards this mission experience as much as my relationship with my companion does. When things are going well, I'm feeling great. And when they're more stressful, I've realized I need to fix that ASAP so that I can have the right spirit with me.
The source of most of my struggles this week has been learning how to teach with the Spirit. I have to learn how to have faith in Christ, rather than just having faith in myself or in my talents. My comp is really really good at teaching with the Spirit. We're really different in that she likes to do as little lesson outlining as possible, and then she just wings it by the Spirit. At the beginning of this week, that totally stressed me out, because I felt like my Spanish wasn't good enough to "wing it" in that language yet. So we were stressing out, because I think we both have really high expectations for the quality of our lessons, and we just weren't in sync. But we've talked about it, and basically what it comes down to is I gotta just get better at striking the right balance in terms of preparing for lessons, and I'm working hard to just increase my faith and receptiveness to the Spirit, because that's what's going to make the difference. Any and all suggestions are welcome hahaha.
But Hermana Lamb has been a huge help, and really patient. I think we both realize that we're really different, but we both also realize that your comp relationship is key, so we're putting in a lot of effort to making sure we're unified in the Gospel. Seriously, it shows me the importance of just serving other people, complimenting other people, and praying with them to get a solid relationship. Even though I'm the "senior comp", I feel like in this past week she's been serving me a lot more. This has taught me a lot about charity...because I've thought about how charity is love not based on human relationships or friendships, but its based on the pure love, and gospel, of Jesus Christ. And it takes a lot of effort, but developing charity for someone is totally possible.
Other than Hermana Lamb, two other things have helped me a lot: STUDY and EXERCISE. Seriously, Darron, you mentioned how important exercise is, and I completely agree. I've never relied on exercise so much in my life hahahaha. Maybe I have a testimony of it now? Bahaha. And STUDY...well let's just say that Preach My Gospel is, to use the preferred missionary adjective, "Awesome!". It is such an inspired book. Hma Lamb and I have been studying Christlike Attributes this week, and seriously every time I study a different one, I'm like "THIS is the one that I need to develop to help me out! No THIS one is!" They're all so necessary for us to be happy and true disciples.
Ok so some highlights of the week. On Monday, we got a new elder in our district, which rendered our district pics at the temple the day before utterly useless. He's really cool, Elder Aldas, from Chicago and going to Chihuahua. The boys in my district in a lot of ways remind me of the boys from Tujunga...they didn't always consider going on a mish, but they made the decision and now they're going to be the best missionaries ever. So that day (Monday) another elder in my district got sent to the ER for some crazy food poisoning thing contracted from none other than the MTC CAFETERIA! Can't be trusted, I tell ya. So that was pretty sobering, but then he was basically good as new the next day. So Tuesday night we had a devotional, which was great. The emeritus seventy that spoke also SANG...and he sang "Donde Hay Amor, Tambien Hay Dios" and I LOVED IT. He also talked about our dear friend Parley P. a lot! But the song just taught me that it's only love that will make our message a reality, and will pierce the hearts of the people we're teaching. Love is the universal message, and without it we can't have Dios, we can't have the Spirit. So after the devotional, we came back and had a "district review", and our branch president was there with us. We went around bearing our testimonies, and then I was the third one to go, and next thing I know I'm all emotional, claro que si. So I bore my testimony of just love, and how it's so crucial, and how it's only through the Spirit that we can ever know anything of a certainty. The Spirit is the only testimony we can't deny. And I also mentioned Brother Gusman and how he called missionaries "angeles terrenales", and I testified of how I know we'll be angeles. So we were all emotional from there on out, including our branch president, and afterwards he spoke. And he told us that our district review was one of the most powerful ones he's ever been to in his 2+ years of service at the MTC. In our like 15-20 minutes of testimonies, he had written 3+ pages of notes. So that was pretty cool. We also had another member of our branch presidency come and speak to us on Sunday, and he talked about how there was a really good spirit in our district. He also spoke about how it was no coincidence that all of us are "bilingual", and how we were meant to have that gift. So that was pretty cool. Our district is really solid, the guys in our district are so great, and I love my fellow sis mish's.
Random things from this week: Hermana Jessica Garcia from the Tujunga ward was in my branch for the first week! She just left the MTC, but she's the one who ended up having to give her talk on Sunday :) So ya, that was great to see her, and she talked about how much she loves/respects you, mom and dad.
Also, according to an announcement over the intercom, there is an elder "Justin Beaver" in the MTC, and he was suppsed to report to the front desk. Especially over a raspy intercom, sounds strikingly similar to another Justin that I know of.
Gym time is really fun. One day, we played a great ab workout game of "Platano, superman!" Where you're laying down and make the shape of a banana, then flip over and make the shape of superman. We were all on the hill with our district leader yelling "PLATANO! SUPERMAN!" It was really funny.
There are a lot of hilarious moments here in the MTC. We laugh so much here, and it's normally during moments when we're not supposed to be laughing, specifically during prayers and/or hymns. You gotta do something I guess!
Anyways, I know this email is super duper jumbled with my thoughts, but just know that I love you all. I'm learning a lot about myself and how to become a better person, which will hopefully in turn help me to serve more people. While it's really hard at times, this is the experience that I asked for, and I'm really grateful for it. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers, I love you all so much!
Love, Hermana Fors
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