Week Four at the MTC

Hello All,

I cannot believe that I have made it to week four!! I have almost been at the MTC for a whole month, which is crazy because sometimes I feel like I cannot even remember life outside of the mission. Everyday is super busy and you learn so much in one day that it feels like it must have for sure been three days.

A perfect example is this morning. I got up a 6:30 a.m., my normal time, got dressed and went to our classroom. Our classroom is where we spend much of our time at the MTC. This morning, we had personal study for an hour. I worked on a lesson plan for one of our investigators that my companion and I are teaching tonight. We are going to teach about the plan of salvation, which is Heavenly Father's plan for how we can return to live with him.

The short version is that we lived with Heavenly Father before this life as spirit children, Heavenly Father wanted us to become like him and to do that we needed to grow up which meant that we needed to gain a body like God and to have experiences that will help us to mature and to learn. Then we have Adam and Eve who were the first children to be placed on earth. When they were in the Garden they lived in a state of innocence not knowing good from evil and they could not have children. So in order to know good from evil they partook of the forbidden fruit which allows us to choose for ourselves to follow God or to not. Nothing is forced upon us, everything is of our own free will, which is liberating.

2 Nephi 2:26 states regarding the fall; "And because they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to ACT for themselves and not to be acted upon." I think that is such a liberating idea. Then Christ comes to redeem us through His atonement and help us to return to our Heavenly Father. We then die a physical death and are taught the principles of the gospel in either spirit prison of in spirit paradise. Which is not like a prison or a paradise here but is like a school for learning the gospel. We are then resurrected with our body and will be judge by God. From there we will go to one of 3 degrees of glory.

This should all be a very fun lesson to teach in Spanish but I am learning how to simplify things and get my investigators answers for lots of question and reading which decreases the amount of what I have to say in Spanish. Well, let’s face it, this is really about them anyways. The more they talk and read the more they learn.

Anyways getting back to my point of the days being super long I spent an hour studying the plan of Salvation and then my companion and I left for the temple. As we were crossing the street to walk up to the temple I have this weird feeling that it was already twelve o'clock, when it was only 8:00 a.m. Crazy!!

Yesterday my companion and I taught our district meeting which is sort of like Sunday school. We taught about dispensation and apostasies. It went really well. We had each companionship in my district take a portion and wrote questions on the board about the point and then each group was able to share and it went really well. I think everyone in the district learned something new and was strengthened.

We are sad to be losing the only other sisters in our zone which is made up of five districts but happy to know that we are getting some more sisters on Wednesday. Well I hope everyone is doing so well. I miss you all, love you and am praying for you each day.

Thanks so much for the letters and mints that were sent this week. Getting mail at the MTC is always a joyous occasion.

Love ya,

Hermana Zani