Week 4: Another week in the life

Hola!!!!

First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MISSY!!!! Did you get the card I sent you? I hope so. I hope your birthday was awesome!!! I can't believe you're 15!!!

So this was another great week in the MTC.

Lately my companion and I have been struggling when it comes to planning and teaching a lesson together. We had our weekly "companionship inventory" which is when we discuss our companionship unity, set goals, discuss challenges and resolve any conflicts. We talked a lot about how we both don't quite understand why it's so hard for us to prepare a lesson in unity. We both have great thoughts that we want to share and often can't see where the other person is coming from with what they've prepared. We've been frustrated because we both want to listen to the Spirit and make it the Lord's lesson, since He knows the needs of our investigator better than we do, but we have a hard time explaining ourselves to the other and feeling like we are on the same page. This has been having a massive effect on me my whole MTC stay. It makes it hard to feel the Spirit and discourages unity and makes our teaching sometimes unsuccessful. This leads me to lose motivation and the Spirit and I can't really be successful in any other aspect. So during inventory, we finally expressed how we've both felt and resolved to try harder to understand where we're both coming from, without feeling defensive about our part. It seemed like everything was out on the table and resolved and a huge weight had been lifted. I felt more motivated in every other aspect of my day. This morning was our first attempt at planning a lesson again with this new advice and yet it still felt the same, confusing for both of us and we feel like the other is flat out wrong. I'm so confused. I don't want to feel this way and I've been thinking so hard and so long about what I'm doing wrong and what I can do to fix the situation, but I feel like it always just comes down to her thoughts aren't relevant to the investigator's need.....but when I try to explain this she feels defensive.....I'm so confused! HElp! I've been praying about it and agonizing over it my entire MTC stay. Anyone have any advice? I don't understand why I just can't seem to identify the problem here to fix it going forward. I would LOVE advice, I just want answers to solve this problem.

Anywayyyy, I learned some really awesome things this week. One of the teachers on our floor, Brother Pepper, was talking to me about what I was studying and we got talking about faith. I asked him what it meant to have faith in Christ and he said he's come to learn that faith is not a feeling, it's an ACTION. He says having faith means that you are doing everything Heavenly Father asks you to do, such as the little things like reading scriptures, attending church, praying daily, and living how he would have you live. I loved this perspective. I realized that often I think "Okay, I need faith, now FEEL...........(grunt)....come on, feel faith......(grunt)........what's wrong with me? I don't feel this way and I can't force myself to feel this way, why not?" I focused so much on just making myself trying to FEEL faith, thinking that was enough. If I couldn't feel the way I thought I should, I thought there was something obviously wrong with me. But in realizing that faith is action, I can take that love that I have for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and through my daily actions show my faith. The guy who sits on his couch all day and says he has much faith in Christ is a hypocrite; he's saying one thing and doing another. But the guy who attends church, prays daily, reads his scriptures every day and conducts weekly family home evening even when he is struggling to feel the Spirit and have a full understanding of why he is doing the things he does truly has faith. Sometimes we think that we have to completely understand WHY we have to do certain things before we will do them, not willing to keep any commandment that we don't see the reasoning behind. This has often been my problem. But that isn't faith; faith is doing these things anyway, and trusting that the Lord knows all and has wise purposes in these things.

Last night we had a great fireside by the Hacking couple. The scripture D&C 38:25 was brought up, how we should all esteem our fellow men as ourselves. Last summer, I truly gained a testimony of charity as I started to practice it. I realized that when I stopped worrying about my own insecurities and what I wanted and focused on how I could make other people happy, I was happier than I'd ever been. I finally understood what the pure love of Christ was, and how it felt to have charity. But since then I've again become selfish and lost that love. I've struggled so much over the past year to get back to that point, to again be on that high that comes from living how Christ lived. I've spent hours and hours reviewing in my mind the exact formula I used to follow when I lived that kind of life, and what exactly I needed to do to get that feeling back. It finally hit me last night when I read this scripture. I remembered that when I care for those around me as much as I care about myself, I am filled with charity and thus the Spirit and I can do anything. I am the happiest person alive and everyday annoyances and challenges are absolutely nothing, and the happiness alone is enough motivation to help me make it through anything. Charity is the key!

So I've met two Elder Wadsworths here and one Sister Wadsworth, who is actually great friends from high school of Hermana Moffat, one of my roommates and sisters in my district. We found out we are related, that we are both decended from the Wadsworths that settled Wadsworth, Ohio. She says this month of this year marks the 100 year anniversarry of the Wadsworths coming to America from Denmark! I think more and more about how much it talks about my great involvement I will have with my family history in my patriarichal blessing and the closeness and watchfulness of my ancestors and doing their temple work for them. I'm stayin in touch with this girl and I can't wait to hit the ground running with family history when I get home!!!! Every time I meet people like this the Spirit tells me that these are the moments I've been waiting for, that will begin this journey of my involvement in the history. IT's SO AWESOME.

Sister Christensen from Salem Oregon has been sending me temple names every week for our whole district and others to do endowments for. It's part of a service project she is doing. She must have gotten my address from Rick and Allison. It's so fun to be involved in!

Kay well I'm out of time but I love you ALL and once again your constant letters are such a support and boost to me.

God be with you!!!!!

I'll try to send pictures in the mail this week :)

Love,

Kelsarootus