Give Him your heart!

Hola Familia!

I have been in the MTC for 2 weeks now and it has already been one of the best and one of the hardest two weeks in my life. Yesterday in particular...I think I felt every emotion in the world all in one day! Happiness, frustration, joy, anger, inadequacy, contentment, confidence, sadness, exhaustion...etc. Esta bien! I love how much I am growing. Thank you all for all of your love, support and prayers. I can testify to you that prayer is one of the most powerful tools we have been given on this Earth.

I forgot to tell you last semana, pero yo soy in a beginning Español clase, and am doing well. I am making progress every día. I talk like a gringo, y I´m proud of it! Mom, (and every one else) you said you wanted to learn Español! Well...our teacher taught us the trick to learn Español quickly:

1. Lift your right foot off of the floor.

2. Extend your arms out like a T.

3. Touch your left ear to your left shoulder.

4. Move your right foot forward and back.

5. Stick your tongue out and reapeatedly say arrepentimiento.

hahaha Kidding! There´s no trick. The only trick is persistant diligence.It's hard, but when we put in the effort the Lord will reward us. This applies to anything! Bad habits, school, etc.

Our branch president told us that if we want to be fluent in the language, then we need to read the whole Libro de Mormon en Espanol while on our mission. If we do, he promised that we will be fluent in the language by the time we go home! That made me so excited! I'm gonna do it, no questions asked. Right now I don't understand everything, but the power of the spirit is the best good teacher.

As missioneras, nuestro objectivo is to invitar a las personas a venir a Christo. In order to do that I have put a lot of studying in to learning about Christ so that I can become more like Him--so that I can be able to know how to invite others unto Christ. The journey has been incredible! Christo es muy amoroso...to the point that we can't even comprehend how much he and the Lord loves each and every one of his hijos! I love being at the MTC because each day when I leave my room to go get ready for the day, there's a picture of Christ right there. :)

Ah! Jeffrey R. Holland came and spoke to us in the devotional on Tuesday and it was absolutely INCREDIBLE! I wish I had time to repeat everything he said. He is such an incredible apostle. He is such a powerful speaker! He told us that if the LDS church were to have an icon, it would be two missionaries! He got very serious and told us to remember what our forefathers have given for the church, and to make sure that we don't damage that reputation. This is the generation that ancient prophets have talked about for many generations. It is now that we are spreading the gospel to every "nation, kindred, & tongue." I feel so privileged to serve!

He did a little Q&A towards the end of his talk, and one of the quesitons was, "What is the greatest gift you can give to the Savior?" He said without hesitation, "Give Him your heart!" I love that! I know that is the greatest gift we can give Him, because he gave everything for us! God gave his only begotten son, his only perfect son, for all of the imperfect ones! I know as we give our hearts to Christ, we will in return recieve the greatest gift. We will become closer to our Savior and we will gain eternal happiness.

Yesterday I decided to truly put this into practice. We had an appointment to teach an investigator for 30 minutes. THIRTY MINUTES! And I hardly speak squat! I was slightly terrified during my preparation but then I remembered that the Lord trusts me and knows that I can do this. He called me to serve! I gave Him my whole heart during my preparation, and I think for the first time...truly forgot myself. We were preparing to teach him about the love of Christo, and I kept getting the impression to ask him if he would be baptized. Uhh...what?! We only met him for about 3 minutes previously, and to ask him to be baptized? It seemed like crazy talk! We knew he was thirty, not married, not going to school, not working, and living in his parents house. Some life, huh! We were ready to kinda scold him and explain to him that he has a purpose in this life! Well we went in there and the spirit was so strong! I kept thinking, "what would Christ want to tell Serjio if he could talk to him for just thirty minutes." My heart is already beating again just thinking about it. As we talked to him we found out that our first impression of him was completely wrong. His parents had died, and he is really struggling to cope with that and to find a job. I honestly don't take credit for what I said because I honestly don't really remember what was said. I'm sure my grammar was horrendous, but I know the spirit is the real teacher...not my ability to speak the language. But I felt prompted again to ask him if he wanted to be baptized, and he didn't even studder, HE SAID YES!!! Ohhhh the absolute joy I felt was so incredible. I was so happy! We have a long ways to go to prepare him for baptism, but I really learned the importance of relying on the Lord to know what to say, because He knows us better than we will ever know ourselves.

Well my time is almost up, but know that Yo se que la iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias es verdadero! TE AMO!!

-Hermana Vawdrey