MTC Week 3

HELLO!!!! Wow, SOOO much has happened this last week. I can hardly believe that by tomorrow I will have been here for 3 weeks. I am a third of the way through! (If my Visa works out!) First of all, thanks SO much for those of you who have dearelder.com-ed me and sent me letters. Biffy, Benji, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Scott Carlson, Nate Hendersen, Aunt Holly, Abby, Jack, Amy Brown, etc. MUCHAS GRACIAS! I absolutely LOVE getting mail! (Mom, PLEASE dearelder.com your emails to me! I have NO time to read emails, but if you dearelder.com I have time to read aobu it, write an outline for what I want to say for the next P-day, and then be able to write you back. Thanks, love ya!) Ok, so Richard C. Edgely from the Presiding Bishopric came last Tuesdayl. He is a darling, powerful man. Oh, and we had something crazy happen in our district. I have never really understood how the philosophies and ideas of men "mingle" or combine with scripture to make false ideas until this last week. My district leader, bless his heart, is a convert. He has always been really interested in balance, Karma, Hinduism, Buddhism, finding the center, etc. So he has been teaching us how to use our "energy" instead of the Spirit or something. All of us just take it with a grain of salt, but someone talked to the Bishopric about a certain time when he talked about some things that made everyone a little uncomfortable. The Bishopric pulled the Sisters aside and asked if any of us had been offended. We all said no. They urged us to be bold and not to worry about the "status" of the DL's or ZL's or AP's, but to go with the Spirit to know if what someone is teaching is correct doctrine. I had not even thought about correcting him and I felt kinda guilty I hadn't. But now I will never allow that to happen again. He's still our zone leader and we all love him, but he just had to be corrected on what he could do. Pues, Hermana Crosby and I have been working on the 2 lesson this week. It's a toughy- it's the plan of salvation. Ben or anyone- do you have advice on how to effectively teach this lesson? I LOVE it, but it's hard to give a 20 years of learning it lesson to a convert in 30 minutes! :) In class the other day, my maestra Hermana Jesperson (who served in Argentina) drew up "La Gloria de Dios" (the glory of God) in a Sun on the board. She said stay fixed on that and don't let your eyes wander. She then started to write up words all around the sun, but I was determined to keep my eye fixed on the Sun. After a while it got really hard to keep focused, but I can gratefully say I obeyed and never looked at what she was writing. After she said we could look I say that she wrote, "Distractions, Boyfriends/Girlfriends, Music, etc." All around the Sun with La Gloria de Dios in it. The object lesson was to show us how to keep our eyes single to the glory of God on the mission. It was a great lesson for me! I was grateful I never lost sight, but after a while my eyes started to hurt and I forgot about God and his Glory. Then I told myself, "No, think of my Father and His Son!" And I was able to do so! It's not just that distractions are there, but also that we get into the motions of doing everything and forget the purpose/why we're doing it. I told myself I never wanted to forget my purpose as a missionary and I wanted to stay 100% focused on bringing salvation to people of Argentina. I had a great experience with my testimony. Saturday an Elder bore his testimony in a class I was in. I said thank you to him and he said, "Tomorrow is fast sunday, will you bear yours?" I told him I would. I thought about it the rest of the day and into the next morning. I woke up with such a fire in my heart, I KNEW I had to do it! And when it got to testimony meeting my heart was pounding and pounding and I knew I had to do it- and I must obey. So, I got up there and my voice and hands were shaking. I said I felt in mi corazon (my heart) that I had to bear my testimony in Spanish. I tried my best, but my Spanish was bleah and I spoke a little English. BUt I focused on what the Holy Ghost wanted me to say. Afterwards, I had so many Elders and Sisters come up to me, individually, and thank for me for the Spirit that I brought. "Hermana Tingey, you have such a strong Spirit and I felt the Holy Ghost so strongly as you spoke!" I heard that over and over. Wow, I probably have the WORST Spanish in my branch because we have all intermediate and advanced Spanish missionaries there. But I am so grateful that the Lord showed me on Sunday that, "Hermana Tingey, you can teach with the Spirit and that's enough for now." I know the Spanish will come! I know if I have enough faith and if I trust in my Heavenly Father an Savior and do ALL I can, I will be blessed because I am not wanting to learn Spanish for myself anymore. I want to learn it for my future investigators. I have been thinking and studying in the scriptures the topics of: Faith, Goals, Miracles, etc. It's truly incredible- really, miracles happen everyday! And even small ones; little tender mercies of the Lord are miracles to me. Thanks for all of your prayers. I am praying for all of you too, everyday! Benji, I am SO excited you get to see Jackie in tres semanas! And Biffy- you're incredible! You already are such a great missionary! Abby and Jack- I miss you two SOOO much! Keep it up! Mom and Dad- I pray for you and your decisions everyday. I KNOW we have the fullness of the gospel in these Latter-days. I LOVE the Plan of Salvation. And I hope I can stand at the last day like Enos in Enos 1:27 and have God say, "Come unto me, ye blessed..." LOVE ALL OF YOU!!!!!! Hermana Tingey