I hope this week has been super exciting! It's cool I get to write you on Halloween. I'm glad Halloween is on our p-day so we can be two different things. One, a normal person. WOE, WEIRD, and two a MISSIONARY!! I bet none of you guessed that huh?
Well a lot has happened this week HOLY COW! We got to hear from a ton of cool speakers and learned so much from them. In Sister Loraine Swenson's talk we all read scriptures together and were able to make comments. Usually in Relief Society here we just get spoken to, but it was kind of nice to have a little bit of a variety. So she is from the Relief Society General Board and my favorite scripture she shared with us was D&C 25:7-16. A lot stood out to me in those scriptures. I learned we are ordained under His hand, we need to expound upon the scriptures. Do not have fear, have courage, ALL things shall be revealed unto them according to their faith. And of course Baylie's favorite kasulatan (scripture) D&C 25:12! My soul delighteth in the song of the heart. Be aware of Pride and in Heaven we will be able to receive a crown of righteousness. I love that part!! We also heard from Rogger Connors who used to be a Branch President here at the MTC. He was a convert and decided to make everything right before baptismal date. It's cool he was so dedicated. His parents said they wouldn't let him in their house if he got baptized, but he still chose to do so because he knew it was true. He told us that the word for fun isn't found in the scriptures because fun only lasts for a short time and then it is over. Joy lasts forever and it is found in the scriptures a ton. He told us we can count on Christ to always be there for us and we should put our trust in Him. His advice was to be converted to him, love the people we teach and be a representative of Jesus Christ.
Later Sunday night we watched a video of when Elder Jeffrey R. Holland came to the MTC on Thanksgiving day in 2012! He stated that we will never do anything more important than this. We are going to be engaged in saving a human soul-the most important thing in the universe. Wow, I love him so much!!! ;)
Tuesday we got to sing in the MTC choir again and loved it! We sang "Be Still my Soul" which is such a great song with wonderful harmony. Carlos A Godoy of the 70 spoke to us and WOW, i'll tell you what WOW! He told us his conversion story and it was so powerful. He would get really spiritual and start crying and then be funny and crazy and shake the microphone. He was a wonderful speaker from Brazil.
Also Sister Rimai had a hard week this week. OH MY GOODNESS. She is such a strong Sister. I can't even imagine. Well here it goes. . . . both of her parents passed away last Thursday. :( What?! HOLY SMOKES. She didn't even tell us until Friday night. Friday during one of our classes we were talking about the Plan of Salvation and how we don't need to explain every little detail, but just explain the parts that pertain to investigators and that they will learn from. She started crying because she said she felt really close to her parents right then. We hoped she was fine, but didn't really tell us anything else. So we had a great day and then were all getting ready for gym and I came back from the bathroom and a few of the Sisters in my room were just outside the door. One was talking to Sister Rimai I guess and then we found out what had happened. None of us could believe this. How was she able to act so normal and be totally fine. She is my hero. We all talked for a while about things and she seemed to be doing okay, but was crying quite a bit. I mean two parents really? I just didn't want her to think that it was her fault or anything like that. I hope she's okay. So the two sisters in our room that are training leaders went to go tell our Branch President and the Zone leaders and our District leader what had happened. We were going to see if we could get Sister Rimai a blessing tonight. So they ran all over the place while the rest of us were still talking. It was perfect because Sister Tune is really good at English so she was able to translate for us how Sister Rimai really was feeling. Because Sister Rimai doesn't know as much English as Sister Tune. So that night we got to go back to the classroom and watch one of our Zone leaders Elder Reupena give her a blessing. OH MY, THAT WAS SUCH A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE!!! The Spirit there was sooooooooooooo STRONG. and the power of the priesthood is so real and so incredible. We started out the "meeting" with the song "Families can be together Forever" AHHHH, who choose that song, that is probably one of the worst songs you could possibly sing at a time like this. I mean, it was perfect, because it tied in so well, but really? Everyone was balling, including me. I think I maybe sang the first line, and seriously could not sing anything else. The song kind of worked out, but everyone was sniffling and their eyes were puffy and pouring out tears. If someone were listening in they probably couldn't here even what the song was. MAN! So then he gave Sister Rimai the blessing. It was one of the most powerful blessings I have ever heard. It talked about how she will be able to withstand this storm and that she is so brave and that her Heavenly Father is watching out for her right now. I can't even believe it. I would be so lost right now if I were her. She doesn't even want to go back to the funeral, she wants to stay here, finish strong, and go on a mission. What a trooper. I admire her so much for her positive attitude and her incredibly strong testimony. After the blessing we hugged her and told her how much we loved her. This is a moment hugs were needed. It was so frustrating to not be able to hug our elders after a time like that. We have become so unified, it's amazing. After we the blessing we all caught our breath and cooled down from all the tears, we went to go get ready for additional study tonight. Instead of studying we were going to have FHE as a district. So we all got together and sang "Ako anak sa Dios" ("I am a Child of God") sa Cebuano and then had a little lesson by our district leaders and then pretty much just sang the whole time. I loved it. We sang so many good ones and were able to harmonize and ah, it was so wonderful. People were sharing testimonies and scriptures that had to do with certain songs we sung and the Spirit was just amazing this whole night. After family night we went back to our resident hall and had snacks and wrote in our journals. We just had a girls night. We went to bed around 12:30, because we talked and ate and wrote for a while. I hope Heavenly Father understands tonight and is okay with us not going to bed at our usual time. I just can't believe what has happened and hope that Sister Rimai is okay the next few weeks and even out in the field.
Insane right? Well I just wanted to bare my testimony and say I am so grateful for sa opportunidad pagerbisyo kanimo (the opportuinty to serve thee). Being here has strengthened my testimony so much and I am so grateful for that. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and that he really did die for me and every single person here, individually. That is crazy. He sacrificed so much. And same with Joseph Smith. I can't believe all that Joseph Smith had to deal with from friends and everyone else. He always stood for what was right! I am grateful for both of their examples and for this gospel. I am so so so grateful for the knowledge of forever families and can't wait to always have them with us in Heaven. I say these things sa ngalan ni JesuKristo, Amen.
I love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful week. Thanks for all the support and love I have been getting. It makes me feel so great!
Love Sister Riggs (Laurel)
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