Salamat sa post-its. Haha. (I haven't gotten them yet, obviously, but I know you've sent them. :] )
Hi family!
We had an AMAZING week this week. We didn't teach a lot of lessons because we went to a Leadership Training Meeting on the other side of Leyte in Sugod and stayed in a hotel. (Air Con! All the sisters were in a hotel room, but all of the Elders were crammed into the missionaries apartment in Sugod. haha.) Its about a 3-4 hour drive from Palompon. In this meeting (for 3 days!) we listened to training from our Mission President and the APs. They were all very simple principles from Preach My Gospel (one of the books missionaries study) but they actually showed us how to APPLY it in the lesson! WOW. It really sets up the lesson and everyone to feel the Spirit. And that is the MOST important thing in a lesson. Nothing else really matters as long as they can feel the Spirit. All of these trainings that we're getting now is going to be the new curriculum for the MTC. But they have not yet implemented it in the MTC. It includes How to Begin Teaching, Committing the Baptism on the first lesson, commiting to read the Book of Mormon, go to church, and LoC and WoW and Tithing, practicing relying on the Spirit to tell you what to say. We also role-played ALOT. Role-play is the new training and practice. We're able to practice it and I can tell you that even in practice, the Spirit is still there. :) All of this was just sitting in front of us the whole time, but because of the direction of the Apostles we can REALLY use it! Ahh I'm so excited!~
Sister Farnworth and I talked alot as we were going home from the LTM. (We had a lot of time of course, because of the van ride.) We were both so amazed at how strong we were able to feel the spirit for the past couple of days. We were also happy that we were able to see the other missionaries and feel of their efforts and of their spirit as well. Seeing them and their teaching helped us in seeing what we could do for our investigators.
We tried implementing the training as we had our first lessons on Sunday. We are better able to understand our investigators. For example: We've been teaching an investigator named Marites and lots of her kids and neighbors for at least 3 months. When we were able to really talk to her and focus on her as a person, we understood that she actually understood very little of our lessons from before! She didn't even really know who Joseph Smith was. I think she just thought that we were only there to teach her kids, even though she usually joined in on the lessons. But as we taught her what prophets are and their importance, we committed her to pray about Joseph Smith and have her son read to her. When we committed her to baptism, she said she would have to talk to her husband first. But I feel that we REALLY made headway with her. And I know that that was able to happen BECAUSE we had the Spirit.
I feel that this LTM was a very giant spiritual highlight in the whole of my mission. My only regret is that this didn't happen while I was in the MTC. I feel like there was a lot missing from beforehand. But now, I'm so glad that we were able to go!!
We have a concern with our Branch Missionaries. They are all eager to work... when there is a giant group of people. If there are 8 of them + the missionaries, they LOVE to work... all in one lesson. I don't really understand it because they just sit there for the entire lesson because there's so many of them, but they love to do it. We explained to them a couple weeks ago how if we split up and they teach their own lessons, we can have more investigators/baptisms. The only reason I can think of this concern is because they aren't comfortable teaching yet. So the only thing I can think of is to figure out how to train them with the training that we got. But what's really funny is yesterday I gave them a training/lesson about how important the Spirit is. We figured out that the Spirit is the ONLY way to conversion. And because of that we talked about what would NOT help the Spirit during lessons. I gave an example by pretending to be a missionary that texted, read, slept or took pictures during lessons. They all kind of got a kick out of it. But I know that they understood because when they all came to a lesson with us that evening, they ALL made sure to not sleep/text/play with their phones during the lesson. haha. Sis Farnworth said its weird that we worry so much about our fellowshippers. Heh heh.
I know that the gospel's been restored through Joseph Smith. The Spirit confirms it to me. I feel I have been SO strength-ed this past week. I know that temples are the house of the Lord. And because of that testimony, I can be sure that the Book of Mormon is scripture and Thomas S Monson is our living prophet now. I am so grateful to be here.
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~the end~
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~the end~
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