Gone Tracting . . .

May 3, 2008

Hi Family and Friends!

Let me start off by saying thanks for the letters. I received a letter from Sister Melanie Hogge my first day here and Stella Arlene and Kristy I got your letters too. Thank you very much. My family... I got your letters too. It really means a lot to me knowing I have a family, a ward family and friends supporting me and cheering me on. I'm glad to hear everyone is doing so good without me there. Make sure and tell Elliott good luck for me and I want his address too so I can write him. Also, make sure you get Bubba Busath's email address and send my emails to him. I've been trying to write everyone back, but there is honestly no time whatsoever. I hardly have time to write in my journal. So, if you don't receive letters from me for awhile I apologize. I'm focused on the Lord right now.

Kristin,
I can't believe Ryan finally lost his teeth. That's crazy! Tell those boys I'm so proud of them for continuing with their good grades! I love you guys very much and I'm glad Ryan is loving gymnastics so much. I always figured he would be perfect for that : ) Tell Katie I love her THIS much!!! I'm glad things are going well for you. How's Lindsay doing? I'm sure she's loving you guys as much as I did!


On to my experience this last week. It's going to be long, so be prepared. Let me start from the beginning... Me and my companion, Sister Holtz have gotten along really well. Our personality's are so similar, but different enough that we don't get tired of eachother. We are the best of friends and are completely open with each other. The first of the week consisted of us working on teaching the first discussion, The Restoration. It's been hard for me and my companion some days to focus. Don't take this so much as complaining, but... well, take it however you want actually. I'm not sure how the Provo MTC does it and we probably don't have classes as long, but still. We have personal study in our district classroom from 7:30-8:30. 8:30-9:30 is companion study. Then usually 9:30-12:30 is Lesson time, teaching time, just working on being more prepared for the mission field and teaching people. After lunch it varies each day. We have a devotional once a day, if not twice. We have sports about 3 times a week, but lately we've had to play inside this small gym at the chapel next to us because it rains the night before and we can't play on the field, but... oh well. We usually have lesson time again for another 3-4 hours, sometimes the hours are split up though. It's been hard because your focusing on teaching the same thing for so long that it just gets tiring after awhile. We worked on the Restoration for 5 days, every lesson was about that. I absolutely loved it and learned a lot, but it's exhausting spiritually. There's been a couple days, including today, where our minds are just not functioning and we just can't concentrate on what we have to do. But I still love it at the same time.

Every Tuesday we have the opportunity to go to the Preston Temple. It's absolutely gorgeous and it is so huge!! Much bigger than the Sacramento Temple and what I'm used to. Me and my district also got to go Thursday night too because our teacher let us go instead of doing the Milestone, I'll explain that later. The temple is a 5 minute walk from the MTC. It's awesome because whenever we have a break we will go walk up to it. We'll get to go again this upcoming Tuesday and then our last day at the MTC. Our days are so much better when we attend the temple.

Let me explain what Milestone is. A milestone is where we teach our
MTC teachers, or the MTC president the discussions with our companion. There's actually only 31 elders and 10 sister missionaries, so 41 of us all together. Because of that some of the companions are videotaped while they're teaching their discussions so they can learn from the mistakes, while the rest of us just teach our teachers and they'll give us feedback. Anyways, the rest of the missionaries did their Milestones on Thursday night, but we did ours Friday morning before we began tracting. So, our next Milestone is on Wednesday and we are teaching the Plan of Salvation. Then the next one is on Friday and if I remember correctly it's teaching about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, let me tell you about my tracting experience... the real deal!!!!!
Okay, me and Sister Holtz weren't nervous at all to go out and do it. In fact we were ready to go out and tract this last Tuesday. We don't like the whole role playing (although it does help) and we would much rather be teaching real people. Anyways, so around 10:00 they reviewed with us about doing door approaches and teaching at the doorstep and what we should do if they want to hear more. Then half of us we're sent out. We drove half an hour away to a place called Wigan. We we're assigned streets and had two hours to go tracting. Now it's different because there was no Senior companion who was more experienced. We are all completely new at this. Anyways, me and Sister Holtz were dropped off and right away we approached two guys on the street. They weren't interested, but we did give them each a pass along card. After that we knocked on a few doors, but either they didn't answer or just weren't interested. Then we spoke to this lady who was interested but she was getting ready to go on a trip, so we got her number and address and the missionaries will hopefully be visiting her next week. The next door we met a lady that had the elders over before, had the Book of Mormon and read part of it. That's all we could really get out of her. She was waiting for an important call, but we got her information so the missionaries can contact her. Then after a few more doors of no one home, this young lady answered. Her name is Heather and she is 20 years old. We taught her the first discussion and her mom showed up and listened to it too. The girl was pretty receptive to what we had and the mom had actually had the elders over a long time ago. She doesn't want to belong to any particular religion, but likes to hear what we have to say. They were both very nice and we ended up talking with them for 45 minutes. We gave her the Book of Mormon, committed her to praying about whether Joseph Smith was a prophet and saw God the Father and his son Jesus Christ and if the Book of Mormon was true and to read the first two chapters. She said she would and we told her we would be sending the missionaries over. It was such a great experience and when Sister Holtz and I were done we wanted to stay out for another 3 hours. I can't wait to get out in the mission field and go tracting. I know it won't be all that easy, but I still loved being out in the world and talking to the people of England.

Anyways, that's all I've got time for now. I love this gospel so much and my testimony has increased so much of the restoration of the gospel. I love this work! I love you all, and I'll try and answer your questions later. Thanks for the emails, letters and loving support you have given me.