First email!

I have been sending a dearelder email to Savannah everyday, and will continue while she is in the MTC. It is kinda crazy how much I have to say. hahaha I was so excited when I received my first email from her.

Here is her email!

MOTHER!

I love you so so much and miss you oodles! BUUUUTTTT, the MTC is absolutely incredible. I wish I hadn't been so worried because I had no reason to be. I wrote you a letter my first night because they told us we could, but you'll probably get this first and get the letter tomorrow, so i'll try not to repeat myself from what was in my letter too much. The food here isn't as bad as i expected. It's more of a "quantity, not quality" type thing haha. It's buffet style, and occasionally there's really good stuff, but as you know, i'm not picky, so whatever. It's alright :) But the first night we had steak, which i was so excited for! Oh and we had that green pistachio marshmallow salad thingy that I love which was AWESOME! It tasted just like yours, delicious!!!! :) Okay so i already said this in my letter I think, but my district is AWESOME. Seriously. It is amazing the amount of love i feel for these people that I just met Wednesday afternoon.... Less than 3 days and i am so attached to them. We are the BEST of friends......i am going to hardcore cry when i leave the MTC, we are so close and we get closer every second. We do EVERYTHING together. Not even just my roommates, the elders in our district are always hanging with us too. My district will be so hard to leave. We already have our reunion planned and it will involve alot of hugging since we can't do that now haha. I have been so blessed to find these friendships with people who are on the same page as me, wanting to serve the Lord and invite others to join us in coming unto Christ. It is incredible how strong I can feel the spirit here. My district's teachers are also incredible. They are hilarious, but SO spiritually smart. I have learned an unbelievable amount here already.

WE TAUGHT OUR FIRST LESSON TODAY. My investigator's name is Sarah Mae and she is from Tennessee and has an awesome accent. She has had so many struggles and trials in her life and really needs a friend. Heavenly Father is the best friend anyone can have, and we told her that. We taught about how prayer is what has gotten me through my struggles in life, and though i haven't had struggles quite as hard as hers, I know what it feels like to be alone. I told her that I may not ever understand what she's gone through or how she feels, but that Christ does. He has felt ALL of her pain and suffering, and knows exactly what she is feeling. We didn't have enough time to go far into the Atonement, but that's what we want to talk about in our next lesson. It's so exciting seeing how the gospel can truly change lives. I am SO excited to become a better missionary and serve the Lord. 

There is a metaphor that my teacher Brother Hansen used. He said the gospel is like water. Everyone needs it. If there was a town or group of people dying in thirst, and you gave them a teacup full of water, it wouldn't help much. We need to bring the giant bowls or pots of water. The teacup/pots/bowls represent our testimony. We need to deepen our testimonies or we will not get anything done. No one will learn from us if we do not first learn everything we are teaching. 

Jeffrey R. Holland gave a talk called "Your First Convert", and he talks about how YOU are your first convert. "YOU must be your first convert regarding this great message of the restored gospel." Every single thing in the conversion process must happen to you before it can happen to ANY of your investigators, which I think is SO important. I had never really thought about it before. 

After watching that talk, my other incredible teacher, Brother Dopp, said "Our purpose is to come unto Christ, and invite others to come with us." I think that is an incredible way to look at it. My distrcit and I set a goal to have "our purpose" memorized byThursday night (everyone else's goal was sunday) and we had it by thursday morning :)

"Our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ, by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, Repentance, Baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end." But i just really like what Brother Dopp said, that we need to come unto Christ as well.

Okay i only have 2 minutes left but i will write you another letter soon! I have gotten all your dearelder letters and appreciate it so much. Lots of other people have sent some as well, i've gotten the most mail in my district :) Ugh i wish you could meet these incredible people. Maybe we'll have a Disneyland reunion sometime and you can meet them there. I'm pretty sure we were all best friends in the pre-existence. It's amazing. This is just so great. Okay, i love you and tell everyone else I love them too!

-Sister Love