Well, I've officially been here for a over a week. Everyone
was right, after Sunday everything really does get so much easier. Those few
days before sunday were definitely the hardest though. Sunday morning we had
Relief Society and before our lesson we got to hear the conversion story of one
of the sister missionaries. My favorite thing she said towards the end was, "I
finally feel close to the God I always knew was there" and I just got chills.
We're learning every single day how important it is that each person knows and
understands that we are all literal children of our Heavenly Father. He loves us
so much and wants us to seek out a personal relationship with him. Guess who our
teacher was for the rest of the lesson... SHERI DEW. That woman is incredible.
She talked about the importance of recognizing our divine nature as well as the
vital role of women in the Church. She's so great. And she's from Kansas! Even
cooler. Earlier our Zone Leaders had offered to give me a blessing of comfort if
I wanted one because they could tell I was having a hard time. I took them up on
their offer and I can tell a difference already. It's so nice having so many men
here who are willing to honor their priesthood and serve
us.
Sunday night we had a devotional on the Book of Mormon.
The spirit in the meeting was amazing. In reality, whether or not the Church is
true depends on whether or not the Book of Mormon is true. It's the evidence
that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that Christ came to the Americas and that God
loves us. If it's true, so is everything else. If not, none of it matters. I
receive every single day a clear and strong confirmation that the Book of Mormon
is the most correct book on the Earth
In one of our classes earlier this week Hermano Adams (our
favorite teacher) told us that we are not authorized to lower or raise the
Lord's expectations of us. He doesn't expect me to be a perfect missionary or to
speak Spanish perfectly right now, so all I can do is try my hardest, study,
pray, and rely on the Spirit to teach me the rest. That was so reassuring. After
class I pulled him aside and talked to him about my concerns and struggles with
Spanish. He promised me that everything will be okay. As I was already
emotional, I saw his eyes get teary and I know he cares about me and my success
as a missionary. He encouraged me to read Ether 12:27 and I spent the next hour
or two studying that one verse. I'm grateful for Brother Adams and his
dedication to his job. He tells us that he prays for every member of our
district (there's 7 us) individually by name every single night. I love having a
teacher here who can also be our friend and who gives us support and is
sensitive to our needs.
The other day we had a really great discussion about
repentance and the grace of God and how we get so many second chances. The
gospel is one of change. It's all about transformation. The scriptures tell us
that no unclean person can enter heaven. But in reality, no unchanged person
would want to. There isn't anything we're capable of doing that would make God
not want us anymore. In essence, the point of no return is when we
decide returning to Him isn't worth it anymore. In a talk Hermana Wilcox's dad
gave at BYU he said, "Grace is not a finishing touch, it's a finisher's touch."
We live worthy, righteous lives, not to pay any sort of debt (Christ already did
that for us), but so we will be prepared to live in Heaven and be comfortable
there. I have never thought about the Atonement and grace like that, but it
makes so much sense.
I've been pretty sick for the last week. It makes it super hard to concentrate sometimes
and between the three of us, we've been to the clinic 5 times. Apparently I have
a couple bad viruses in my respiratory and nervous systems.I've been taking
a lot of different medicine and praying
for health and I'm finally starting to feel better. I guess they won't let us
leave here if we're not healthy so I'm trying to get back to
normal.
Time is flying here! Even though sometimes the days seem to
last forever since we go from 6:30am to 10:30pm, but now that I've been here
for over a week I can't believe it. And I didn't realize this, but since I'm in
the advanced class, if I do go to Spain on the 2nd, I won't go to the Spain MTC,
but straight to the field. Scary! Church is different here. We have Music &
the Spoken Word, Relief Society, lunch, Sacrament Meeting, personal study,
Sunday Devotional, time to watch other talks and devotionals, devotional review
with our district, and then we go to bed. We have 45ish minutes for gym time
every day and we can kind of do what ever we want. We've only gone to the field
once, but we just played ladder golf. My
schedule changes almost every day. But most days I have two 3 hour classes, lots
of personal/companion study, zone teaching (where we're supposed to go help the
beginner and intermediate classes, but I just do language stuff) and then meals
stuff. The food is good somedays, but most of the time it gives me an upset
stomach so lately I've been eating toast or salad.
I miss you all. I'm doing okay and every day gets so much
better :)
Love,
Hermana Munden
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