Squaw Peak ft. my name tag
Every day at the MTC just gets better and better; I just love being a missionary so much. This week we had this cool devotional by Chad Lewis, the famous football player(?? what is football). He talked all about his mission and how missions are all about forgetting yourself and serving the people you are surrounded by. Not just your potential investigators, but your companion, your mission president, your district leaders, etc. It was a very simple talk but it was so powerful, I might have cried a little bit. After that we watched Elder Bednar's talk called Character of Christ, and man that was a HUGE eye-opener. If you all can somehow get access to it, I strongly urge you to watch it. It felt like Elder Bednar was directly talking to me and was saying "Hannah these are all the things you are doing wrong and these are all the things you need to be doing as a missionary" it was SO inspiring. It was also basically about forgetting yourself, and turning outwards just like the Savior did when He was on the Earth. A mission is not about you, it's not about where you go, it's not even about the language you speak; a mission is about the people you are serving and teaching the gospel to.
The coolest painting of Moses parting the Red Sea that I've ever seen
Spanish has been going pretty good so far. I understand most of what my teachers are saying in class, I understand most of the scriptures and things we read in class and in our studies, and I say most of my prayers in Spanish now.I do still say a lot of things in French though (which is why this email is titled as such). So yesterday, we all walk into class, and our teacher is Claudia, our fake investigator! Her real name is Hermana Perez, and she actually based Claudia off of a real investigator she had on her mission in Argentina. So when we were teaching "Claudia", she had a lot of faith and believed everything we taught her, but her husband did not like church and she did not want to get baptized without her husband, even though all her children went to church and were already members. So, the REAL Claudia, this was the same problem for her, so Hermana Perez worked really hard to try and teach Claudia's husband too. He eventually stated to listen, and then they both got baptized, and now their whole family is sealed in the temple, and most of Claudia's kids have also been on missions! When Hermana Perez was telling us this story, I could just feel so much love that she had for Claudia and her family. Hermana Perez is so patient with us and is excellent at Spanish (she's actually from Chile so it's her first language!). This week in class we've been talking a lot about el don de languas (the gift of tongues) and I came up with the perfect analogy for it. We tend to think of the gift of tongues as being like that scene in Harry Potter: Chamber of Secrets, where Harry is talking to the snake and then is like "wait I spoke a different language?", but that's not what the gift of tongue is like at all. It's being able to bring the things you've learned and studied back to your remembrance (with the help of the Holy Ghost, of course). It's only if you study and try to learn though; it's also kind of like when you don't study for a test, pray to do well on the test, and then be upset when you didn't actually do well on the test.
This week our Spanish teacher who teaches us in the evening, Hermano Nash, had to leave because he's starting a very important internship and he can't do that and be our teacher at the same time. On his last day (which we didn't even know was his last day because he didn't say goodbye), he had to step out to take a call, and when he came back in, we all teased him about it being a girlfriend, which he just laughed off and said "haha no I wish". But then my dear, sweet companion, says "that's so sad! you deserve to be happy" and Hermano Nash got so embarrassed, he kept dropping his pens on the ground and stumbling over his words, we all felt so bad for him. So now that he's gone we keep joking that he was too embarrassed by us to be our teacher anymore, and that's why he REALLY left. Our new teacher, Hermana Jolley, is actually so good and nice, and she served her mission in Brazil so she knows Portuguese and Spanish (my new, 2-day long dream of being a French and Spanish teacher at the MTC is now more possible).
Provo Temple
highlights from this week:
- instead of journaling, Hermana Davis (the other one, not my companion) likes to write down miracles and funny things that people say, and apparently it's just full of all the funny things I have said in this past week
- I met a sister who is going to Seattle, Russian speaking, and my stl (sister trainer leader) said she knows someone who went to Iowa, Marshallese speaking? america is so cool you guys
- no districts left, but we got a new district and they are all so cute and tiny! did people really think about me like that a week ago
- at the gym me and Hermana Lazelle have been doing a lot of arm and ab workouts and our dream by the end of the mtc is to be so ripped that we can rip a log in half like Captain America did in Avengers 2
That's about it for this week! I love you all and I love being a missionary!
-Hermana Peterson
My family sent me cookies; they are literally the best ever
The language of heaven (Español) being pumped right into my ears
It was a GRAY-y day
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