July 17, 2012

Hi Mom,

Ok, so today is crazy. Visitor center is closed we can't email there. We are in the Berkeley Library right now and so many people wanting the computer so I might not get enough time. We have to reserve time, so I'll email you whenever I can.

The biggest thing of this week is companion exchange we had on Saturday. I got to go to a city called Hayward with our visitor center training, Sister Duran. She is a Spanish speaking sister so all her lessons were in Spanish, which is quite interesting. I understood about 5% of the lesson, enough to know what is going on.

The purpose of companion exchange is to learn from other sisters. She is really good, especially since she is our trainer and has been here for a long time. We talked about how to teach lessons from Preach My Gospel, to read the lessons over and over so we can have it in our memory, but not to recite from memory.

She used lots of good examples to teach, like making fist for us and someone's fist for God, have the fist follow the other fist with the other person's eyes closed. it's hard to follow, so we need prophet, which is a pencil that connects us and God. So we can follow God. Anyway, it's really cool.

We had a cool time at the visitor center that day too. We had a person come in who had met the missionaries but weren't able to meet them and they stopped coming. He really wanted to read a Book of Mormon and we gave him a copy. He read 3Nephi 11 and came back five minutes later and told us that he believes all of it. He said this is God's word and this is no longer faith, he already knows. So wonderful!! Some people are just really prepared. So cool.
Our investigators are doing ok. We are still trying to keep in contact. Thank you for your advice, Mom. I had come to the same conclusion. Really, now, I'm trying to make everyone feel like they are a friend while we are trying to teach them lessons. Hopefully they'll respond better.

I had a crazy thing happen to me on Wed though. We were in zone training and that means we do role plays to practice our teaching. We were teaching the commandment to keep the sabbath day holy. I had never taught it before and thought I was gonna fail. It was especially scary since I was assigned to work with our AP (assistant to the mission president). Cool thing happened though. I didn't know a lot, but I just started talking and words started coming. All of us were so surprised that the practice went quite well. I asked the right questions and said the right things, simple and to the point. It was great. I don't know what happened but it definitely wasn't me. I think the fact that I didn't know anything made me rely on the spirit more. So cool. :)

I am putting Chen Meng's name to the Temple every time I go. I am so glad for her process! Please say Hi to her and continue to encourage her. We do hope she has better life.

Please say Hi to our family and friends at church!
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