Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Hello Family!!! (and friends)
Guess what? We don't have to wear nylons after all! WHAT A BLESSING! I swear that rule was put in place just for me!! I am so excited about that!!! I will try to e-mail every wednesday while I am at the MTC but we only get 30 minutes, so that's not very much time... I will try to send letters as much as I can. So far letters are easier.
I have never been so happy in my whole life!! It has been really hard, and I have learned so SO SO much!!! But every hard moment is such a great learning experience! It's all so great!! I have come so close to God and Jesus Christ and the Atonement is starting to make so much sense!!!
I had a really awesome experience last night! Every Tuesday, the MTC has a devotional! Last night Elder Holland came!!! He is such an amazing man! The spirit was SO STRONG! I learned so much, but I just wanted to share a few things with you that I loved!!!
First, we sang "Army of Helaman!!!:" Let me tell you what!!! when you sing the words, "we are NOW the army of Helaman!!" the spirit is so strong! It's so true!! I am in the Army of Helaman!! Elder Holland said that this is a war for souls. He said that we aren't shooting bullets, we are taking in bandages. We are the spiritual Red Cross! We aren't taking lives, we are saving them!
Also something that I loved was that he said was that we need to work hard!!! I will never get a chance like this again and I need to take advantage of every moment!
I have a motto for my mission and I would love to challenge you all to strive to live this way too...
EVERY HOUR! EVERY DAY! EVERY SECOND! ALL THE WAY!
which means every hour, day, second, that we think of him and we work hard and fight for him. We stand up for what is right! We give all we've got for as long as we can give it!
That is what I am doing here on my mission. I am giving Him everything! And I am being blessed beyond measure!! I have felt so close to him! I love him with all of my soul!! And because of this, I will never be the same! I am so grateful that God is giving me this chance to grow so close to him! I love him for letting me have the deepest desire of my heart! All the hard work. All the tears, all the time waiting and repenting. It was all worth it!!
And now I know more than ever, that the timing of everything was right too. It was meant to happen.
My companion Sis. LauLea has been struggling with understanding the scriptures and she doesn't have a very strong testimony or knowledge yet. But she is working so hard!! I know that God has placed me in her life right now to help her grow. And all the hard work that I have put into this before I ever even got here is paying off. We had a hard time working in unison at first because I would get frustrated sometimes that she didn't know as much as some of the other people here, but I realized that God is giving me the best teaching experience! I am going to be teaching investigators the same things that I am helping Sister LauLea with now. I am so grateful that he can see the big picture. As long as I trust and walk by faith, I will be blessed. I love you all so much!! even down to who my roommates are, the timing was so meant to be! One of my roommates is actually from Saratoga!! She was in the ward last summer and we decided then that we were meant to be friends!! But now I know that we really were meant to be friends! She might be my heaven twin!!! I love her lots. And her comp, Sister Taylor, is awesome too! I love the Elders in my District! The each help me so much! And They all have such strong testimonies! My teachers, Brother Davis and Brother Snyder are really awesome too! And it doesn't hurt that they are both attractve.. HAHA! Don't worry, mom! I have learned that I can appreciate God's fine work without acting on it.:] I mean really~! I just respect them so much! They are such amazing men! They have restored my confidence in men! I have doubted that there are many good ones left. I just realized that all the good ones are on missions!! And lucky me to be surrounded by them!!!
I know that God loves you too and he wants you to be happy and succeed! I know that he is blessing you because he is blessing me too!
Write me!! I love hearing from you and I need the encouragment everyday. It gets really hard some days.
Love always and forever!!!
Sister Christiansen!
Oh and the food is pretty good to! I feel like I have gained 10lbs already! I guess I better go run an extra mile today in gym!!
