MTC #3: Week Three at the Good Ole MTC!!!

PICTURES FINALLY!!!!!

Me and my companion, Hermana Campbell

Our Door!

The hermanas in my district ( I love them all so much)

I apparently sleepwalk all the time...picture of me NOT in my bed! who knew?

at Stadium of Fire

Provo Temple Trip!

The Elders keep stealing my camera and taking pics of themselves haha

Elders also keep falling asleep in class haha

Bryan Thorpe is here! (Friend from Rec Volleyball team)

Sadie Grant- friend from High school!!

Family!

My four amazing roommates left us this week! It was so sad! But we are getting two new girls in their place today! They will be going to Spain. Ooh!

I'm doing well here! Spanish is tricky, but I can carry on somewhat of a conversation. And I still know so many people here. We taught a member TRC and I graduated with their nieces! Also my friend works here (Spencer Baker) and my other friend, Caleb Porter's fiance! Tell Hannah good luck! I am praying for her to pass her CNA test!! 

This week was filled with miracles!

We had our fourth lesson with our teacher investigator (named Azul) and we were planning on teaching the last half of the Plan of Salvation. We followed up on our commitment, which was to read Moroni 10 and pray about it, which she read, but didn't pray, and she asked us what it meant to 'Come unto Christ and be Perfected in Him'. We had the most amazing lesson about the Savior's atonement. We talked about what things we can do in order to show how grateful we are for the Atonement and the Spirit was so strong. We all had tears in our eyes. So the original lesson plan was not at all what we ended up teaching. And at the end of the lesson I felt prompted to change our commitment we had planned. So I aksed if we could all kneel down and if she could offer a prayer to receive a confirmation of the things we had talked about. After her prayer we invited her to be baptized (which I memorized earlier that day on a whim, and thank goodness I did!) and she accepted!! It was so cool!

But the day doesn't end there... We had our fourth lesson with our TRC investigator a couple hours later. Her name is Maribel and our first lesson with her was awful. She just didn't understand us and didn't care to understand either. It was really frustrating. But we have grown to love her! She is a stay at home mom of 3 kids. She's from Mexico and is a 'Catholic" who doesn't actually attend church or pray or read the Bible or anything. Well this lesson she told us a sad story about her husband's coworker who shot another man this week, and she was really stressed out for her husband and the family of the man. We had asked her to pray to God as our commitment and she told us she prayed many times this week and she could feel the Spirit in her heart, telling her it was all going to be okay. Perfecto, Maribel! Well, we were just pumped as could be about that and we talked about why she knew it was 'going to be okay'. And we talked about the Atonement. And we asked her to be baptized. And she accepted! 2 in one day!!! It was amazing! It was so cool to ditch our plans and just follow the Spirit! And although role play is not my favorite, it is really cool to still be able to feel and invite the Spirit and touch these amazing teacher/investigator's lives!

My comp has been pretty discouraged. It's hard because she really has a strong testimony and is really sweet, just isn't sure if she can make it. But I know she can! I love her so much! And this is definitely something we will conquer together! Our two baptism commitments this week really lifted her spirits, so that's good. I helped her memorize the invitation to baptism and had her ask our investigators. It was such a blessing that I happened to make her memorize it that morning and we weren't even planning on inviting them to be baptized!

I love the MTC! The Spirit is so strong here!

I love you all!!

Hermana Hallsted

From her companions letter:

My companion is great as ever! She is very patient with me and even though she picked up spanish much faster than i did she is always motivating me to do better, she's so sweet and we get along very well! We will definitely be life-long friends. I just hope I will continue to be this lucky for my other companions. We also hope that we will be put together as companions for the end of our missions in Panama.. That would be so fun!