Hello everyone!
So I need to apologize first, I still haven’t figured out how to upload pictures. We don’t get a lot of time on the computer so I give up pretty quickly. I’ll figure it out one of these days, though! Also, I don’t have a lot of time to email today, but I’ll try to fit as much as I can!
What is new this week? Well, Sister Cutia and I have been reading the Book of Mormon out loud together every morning. I’m still not very good, but I’m getting a lot better and quicker with my reading, and she doesn’t have to correct me as much, so that’s exciting! I’m also learning more vocab so I recognize more words as we read and can kind of figure out what’s going on in the verses.
Last week (Fast Sunday) we had a mission conference in place of Relief Society, where members of the MTC presidency talked us. We had our regular sacrament meeting later, and one of the districts in our zone sang some hymns as a farewell before they left on Monday. I only knew them for a week and a half, but I already loved them and I’m so excited for them to be in the field.
Our teaching is going well. We taught the Restoration to both of our investigators this week, and are preparing to teach them the Plan of Salvation in our upcoming lessons. I’m really excited. I know they technically aren’t real (our teachers play the role of the investigator) but I love them, and I know that the characters they are portraying are real. It’s such a cool experience! Also, we have our first TRC teaching tonight–say a prayer for me! 🙂
Gym is becoming one of my favorite times of the day. Not that I don’t love everything else (because I genuinely do!), but I just love gym because we get to go play sand volleyball. I’m not super great, but I’m pretty decent when the sun isn’t blinding me. Mostly it’s just fun though because our whole district and our twin district (the ones who came in at the same time as us) play together.
Tuesday was probably the Gold Star day of the week this week though. We got to sing in the choir for the devotional, which was awesome. We only had 45 minutes to practice the song, but it sounded so good! The director is awesome, and the missionaries all know how to work hard, so it’s great! We also found out that in two weeks (the 23rd I think?), we will be having a mission broadcast at the Marriott Center where the prophet and 12 apostles will come to speak, and they are rehearsing a choir for it, so as long as we get there early enough this Sunday for the first practice, we will get to sing for them! We’re all pretty pumped!
The devotional itself was incredible. Tad R. Callister spoke to us, and he talked about blueprints. He talked about building his house, and how they came up with the blueprints, and how no other house in the world will perfectly fit the blueprints for his house, even if they have some things in common. He then talked about Christ’s church, and how we can “draw” the blueprints of it using the bible. He used Christ words and all New Testament references to demonstrate the Church that Christ established, and he talked about how we have those same characteristics in our Church today. It was super cool. Even more powerful than that, though, was the discussion that our district had about it afterward. We talked about how blessed we are to have the truth and the fulness of the Gospel, and how incredible it is that we have been blessed with this knowledge and that we get to share it with the world. We also talked about how blessed we are to have the Book of Mormon to support and solidify the doctrines that we are taught in the New Testament, so we can know that we really are understanding Christ and His doctrines correctly.
The Quote of the Week is really just a message from our class last night: “Here, as a missionary, Tagalog is a Spiritual Gift (not an academic endeavor)” and “The Atonement is how we will learn Tagalog. It is the only way we can accomplish ANYTHING in this life.”
Sorry this email is kind of all over the place. I hope you are all doing well! I love you!!
Love always,
Sister Emma Franks
P.S. Mom or Corey: can you please send me 1) pictures of our family (prints, please, not via email) and 2) the “Fellowship of the Unashamed” quote (it’s on my atestimonyaday.tumblr.com blog, you can just copy it from that if you want). Thank you so much!!