MTC | Week 3

So this week in the MTC was pretty much the same as all of the other weeks. Class, teaching, class, eat, and sleep. The amount of information we are learning here is unreal. I learned a few really amazing things this week I wanted to share with everyone.

The first really only applies to future missionaries who will be learning a new language. We have 6 or 8 hours of straight language study every day, but the style of learning is totally different than any school in the entire world. This week, kind of like the first two weeks, we got a little frustrated because they were teaching us so much information so fast. Our teacher, Fratello Jeter, whipped out a quote that I had never heard before by Joseph Smith. He said the gift of tongues is the least important of all spiritual gifts, yet it is often the one we seek after the most. Fratello Jeter then ducktaped an eraser and some cleanser in Anziano Rigby's hands and told him to try to vaccum the room. He obviously couldn't do this. He compared doing missionary work to cleaning a room (weird analogy I know). Italian isn't a tool, it is only our gloves. Learning Italian is not the goal here in the MTC or in Italy. It is the least important thing we will do on the mission. However, it is necessary to be able to use the rest of our tools or spiritual gifts/qualities we must develop to be successful missionaries (faith, hope, charity, humility, revelation, ect.). There aren't any grades here in the MTC. Learning the language isn't a competition. It is completely irrelevant if you are fluent in Italian if you can't teach the gospel by the power of the Holy Ghost and express your love and concern for people. The next day was Sunday, and I didn't even look at anything Italian all day. I just read a lot of the Book of Mormon and Preach My Gospel in English and prayed a lot. It was so refreshing to do this. Church was awesome too. It gave me a ton of renewed strength and energy.

The next thing I wanted to share was some lesson I learned from a talk by David A. Bednar from the Quorum of the Twelve called "The Character of Christ." It was a recorded talk given in the MTC on Christmas Day in 2008. This talked changed my entire perspective of the mission. He started by saying that as an apostle, he visits those who have been baptized into the church within the last 6 months everywhere he goes. He asks everyone what the missionaries said that made them interested in the church and eventually get baptized. Everyone gave the exact same answer. "All I remember them saying was some crazy story about a kid finding gold plates in the woods. I thought it was one of the strangest things I have ever heard. However, the reason we invited them back was because the spirit and power they brought into our home that we have never felt before." As a missionaries, it's obviously necessary to know the gospel, but it is not our words or our intellect that will ever help anyone. It is the converting power of the Holy Ghost to let people know this message is unique. He also told us that before our missions we learned a lot about Christ along with the rest of the Christian world. Now is not our time to learn ABOUT him, it is our time to learn OF him. The difference between learning of Christ and learning about Christ is huge. Then he started talking about how the character of Christ teaches of him. The character of Christ is to turn outward, when the natural man would turn inward. He then opened up the New Testament and gave several examples of how Christ turned out during very difficult times. I'll briefly relate just a few. When Christ took the three chief apostles to the Garden of Gethsemane, they couldn't pray with him for an hour. Then Judas betrayed him. 4 of the 12 who Christ invested everything he had for the past 3 years in didn't come through. They let him down when he need them most. He then talked about the incomprehenisble horror and terror of what Christ actually went through in Gethsemane. He was on his way to the cross, and he healed a guard's ear who was come to take him to his death. Then he forgave those who hung him on the cross. Then he started talking to and doing missionary work with the thieves on his left and on his right. He then started giving instructions for his mother to be taken care of. He was NEVER thinking of himself. Not even in his darkest hour. It was never about him. He then asked the question, so what? Why does this matter to us? He then gave us the definition of character and how we can develop the character of Christ through the Atonement. Character refers to moral qualities strongly developed, strikingly displayed, and consistently lived. During this talk he read Mosiah 3:19 at least 7 times. I seriously think this is them most important verse in the whole Book of Mormon. This verse talks about how the natural man is an enemy to God and we can only change through the Atonoment of Christ and develop his attributes. We will never be able to do it on our own. He said some people think they will change by constantly being busy and having a huge check list to accomplish. This will never work. It is only through the power of the Atonement which comes through the ordinances and covenants which Christ has established. Through these blessings, we can gain strength from God. He said on our misisons we will have to love the whiners, the complainers, and the proud. Christ loved these people. He loved his enemies. He loved the people who crucified him. The only way we can develop this Christlike love and completely change our natures is the through put everything on the altar of sacrifice to God (our fear, our pride, our disobedience, ect.) and realize that we are 100% dependent on Christ. We need his power and his image in our countenances. At the end of his talk he invoked a blessing upon us that through our desire and dilegence we would have an increased understanding of the character of Christ and therefore be able to develop every spritual gift/blessing to truly become converted to him and never fall away (Alma 23:5-6). Yesterday I bought a new copy of the Book of Mormon. I am reading it from cover to cover before I leave the MTC with one question in mind: what is the character of Christ? Yesterday I read the first 26 pages and I learned something about the character of Christ on every page.

The next experience I wanted to share happened yesterday. Sorella Miles was teaching us about how to be good missionaries (that's kind of what we learn here at the MTC). She said if your not speaking from you heart, you are merely a robot or a salesman. She said we need to share with everyone our personal conversion story on the mission. She had all 8 of us in the room share our conversion story in Italian. It was really powerful. All 8 of us were born into the church, but we have all come to know it for ourselves through our own experiences. You can't live off of borrowed light on the mission. After that experience Anziano Romano looked at me and pointed at a picture of the prophet. Then he showed me a picture of the Salt Lake Temple. Then he pointed out the window at all the missionaries walking around.  The he said, "There's no way the church isn't true."

I only have like 5 minutes left. Overall, I learned a lot about humility this week. As a missionary, I have to be ready to share my testimony 24/7. Testimonies can only be shared out of love and genuine concern for others. Therefore, my mind has to be on higher ground all of the time. Elder Bednar promised us that if we completely forget about our own concerns and problems and the mission, we will find ourselves and become who we truly want to be for the rest of our lives. It won't necessarily be the best two years of my life, but it will teach me things and do things for me that will lay a foundation for the rest of my life that could be learned no other way. Our district is also all really close now. We all can't wait to go to Italy. The MTC is great, but come July 23, we will be ready for the real thing.

Sincerely,

Anziano Smith

MTC | Week 2

Second week in the MTC was a lot smoother than the first week. We are all in a lot better rhythm and we all feel like we have been here forever. However, it has gone by fast at the same time. It doesn't really make sense. Anyways, I learned a lot this week. The World Wide Missionary meeting thing was incredible. I can't believe I got to see 11 of the 12 apostles in person! When they walked in the Marriott Center, everyone stood up and it was dead silent. The Spirit came into the room very powerfully. I learned so much about missionary work during all of their talks. I got some awesome notes. I don't want to talk to much about it though since everyone got to listen to it at home. There is only one point I want to share. President Packer said that he wished he could promise us we would be successful if we worked hard and studied hard but he couldn't. The only way he could promise we would have success is if we followed the guidance of the Holy Ghost. That pretty much sums up missionary work. It's not my thoughts, my words, or my actions that are going to do any good. It's only when I am humble enough to listen to the voice of the Spirit and follow it with faith and courage. It will be the same principle for everyone I teach. I also learned that I have to live every principle I teach or else I'll be a hypocrite.

Anyways, we had devotional last night, and I have to talk about that for a little while. I walked in with Anziano Kelly, Romano, and Kekoolani. We were all banking on an apostle speaking since they are all here to train the new mission presidents (btw: we have had sac breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 5 days because the apostles and mission presidents get the cafeteria. It's been rough). We walked in and saw on the sceen that it was Sister Janice Kapp Perry. Anziano Romano and I looked at each other and in perfect unison said, "Naptime!" She proved us so wrong. She was so funny and her message was incredible. She told us when she was a freshman at BYU she had a midterm in her music program where she had to play the flute or something. 2 minutes before she went, her future husband (who she had never talked to before) walked up and said, "Your lips were made for something much better than playing the clarinet." Everyone lost it. Then her husband got up and kissed her in front of everyone. Classic. She told us that she wrote about 20 hymns in the children's hymnbook and a few in the regular hymnbook. She led us and we sang 1 verse of 6 of them: A Child's Prayer, I Love to See the Temple, I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus, Army of Helaman, Love is Spoken Here, and one more. It was so powerful when we were sing Army of Helaman because ususally it goes, we will be the Lord's missionaries, but instead she changed the words to "WE ARE NOW THE LORD'S MISSIONARIES." There were about 4,000 missionaries at the devotional and probably half were crying. It was incredible. She then shared a quote with us from President Packer that said we can learn lessons quickly through music that would otherwise take us a long time to learn. So true.

So, the lady we have been teachinng whose name was Valeria turns out to be Sister Miles. She started teaching our class this week. She got back from her mission to Rome in March. She told us that when we were teaching her, she was acting out someone who she actually taught on her mission. She showed us pics, and it was really cool. She is such an amazing teacher. She said one thing yesterday that really hit me hard. She said that we will be home from our mission before we know it. If I don't lead those I teach to Christ, then they won't make any real progress. If they don't come to know Christ and I leave, then I didn't really do anyting meaningful. She told us to challenge every person we teach to commit to read and pray about the Book of Mormon because it is the best tool in the entire world in converting people to Christ. I really do know that is true. My whole mission is about helping others come to know the truth of the restored gospel and become spritually indepent because I won't always be there to teach and testify to them.

This week our dorm got powerful hot. I have no idea why but it is getting stuffy and a lot of kids are sick. There are kids from all over the entire world here which is really awesome. The other day someone said, "That means all the diseases from the entire world are probably here too." There might be some truth to that statement. I have managed to stay healthy though. Anziano Gardenhire (tubo del giordino aka "gardenhose") has gone running with me everyday the past week. He ran cross country and track in high school so he is way better than me. I'm so grateful though cause he is keeping me in shape. The only time we get to work out is either or after a solid 12 hours of work/study. Either way we are exhausted during our workout time. Most kids don't workout. Everyone in our dorm does though. Hence, we have earned the name "Swole Patrol." It's starting to get serious. I won't name any names but someone grabbed a brownie today at lunch and another elder through it in the trash and was like, are you part of the swole patrol or not? We are having a bunch of fun. It's part our language learning program to SYL (speak your language) as often as possible so we started putting sticky notes on everything in or room with the Italian word on it. We keep getting better. It's hilarious though cause we mess up all the time. Anziano Mortensen told us a story from his first month on the mission. A family asked him what the purpose of temples was he started talking about how we make covenants with God and we can be sealed together with our families so we can be with them for eternity. The Itaian word for seal is "suggelare" and the word for deep freeze is "sugerlare." It turns out he told them we deep freeze families together forever in temples. They were like, does the government know about this? And he was like, yes of course. Another funny story about the language. The Italian word for thank you is pregho. Ther were a bunch of Sister missionaries coming to the door and Anziano Romano opened it for them. When they were all saying thank you he was just like "pregho, pregho, pregho." They didn't know that was the Italian word for thank you and though that he was making a reference to them looking pregnant. It was so funny. Another random funny story, we were at a meeting early this week and there was a kid sitting in front of who need to scatch his back and didn't know his been was open. He wrote all over the back of his white shirt with his pen and didn't even know it. I died. Okay, I'll stop now. I don't want to waste anyone's time with my dumb sense of humor.

Today 7 of the 10 kids in our district had to go up to Salt Lake to get their visas. That left Anziano Romano, Kekoolani, and I here all day for pday (for those of you who aren't familiar with mission lingo, pday is our day off to do laundry, write, take a nap, ect.). It was great. We have to do service every pday from during which I cleaned toilets and dusted pictures. After that, the games began. The three of us went to the temple after that. I got good pics with Anziano Kekoolani and Anziano Romano. I will send them shortly. It was said because the temple is closing for cleaning for a month or so, so I think that is the last time until I get to go in Rome. I totally forgot! I met the mission president night. He's awesome! He told us the target date for the dedication of the Rome temple is September 2014 and it was his goal to let every one of us go before we go home. I can't wait. He told us all about the Rome temple. He said that in Rome, no one can build anything if there are ancient ruins underneath the site. The church found the only plot of land that would work and they dug to look for ruins and there were none under the whole temple grounds. 50 feet outside the temple grounds, there are ruins. Miracle. He also told us there can't be any building in Rome in which there isn't a public part that can be used by anyone. In the visitor's center is a family history center for anyone to come and do ther family history. He also told us that the Christus statue is going to be the biggest one ever! It will make the one in Salt Lake look small. That is so cool. I can't wait to see everything down there.

Thank you for everyone who wrote me this week. Mail is much appreciated! Sorry this email is all over the place. I think I covered all the highlights of the week. I miss everyone a bunch, but the first two weeks of the MTC have been eventful and if they are any indicator of the rest of my mission, I know it will be great. This isn't my time right now. It's the Lord's time, but is for me. I'm so grateful for this opportunity, and I can't wait to get on that plane! Btw, there are 22 of us going to Rome, and we'll all be on the same flight. Looking forward to it!

With love,

Anziano Smith

Worldwide Leadership Training

Last night at the Marriott center the church held a Worldwide Leadership Training conference. This meeting was intended for mission presidents and anyone who was part of the ward leadership, which included my husband Rhett, since he is the Elders Quorum President in our ward (and of course, spouses were encouraged to come too!). At church yesterday he was able to get us two tickets so we could go to the live broadcast, instead of watching from our local stake center building. I knew all the missionaries would be there, but considering the thousands of people that would also be there, I had no hopes of seeing him. Also, before Regan went into the MTC he specifically told me not to come find him while he was there. He did this out of love, but it was hard for me to accept it! Being the only one in our family to live in Provo while he is in the MTC is a blessing, but extremely hard too. I have not roamed around the temple on Sundays, or searched for him on his Pdays, and I have been very obedient to his request! Excited just to know I would be in the same room as him, I went to this meeting with Rhett as a perfectly normal, non-stalker, sister :)

Well to cut to the chase, I ended up sitting one row across from him! I was so nervous at first because I did not want him to think that I was there tracking him down. I could not control myself, and just wanted to wave to him, so I caught his attention and smiled and waved. The look on his face was priceless! He waved back and then I could see him telling his companion and other guys in his district that his sister was over there! (they know me through all the letters and packages I have sent Regan that have included them too) They all waved at me smiling, and it made me so happy that Regan was excited to see me! Regan made the hand gesture of "take a picture", so I got my phone and took a picture of him from where I was sitting (I wanted to keep my distance so I didn't come across as overboard). I sat down in my seat and just STARED at Regan for the rest of the meeting! When the meeting was over, I walked right over and introduced myself to the elders in his district. I then walked out with Regan and was able to talk to him the whole way. As we walked out of the Marriott center I took one last picture with him and said bye. It was so much happier than the last time I said bye when we dropped him off at the MTC! I am grateful for the opportunity I had to see him, and I feel like it was an answer to prayers. Knowing that he is still alive is one thing, but seeing how much he has grown already, and the great elders he gets to be with, is very comforting. I knew that this was the "for real" last time I am going to see him, but I feel like I was able to have closure this time. Normally I will only be posting the words of Regan, but I had to post about this crazy happy experience!

The missionary choir. I could not believe how many sister missionaries there were! All the missionaries looked (and sounded) like the Tabernacle Choir 

Love this picture Rhett got of Regan! 

I LOVE this picture!

I could not let go of his arm haha!