"O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever. I will not put my trust in the arm of flesh ... Yea, I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh, ... therefore I will lift up my voice to thee ... my rock and mine everlasting God. Amen." (2 Nephi 4: 34-35)

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Hey Everyone!!!

Yet another awesome week at the MTC. This week we were able to celebrate Valentine's Day, although the MTC didn't celebrate it my district did! And it was awesome. We all wore pink, red and purple and put pink dots on our name tags. I’m not sure why but it was just a super awesome day, everyone was really happy and I taught some good lessons with my companion. As I have been in the MTC my teaching ability has grown so much. I have realized that the most important element to your lesson is getting to know and love your investigators. That is something that my companion and I have tried to improve on. Another thing that is a huge testimony of the truthfulness of this Gospel is how they are teaching us to teach. We honestly don't receive a ton of instruction as to how we are to teach. We are given guidelines and then told to simply teach by the spirit. Every teaching skill we learn is coupled by telling us to do it but the spirit. God knows all of his children and knows what they need to hear. So if in our lessons we listen to the spirit, God will tell us, by the power of the Holy Ghost, what to say. I have experienced this as I have had the opportunity to role play teaching situations. Even though it isn't "real" the spirit tells me what to say and what scriptures to share. It’s an incredible feeling when you walk out of a lesson and know that you weren't the one teaching but the spirit was. I pray every day that I may be able to have the spirit with me because without it I would not be able to do anything.

Another cool experience I was able to have with my district was the chance to fast for an Elder in our district. He is having some medical issues, the details of which you guys probably don't want to know... Anyway Elder Hoese suggested that we have a fast on his behalf and it was awesome. As I was fasting for him I felt an increase of love for him and I know that Elder Sanford (the elder we fasted for) could feel our love for him. He said that nowhere else in the world would he be able to receive the love and support that he got from us. I felt so special to be able to be a part of that. This week I have read and studied more about charity. In Moroni chapter 7 it says that if we don't have charity we are nothing, NOTHING. If we are incapable of loving others as Christ does we are nothing. That hit me very hard and motivated me to have more charity. Something else that hit me about charity was an answer to a question that my teacher gave me. I asked him if he had advice for me on how to be a better missionary and he just told me love. If I want to learn the language better I need to love the people more and it will come. If I want to work harder I need to love the Lord more. If I get home sick I need to love the culture more so I enjoy where I am at. If I just learn to love as Christ did I will be able to do his will and earn his trust. We all need to be filled with more love towards one another. I challenge everyone who reads this to get down on their knees every night and pray to be filled with love. I promise as you do you will have a greater joy and happiness in your life. It won't be easy sometimes to love others but it will always be worth it.

I love you all. Read Moroni Chapter 7 it talks about faith and charity and hope!

Love,

Elder Rice