I am where I need to be and am as happy as
taffy when she gets loves as she stands on the computer and there is no
dread-lock picking. Speaking of which, I am sorry to here of the plights of her
majesty -- it is hard to be small and furry. She has to look cute, sleep, eat,
and get fed, ALL DAY. Life IS difficult indeed. Please send her my condolences.
I love you Dear Elders. Please continue them. They give me a much needed boost
of encouragement at the end of the day. I love your little tidbits of gossip,
as they remind me of the world outside, yet at the same time remind me of how
in this place, life is different and I need to be working my hardest. And I am!
I am trying to at least! Haha. Anyways please continue to send them. I love
them. It is funny to me that you always mention the cat -- your oldest
daughter, Mrs. Peterson, does so as well! I love to hear of the arduous lives
of the forgotten felines. Alas, will we ever understand their inner torment?
Nay. How could we; we are merely humans.
My clothes. They are lovely. but for some
reason I feel so frumpy! My companion is very petite and looks fabulous in
everything that she owns. Seeing some of the sisters here made me wish I had
taken a bit more liberty with my fashion; they are all so trendy. I don't need
NEW clothes -- I am happy with the ones I have it just will take a me a moment
to adjust to them and to arrange them so they are fashionable. I am feeling
rather large too -- I don't know why. Perhaps it is just all the sweaters and
flowy skirts that make me look so. I don't know. Anyways. I am only telling you
this because you asked me in your last letter what the lowest point was. I
would say my dress. BUT it really is NOT that big of a deal. Most of the day I
am lost in studying and learning so I don't even notice it or care very much
about it. I did the first day, but now I don't. That is not to say I don't take
pride in my appearance -- I do my best to look cute (and yes I am wearing
makeup. After all we are, and I quote, "encouraged" to wear makeup.)
but I realize that looking more trendy than other sisters is not my highest
priority. Does that make sense?? (I would say that phrase in Russian since I
know how, but I can't figure out how to change the keyboard...)
That being said, that is the only thing that is
really be somewhat of a downer. Other than that, I have been completely content
and happy. It is hard to wake up, and sometimes I find myself dozing off a bit,
but I just drink some water and voila! I am back awake and alert! It is nice to
get up early - I actually like it. The day is not wasted that way. SOmetimes it
is hard to fall asleep but I am adjusting so it is not a problem. Really I am
SO happy here. I love the learning, the people, and the spirit. There is so
much satisfaction in what we are doing. I know that is selfish of me to say
because I should be focusing on the people I am serving, but it is
satisfactory. I love it. The Lord is teaching me so much. He knew me so well to
send me here.
I want to hear more about you! I miss you so
much. I can't express, but at the same time I know that I need to be here and I
am SO happy to be here. Please continue to inform me as to how you are doing
and what you have been up to.
Now I will say something at the risk of making
you angry but for me it was a spiritual experience. I have truly been
attempting to lose myself in the work; to study Russian, preach my gospel, the
scriptures and to serve my fellow missionaries as much as I could. Please believe
me when I say that I have not thought of Andreas at all. But then, one night as
I was laying in bed, I suddenly woke up and knew what to do for the problem of
"the sanctuary goal" that I told you about (and if you don't remember
that is fine I am not offended)! It was a little blessing for me. Then I went
to bed and feel asleep right away. I felt like it was almost an assurance form
the Lord to remind me that He has not forgotten about my dreams and will help
me when I get back. I am SO grateful for that. It reminded me that I had to
have hope.
Speaking of hope,I wrote to you in my letter
about how I have been studying hope. I hope.... (haha) that you get it soon and
can read it. But just as a brief summary I realized that hope is the optimistic
extension of faith. You need hope. As a district, we each decided to pick one
of the attributes of Christ mentioned in Preach my Gospel and work on it. I
selected hope - I am learning amazing things. It was really interesting, but
all of us picked different attributes to work on. I knew that I was so select
hope because almost as soon upon as I had entered the MTC there had been a
motif of hope in the talks, testimonies, and scriptures I had been reading. So,
when I saw that it was one of the attributes of Christ, I realized that I
needed to work on it. Hope is mostly associated with optimism - I often think
of what was said in my blessing when I was set apart - that I need to be
positive of myself. Then I also think of how it mentions in my patriarchal
blessing that I have been blessed with optimism and need to share it and others
will delight in that and wish to be optimistic too ( that's not word for word
but that is the gist of it.) So, I have been attempting to exercise hope and be
optimistic about my mission, my learning, and life in general. One of the most
beautiful things I have learned from hope is that hope is only possible through
the Atonement of Jesus Christ. If we were not able to use the Atonement, there
would be no hope because we would all be damned. Without it, no matter what we
did, we could never hope because we could not progress. Hope is part of
progression, if you do not hope for things, you will not strive for things; and
because of the Atonement we are able to progress, therefore, hope is only possible
through the wonderful Atonement. What a glorious gift Jesus Christ and our
Heavenly Father gave us through the atonement! Not only are we allowed to
repent through it, not only do they understand our pain through it, not only
are we saved by it, but we are also allowed hope through it. It is a beautiful
thing. I now hope to center my life more around hope, as it is a beautiful gift
for us that was purchased with many drops of blood in the atonement. So, in
conclusion, hope is the optimistic extension of faith, and hope is the
propellant (? am I using that right -- the fuel??) for progression and change.
Well, now I REALLY am out of time and probably
went a little bit over. Anyways. I just wanted to say I love you and I miss you
and I am thinking of you. Please get better, I am so sad that you are sick. I
am sorry I wasn't able to write but hopefully these emails make up for it.
Again, I will always keep you in my prayers and in my heart. LOVE YOU LOVE YOU
LOVE YOU! Miss you!!! COntinue to serve the Lord and thank Him for the myraid
of blessings He continually bestows upon us and our family - the Atonement
included.
Love you!
I hope that you are well. I hope to hear from
you soon.
Love Lolo
MOM AND DAD!!!!
I MISS YOU!!!! But I am so happy to be here. I
sent you a very lengthy letter yesterday that should be coming to you and I
should be sending another one today. I got your dear elder saying that the
missionaries were given an hour to email their parents their first night - I
was not afforded such a luxury. I was immediately stuck into a classroom where
a man speaking only Russian began to energetically teach us about Russian
introductions and the gospel. It was great. Really, I love the MTC. I am very
grateful that the Lord knows me enough (and was patient with me enough) to
continually prod (don't know if that is a proper word to use with the Lord, but
you know what I mean) me to go on a mission because truly I know this is where
I am supposed to be and I am so happy.
Some of this email may be a repeat of what I
wrote to you in my letter but to be honest I cannot entirely remember what I
wrote. I feel like my memory has both expanded and decreased. For example, I
find I cannot recall the words to songs (hip songs that is, musicals and Disney
songs remain unaffected) yet I am able to remember things in Russian, like the
different conjugations of verbs are based off of the gender of the noun. I had
such a hard time with that in Latin and I studied all the time! But with
Russian, though it is still very hard, it is easier. I know this is because the
Lord is helping with the language. There is no way I could be learning it the
way I am without the help of my glorious Heavenly Father. I am so honored that
He is allowing me to learn a new language because I know that language is a
tool that we use to improve not only the lives around us, but my own personal life.
I was reading in Mosiah (I think, perhaps it was Words of Mormon) that in order
to read the Brass Plates, Lehi had to know Egyptian. I realized that then in
order to be the keeper of the plates you had to be extremely educated, and that
learning the language was part of that. The keeper of the plates was probably
the most intelligent and well earned Nephite of them all. This made me realize
even more that scripture study should be not only a spiritual pursuit, but an
intellectual pursuit - we need to be actively engaged in searching the word of
the Lord; if we do so, He will bless us immensely. I know that He has already
blessed me while I have been here. More so than I deserve. I am truly humbled
by all the knowledge He is giving me. I just have to be diligent in my study. I
have been trying to do so.
I love my companion. Truly she is great.
Usually i find it easy to use ,y words to describe people and things but I
can't really with her -- she is just that great. I really really really like
her. She is diligent and obedient. She is very fun too. One night we just
started walking home and we started speaking giberish to each other like it was
nothing. We laughed and then talked about how cool it would be when we would be
able to do that in Russian! Haha!! She is very fun, smart, and has amazing
spiritual insight. It seems like she has a deep desire to learn -- she wants to
understand the gospel completely. This is something I really admire, she really
does attempt to obtain the word before she declares it. I am inspired by her
desire to understand so that she can teach to her best ability. I am truly
blessed to have such a companion.
The rest of my district is pretty great. I am
currently in the process of writing you a letter that describes all of the 5 members
of my district. There are four elders and Sister Haynie (my companion) and
myself. I would say that we get along very well as a district, I am quite fond
of them all. My companion is my favourite however. We get along very well.
Everyone has such unique talents that they bring to the district; I think we
get along well; perhaps sometimes too well as we spend sometimes maybe a little
bit too much time talking and not studying. My companion and I are very
different; I look up to her in many ways. I wish I could be a better companion
to her! Sometimes I feel that I don't always know how to serve her in my best
way. I try, but I feel like I am still not good enough! Haha not to be
negative; I am trying and that is what counts I think. But still, I will work
harder to be a better companion.
I whistle all the time and it makes me think of
you, Mom. I whistle because I am happy. It makes me think how lucky I am that
God blessed me with such a wonderful mother who taught me so much about the
gospel; you taught me to really study the scriptures, you told me the story,
you taught me the order, you taught me the history, I am so happy and so lucky
and so blessed that you are my mom. Heavenly Father really did bless me with
such a wonderful family. It is perhaps by greatest blessing of all. Mom. you
are such an example to me. I think of how well you know the gospel and I always
want to be like that. You also taught me how to listen to others and how to
engage them in conversation -- I am trying to do this with my fellow
missionaries as a way to serve them. I think everyone wants to talk about home,
but it is hard to talk about when you are with the same 20 people and you have
already told them everything -- so I try to listen and engage them -- YOU
TAUGHT ME THIS! It is a great service to listen to others - I learned that from
you and form you example of listening to me. So thank you.
Give Dad a special hello! Tell him I love him
and that I am thinking of him and praying of him. I often think of his quiet
humility and spirituality. I want to be more like him in that aspect; I want to
have humble spirituality like him. I realize (from the example of others (this
is not a very nice thing of me to say) that when you say sacred experience out
loud to much, or try to be gaudy in your spirituality, it loses some of it's
worth. Dad was never like that, he was always so humble. Dad showed his love
for the gospel through his quiet, complete obedience and his diligent work to
the Lord. I am grateful for that example. Please tell him so.
My zone is amazing. Everyone is so smart!
Truly. Everyone has small beautiful handwriting -- mine is small, but resembles
something like chicken scratch. Hahaha. I am sure I could fall in love with
their hand writing alone had I not closed off my heart. Everyone in my zone is
incredible. For example, there is one young lady who is 21 and was at Harvard
studying German Literature; she is incredibly smart and already speaks three
languages I think. She is somewhat intimidating but I like her a great deal.
Then there is Sister Deiner, who lives in my room. She goes to MIT is and on
the rowing team there! I told her my Dad was a rower and pretty much the most
incredible man I know. That woman is SO smart. Sister Alvaraz is also in my
room -- I have never met such a happy perky girl before! She has such a bright
energy and is always optimistic. I thought that would be my role in the MTC but
she does it so much better than me. I don't really know what my role is in my
district and in my zone, but I am just being myself and doing what I can and I know that that
is enough and the Lord will have me fill whatever role he needs me to fill so
long as I am worthy of the influence of the Spirit. My companion is still my
favourite though; she is special. She is so special that I cannot even really
put her down in words! I really REALLY hope that we stay close after the
mission. I want to serve her but I just don't know how! Haha. Oh well, I will
continue t try. I don't know the other missionaries in my district very well.
There are two other sisters that I have not mentioned and then a plethora of
elders -- all with very neat, small, beautiful handwriting. What is it about
pens and handwriting? I am a mad woman!!
Life here is great. I am so happy. I want to
write more but I have to get my laundry. I have about 20 more minutes on
the computer and then I have to stop. Thanks!
Love you more than I can say! Sending you all
the love I can spare from the Lord and His mission he gave me!
Love Lolo
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