Hello everyone!
I hope you all are doing well! This week was so full of witnessing miracles and blessings in my life.
There is one particular experience that I want to share with you. On Wednesday we had another lesson with Kendra. We were planning on teaching her about the Plan of Salvation, but were honestly quite worried because we never know how she is going to take and react to things. Also that sometimes she comes up with the weirdest questions and I really don't know how to answer them sometimes. (Which is okay but really hard). Anyways when we got to the lesson things took a completely different turn. We had asked her to read 2 Nephi 31 before our lesson, which she did, and we felt prompted to ask her if she had a chance to pray about the Book of Mormon to know if it was true or not. And she said she had been praying but she still didn't know. So we asked her right then, in the middle of our lesson, to pray to know if it was true. So she did, she said a very humble prayer in which the Spirit became so strong I could almost reach out and touch it. When she finished, she looked up at us and apologized. And I can remember the exact words she said to us. "I'm sorry. I didn't pray for what God was telling me to pray for. He was telling me I needed to pray about baptism." To which we were ecstatic. So we said wonderful. Let's pray again. So she did and now has a baptismal date set! We are so excited for her. This experience taught me so much. That Heavenly Father really does answer our prayers and prepares people for us to teach. Seeing this change and how much the gospel of Jesus Christ can really bless someone's life makes being on a mission and everything hard about it so worth it. She has seriously taught me so much as a missionary I can't even explain but I am so grateful for her.
We also had a lesson this week with our investigator Viktoria from Hungary, and she is so awesome. She is super accepting of the gospel and has already been living by the standards which is fantastic. This week we did a Book of Mormon read with her, and she basically just testified to us that she needed to be baptized and that she knew it was the way for her to follow Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for all of the experiences that I have had while being here in the MTC because not only have they helped me grow as a missionary, but also as a person. Our teacher Brother Lim always tells us to "Be a good person and you'll accidentally be a good missionary." The Christ-like love that I have learned to have while I'm here is astonishing.
This week I had the opportunity to host the new international missionaries coming in. My sister was from Beijing China, and her name is Sister Zhao. She is so cute and I absolutely adore her. Her English was very good, and there were only a few times when we both had to really focus on what we were trying to say. We were together for three hours trying to go and get her shots, X-rays, everything. It was so amazing and I'm grateful for that experience. I will include a picture. I love you and hope that all is going well. Can't wait to talk to you tomorrow!
I love this gospel and am so grateful to be serving the Lord and sharing this with His children. He has blessed me more than I can ever know. As I head out to North Dakota at 3:50 tomorrow morning I am so excited to go and serve. I know that just like in 1 Nephi 3:7, the Lord doesn't command us to do anything save He shall provide a way for us to accomplish what He has asked. Thank you for all your kind words and emails I love hearing from you all.
All is well and with love,
Sister Mortensen
P.S. sorry there is not a lot of time to email this week, we are preparing to leave tomorrow and have to have everything done....
Pictures this week:
Our Sand Volleyball Squad (we play pretty much everyday)
And the Sisters from our Zone that we love so much.