Letter #6

Ahoj! This week went a lot better, Im happy to say. I learned a ton. There arent really any funny stories- although Starsi Jaynes did accidently wash his whites with an entire box of dryer sheets and stained some of them orange from the cardboard hahahah. That was pretty funny. And I ran into a bunch more people I know from BYU at the TRC on Thursday, thats always fun, but kind of weird. TRC was good because we only go once a week so I can actually see how much progress Ive made with the language. We also did our Language Speaking Assessments last week, its a 7 point fluency scale, and I got a 3 on pronunciation and 4s on everything else, which was exciting, since 2-3 is what they expect. My accent is a lot more Czech now instead of French, which is good. So that was good to see progress! Of course I can only talk about church things, which is slightly pathetic, so Im working on learning more normal vocab. We got new Bulgarians and Polish this week though! That was fun to welcome them to the MTC. There are 7 Bulgarian elders and 6 sisters and 6 elders going to Poland. So we wrote the sisters all notes for their first day, and gave them donuts, so that was fun. That means that my district along with the Croatians are next to leave though!! aaaaah. Im excited but I definitely need to use the three weeks I have left to learn as much Czech as possible, cause it is HARD. I dont write down anything but vocab when we teach lessons now, though, which is really good. My grammar might not be perfect but I can express what I need to, in a way that they can understand most of them time. What else happened...oh Elder Ballard came for the devotional on Tuesday, so that was cool! He gave a really simple message about the gospel, and basically said you can do this. Most of you have been learning about the gospel for your entire lives, and you know a lot. Oh another thing I learned this week: sometimes God lets us fail so that we realize how much we need him. We started teaching each other last week as investigators, and Im partnered with Starsi Howell, but the 2nd lesson went so terribly. He basically said, I dont need religion, so I was like, why are you talking to me then. So I was going to drop him the next lesson, but I felt like I should ask him what trials he was going through right now, which is not really a normal question, but I went with it. And he told me his parents are divorced and that is really hard. So I got to testify that Christ can heal any hurt and that He can bring peace to his life, and hes willing to listen now, so far. So that was pretty cool, the entire lesson was completely by the spirit, I had no idea where I was going to go with it. I think as Ive gotten more confident in my language skills its easy to think that I can just teach by myself, but thats so not the case. The Spirit is the teacher, not me. Yesterday, the devotional was by the Provo Temple president, Robert Daines, and it was so amazing. I learned so much more about the Temple, but Ill write you about that. One thing he did tell us that I liked: he said that the blessing to run and not be weary isnt just a physical blessing, its also a spiritual and emotional one, which means that we are not going to quit. I really liked that, never thought about it that way before. Then after that, we went and watched a talk Elder Bednar gave here in 2009 called the Spirit of Revelation. SO GOOD. He talked about how we shouldnt just sit there and wait for a message from heaven, and worry about whether or not its the Spirit or you. He said over and over, quit worrying about it! You press forward, you be a good boy or good girl, you keep your covenants, you keep the commandments, and your steps will be guided and you will be a tool in His hands. He also related the 20 mark story with Pres. Packer, do you remember that. (it wont let me type question marks...) He said when he handed those 20 marks to him he thought he did it because they might be hungry. But it ended up saving Sister Packers life. He said he didnt recognize it as the Spirit at the time, and didnt know the rest of the story until 20 years later. (interesting side note, the border crossing they got stopped in was Hof, Germany! I was like, hey i know where that is! haha) So his whole point was, as long as you are trying to do your best, the Lord will help you accomplish what He needs you too. oh and my favorite quote: He shouldnt have to be smacking us with the Holy Ghost to get us do something. haha I love Elder Bednar! K im running out of time, love you!!! s laskou, Sestra Cooper