MTC Investigators

Hi family,

Sorry that this is so much later than last week. We got to email during laundry time last week, but the computers were far too busy today and we didn't have the patience to wait around. I'm still alive though! Which might be somewhat of a miracle... There is a plague at the MTC this week. SO many people are sick right now! Apparently they think it was from the food, because of how many people got it so fast. None of the three of us have gotten it yet. Sister Thornton and I had colds last week, and Sister Kelsey has been nauseous yesterday and today, but none of us have thrown up or been really sick like half the MTC. Thank goodness! (Knock on wood...)

So I guess I'll tell you about my week, and kind of describe the people we've been teaching. I think I kind of told you my schedule already, so you know that we spend 6-7 hours a day in class, 2-3 studying, and we have about an hour for each meal. Pretty much every day we get to teach at least one investigator. We have two different teachers--one for morning class, and one for afternoon class--and each of them depicts an actual investigator that they had on their missions for us to teach. So Brother McClain is Stephen. He has been my favorite investigator so far! We've had some really cool experiences teaching him. Last Thursday night we taught him about Joseph Smith and the Restoration. We thought that would be an awesome lesson for him because we thought he'd relate to Joseph Smith and how he was searching for the right church. He did, but he was being weird in the lesson and wasn't really connecting with us and wasn't willing to pray! Obviously, they can't progress if they aren't willing to progress and gain a testimony for themselves. So we talked to him the next day and decided that Stephen needed to understand prayer and his relationship with God. It was SUCH a good lesson! The spirit was so strong! We were all on such a high after that lesson to finally know what that feels like, and to realize that every lesson could potentially be that good. The next lesson though, was not. Brother McClain broke out of his Stephen character and stopped the lesson because it was so different from the last, super awesome one. That was kind of hard... Brother McClain said that was pretty normal for that to happen, especially after we had just had the lesson about Teaching People, Not Lessons (aka don't teach it straight from Preach My Gospel. Teach each investigator something that they personally need from Preach My Gospel.) So... We teach Stephen again tonight, and hopefully we can have a good spiritual lesson again. Wish us luck. For the first two weeks, our afternoon teacher was Brother Andersen. His investigator was Ian. He was just super eager to learn about everything, so the hard part with him was figuring out that the Spirit would lead us through whatever we wanted to teach pretty much, because Ian just wanted to know it all. There wasn't necessarily things that he needed to know first, because he had so much faith. It turned out that Brother Andersen was just a sub because our real teaher, Brother Grunninger, (who is from Calgary and he says "eh" all the time.) was in Canada for Christmas. Last Saturday was Brother Andersen's last day with our district, so he told us the real story about Ian. Apparently, they taught him a ton, he was baptized, moved to Utah to go to UVU on a track scholarship, and is now serving a mission! The real Ian found Brother Andersen on Facebook before he left and then was able to come find Brother Andersen at the MTC when he came through. It was super cool hearing him get so excited about his mission and his investigators, so I'm pretty excited for that. Now we have Brother Grunninger and his investigator is Shane. We've only taught him once so I don't have much to say about him. He's hard to teach though! He's heard all the lessons that we have to teach him, but doesn't have a testimony of them. Like, he knows about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and everything, but doesn't really care because they don't really mean anything to him. So that's kinda rough. But it's a good learning experience! Dad, you asked about the paid investigators at the TRC. They are just people from around the Provo area who come and let us practice teaching with them. Our teachers warned us ahead of time that they are all people who are very certain of their beliefs and so they wouldn't just be push overs--we'd have to actually prepare and teach. It's true! It's hard, but it's really nice to have that experience.

Okay, time is about up. I just sent off a letter for the boys, so you three can look forward to that in the next day or two. Mom, will you check my bank account and just let me know how much I have in there? I have no idea right now, and I know I won't be using it much, but I just want to know so I can be careful. :) Thanks!

I love you all, and miss you!

Love, Mal