This week has been awesome! Isabel and Jesus are so awesome - so open and so ready for this. They have such an amazing spirit about them and I absolutely love every time we get to teach them. Partially becasue whatever lesson we had thought to teach or to give pretty much automatically goes out the window and whatever ends up beign said is so much better than whatever we had planned. Which is almost how its supposed to be, when you keep in mind that these are people with experiences and concerns and its not about making sure they have all the lessons and have a baptismal date and you teach everything in order and exactly as you practiced. The Lord expects you to be prepared, and for that reason you make a lesson plan, but when you focus on what the person is saying to you its so much better. We don't baptize investigadors, we just help people who are converted unto Christ to come unto Him. You have to help people build a connection to Heaven first, and thank you Elder Gerring for that awesome insight. I don't really know if that makes much sense but that's been one of my big realizations this week and I will probably have more as I learn from Hermana Rubio becasue she is great at teaching.
Also this week, we had a super awesome meeting for all the new missionaries, and in it president taught us a lot about how to ask inspired questions and let me just say, it was incredibly powerful. I am so grateful for the opportunity to learn how to better ask questions because I kind of enjoy talking and often need to rememberto listen more than give discourses.
I've been thinking a lot about Hope because well, my ward's name in Spanish translates to Hope and so as a joke and as a reminder, my first missionary agenda's cover says "Choose Hope"courtesy of Hermana Rubio. And so I've been thinking about the difference between faith and hope because to be honest, they often seem like the same thing to me. I'm still trying to figure out the difference to be honest and I don't have a giant epiphany to share with the class this week. I'm actually not even sure why I've included this in this email, but here's an invitation to all of you because I'm a missionary and we extend people invitations all day every day so hey why not one to all of you - read Ether 12:4 and think about the difference between hope and faith and maybe get back to me if you feel so inclined or have a realization because hey maybe your answer is mine. I have realized this week though, that although I'm still not sure what the difference between hope and faith is, I know the importance of Hope. Hope is what keeps me happy every single day and keeps me from feeling weighed down in the world. Hope makes me feel like I can have an impact even though I'm just a nineteen year old American trying to teach the gospel in Spanish.
I love this work and I'm so incredibly happy right now.
Con mi amor eterno,
Hermana Rawlings
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