Transfer 12 week 2

What a tremendous week this has been. I always love transfer week! It is so packed full of spirit; considering all the meetings we conduct. But the highlight of my week is always the time that we have in the teaching center. We have some absolutely stellar investigators right now, and I always feel so full of love and the spirit after talking with them.

One of our investigators name is Konah. She lives in Liberia, has 6 kids, and her husband passed away just a few weeks ago. I think I've told y'all about her before. When we were concluding our lesson with her, we asked her to say the closing prayer, and she gave one of the most heart-felt prayers I have ever heard. The hope and faith that she has, still in her dire and feeble circumstances are inspiring. Even though she cannot provide for her family, even though her husband has just passed away, even though Ebola is spreading throughout her country- she is still praising and thanking God. After her prayer, we asked her why she has kept this strong faith even throughout all of her trials and hardships, and her response was that we shouldn't be thanking God on conditions of results. Wise words from a humble African mama. I love my dear Konah.

Today we had our mission leadership council meeting. Which is where all the district and zone leaders get together to receive trainings from President Poulsen, us and some of the zone leaders. And this MLC was focused on going back to the basics. Often times in the world, and even the church, you see that people want to skip the basics and go straight into being creative and inventive, without understanding the basics. But as missionaries we have been given a tool called the "Fundamentals of Preach my Gospel." In these fundamentals, it has studies, and activities, and journal prompts and inspired questions on how we can expound on these basic principles; such as revelation through church attendance, and how to teach people and not lessons. And we know that as we master these fundamentals, we will be like the Master Teacher, Jesus Christ. To introduce this concept, I began with an analogy. I have played volleyball for as long as I can remember, and I actually began playing as a middle hitter. Most of you who have seen me play recently would probably laugh after hearing that... but anyway, when I started playing as a middle I had an absolutely awful arm swing. Keep in mind that I was a 5'8 12 year old; completely awkward. And I didn't do anything to change my arm swing for 3 years! When I was in 8th grade, my coach finally told me that I need to completely re-train my muscle memory to swing correctly. She had me tie tennis balls from my ceiling in my bedroom to have one reach the top of my elbow of my swinging arm and the other to reach my finger tips of my directing arm. These tennis balls must have been hanging in my room for two years until I finally got it right, even with 500 practice swings a day! But because I went back to the basics, went back to the fundamentals of volleyball, I was able to move forward to play in a very elite level of play. It takes work. It takes dedication. It takes motivation. But if we want to be successful at anything we pursue in life we must first master the fundamentals. And so this is what we are hoping to achieve so that we can raise the acceleration of progression in the mission.

That is about it for me this week, we don't have as many meetings this week so I am exciting to have some more time to be out on the square and in the teaching center. I love y'all so much and hope that you have a stellar week!

Sister Brock