More MTC Photos

Sister Jordan and Sister Atwood with their golden investigator Sydney

Sister Jordan at the Temple

Sister Jordan and her District at the Temple

Last Day at the MTC

So my biggest lesson/realization I learned this week is that this IS the gospel of Love, and that baptism is a huge point of missionary work. This is because being baptized is the first action that we make to show Heavenly Father that we want to change and take upon ourselves the name of Christ. Seriously studying this gospel has made me realize that this isn't the Mormon church, but is in fact the church of Jesus Christ restored back to this earth. I now understand that I am not forcing my beliefs on others but am just helping them to find Christ. I feel excited to come back home so that I can share the happiness of Christ's gospel with EVERYONE!!!!:))))I totally understand now why people say that the first convert on your mission is always yourself. I feel as if my understanding has been quickened and magnified. 

   Also, we had training on teaching this week, which will be perfect because I will be meeting tons very soon!:) I also learned in this training that help from the ward members in helping the missionaries to find, help others to Come Unto Christ is essential. That made me so happy that we have such a great relationship with the missionaries,be on the look out and pray to find those who are ready to receive God's Love through this gospel of happiness. 

   So now for the AMAZING spiritual experiences I had this week!!!

We are teaching this investigator named Sydney and she is just a golden investigator. Every time we went to teach, I felt like we were both teaching each other. So we introduced her to the Book of Mormon, and she was SO interested. In fact she wanted to know exactly when Jesus came to the Americas. I was like uuhhh...dang it all those years of seminary for nothing hahaha So I just started flipping through the BOM because I at  least had to try. I even tried to get around it by saying that I would look for it and show her the next day, but she was so persistent. Just as I had given up, and just placed the book on my lap, I looked down and saw the words Jesus Christ. I was like AWWWHHH MANNNN I FOUND IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I literally screamed that, I was filled with so much joy that I started to tear up. I honestly had no idea where that scripture was(3 Nephi 11 btw) but I knew she needed to hear it I tried but as I could do no more, the spirit had already guided me to exactly where I needed to be. 

  Next Awesome experience. So we walked into our departure devotional last night, and I overheard that the Elders in front of us were going to Alabama, Birmingham Alabama!! I had a mini freak out and went over to talk to them. I was like this is so perfect because I had been praying for Papa and that he would be able to have the missionaries come and teach him, and here they were!!!!! So we exchanged emails and they said they would love to teach and find Papa! Then at the end of the meeting, I went to go say thanks again. One of the elders said that he wanted to apologize to me, because for a couple of days he had been feeling promptings to come and talk to me and didn't. He even said he saw me that day at lunch and even told his companion about wanting to talk to me, but didn't. The feelings of God's love just overwhelmed me. He had been looking out for both of us and made it possible for me to come up to him and talk to him about Papa. The humility of that Elder was just amazing to me, he didn't have to tell me that at all, but he did anyways. 

   This is my last day here at the MTC, and I am filled with bittersweet feelings. Yesterday half of our district left for Alaska and the rest will be going to San Diego:/ I loved being here and growing in my convictions. Meeting so many wonderful people and being able to grow with them. Having amazing teachers that guided us, and just the atmosphere of being around those with the same desires and beliefs that you have is totally strengthening. But I am Super excited to get to Nebraska and meet the people waiting there for me. This was just a preparatory state for making it there and I am super excited. They call us the 14 day miracles, because we leave here deeper disciples of Christ more filled with purpose and knowledge that can be obtained in just 2 short weeks, and yet we have!:)

MTC Photos

Sister Jordan with her MTC district

Funny MTC district picture

Sister Jordan and her MTC companion Sister Atwood

Funny picture with Sister Atwood

Sister Jordan pointing to her Nebraska Omaha Mission

Sister Jordan and her MTC district at the Provo Utah Temple

The Happiest Place on Earth

So the MTC is a wonderful place, everyone is so loving, sociable, friendly, caring, fun, open and so knowledgeable. We spend our time studying, praying, practice teaching, learning how to teach and eating. However it is so hard too. It is one thing to know the principles of the gospel yourself, but to teach is a totally different  ball game. I am not going to lie, I can see how some missionaries would want to leave, because the first couple of days are pretty overwhelming with all the new things. I am SOOO thankful to be speaking English, because there is No way I could have learned to teach the gospel in any other language. I now have so much more respect for foreign missionaries. But I do love it here, everyone is so nice and sociable, you make friends everywhere you go.

    Like I said before, teaching is hard! Pretty much everyday we have been here, we had to teach investigators. I have the knowledge, but when it comes to spitting it out, I just go blank. So I have been praying hard to increase my faith and rely on the holy ghost to loosen my tongue, and as I practice more and become more comfortable with teaching, I am doing better. Yesterday I rocked my lesson!!!! I can't wait to see myself after the mission and how eloquent with teaching I wll be hahah

   Ok, now about my companions and district. My companion(Sister Atwood from Canada) came a day late because her visa hadn't come through. So our other sisters, Sister McGee(red hair), Sister Fambrough(tall with blond hair) and Sister Purcell(black hair) adopted me for the day. I LOVE all of the girls. They are all so inspiring, honest, sweet, uplifting, and great examples to me.  In our district, we have Elders Strong, Moore, Williams, and Cook. They are all really great as well, though not nearly as good as us sisters. But they can't help it girls are just better;)) They are always super polite, they hold our doors open, take our food trays, save us seats, and even stand when we enter the room. All we have to do is remind them a little. What can I say, we trained them well:))) 

   I hope you guys watched general Conference this week...because it was great.I watched all the sessions of course. In the Saturday  session, I liked L. Whitney Clayton, L. Tom Perry, Bednar, and Wilford W. Anderson's talk. Would you be able to send me Bednar's talk on Godly  Fear, that is something I would like to study deeper. For Sunday's session, I liked the talks by Holland and Ucthdorf. Could you send me Uchtdorf's talk too please:))) Those were my favorites but all of Conference was great. They even had a African guy speak! If you have any questions feel free to contact me, I would love to hear from you guys.