July 23, 2014 Vanessa

Hola! 

I hope you enjoyed my Trax story from last time. I just found out earlier this week, I think it was on Sunday, that William's information was forwarded on and missionaries are going to be teaching him!! I literally jumped up and down and clapped....yikes I know...I was just a little bit excited... Sadly nothing like that happened this week really... I mean, I guess I did have a cool experience with one of our investigators. Her name is Vanessa and she is so hard to teach! The first two times with her were pretty hard and kind of awful...a little bit... um yeah so basically she said so does't believe that God answers her prayers or that God loves her and stuff and that she doesn't need anything from our religion in her life because she is happy now and stuff. She said she would just like to learn more about the culture of our church... so we just taught her about Joseph Smith and the first vision and she really liked that "story" as she called it. The next lesson was the best one. It's the one that I felt the Spirit in and it actually went pretty well. So she grew up with an abusive dad and she brings that up all the time because he almost killed her mom and stuff and it was really hard when she started talking about that again. I don't know why but for some reason it hit me really hard that particular day. I had been praying a lot a lot a lot to be able to love Vanessa the way that Christ does so that she knows that I love her so that she can trust me and believe me when I say that God really does love her. So maybe that was why it hit me so hard. But I told her something like this (I can't remember exactly what I said because I truly believe that it was the Spirit speaking and not really me...if that makes any sense): I told her, I honestly don't know what you went through because I have never experienced that and I don't know why bad things happen to us sometimes. I really don't know why. (Then this is where I just felt so much love for her and I started crying-of course!) But I don't want you to feel this way anymore. I don't want you to feel sad and alone. Then I basically just bore my testimony that I know that God really does love her and I pleaded with her to just pray to Him one more time, to honestly and sincerely pray and pour out her heart to Him. I told her to just say anything and everything that she wanted to say and even if she was mad at Him, to just pour out the feelings of her heart because I know that God knows her and loves her and that He listens. It was just really cool after that because she just said, "Ok. It's about time I prayed." And she totally leaned forward and started praying without me even having to ask her to!! And she truly did pour out her heart! It was amazing to be a part of that and to feel so much love for her and to see her heart softening! It was amazing! and it helped me and Hermana Palmer to feel like we were actually helping her and getting somewhere with her. So yeah that was one of the good experiences I guess :)

Um...haha I am so sorry that this week's letter is so lame! I just basically do the same things all day everyday so there isn't anything too exciting to report other than what I have already mentioned.

 Oh haha just kidding! I forgot! We had seven of our Elders leave on Monday and it was really sad. I miss them! They were so fun and funny and it was sad because it was like saying goodbye to our family again and we couldn't even hug them because they are Elders and we are Hermanas so...it was weird because we could only shake hands. But they are in Mexico right now and I have their emails but I don't know if I will have time to ask them how it is down there because I don't have a ton of time for emails in general. 

 Um, devotionals are always great! I think those are what I am going to miss most once I am out of the MTC. They are really like, my favorite things because I always learn so much! This last one that we had last night was really great! I took so many notes and had a lot of thoughts and learned a lot of things. One thing that I thought of during the devotional was this:

 This is the time, this short 18 months as a missionary, is the only time in my life that I can suit up everyday and testify of and represent the Lord Jesus Christ. I can give promises of power! Promises of power-not empty promises. Nothing in this Gospel is empty. It is all eternal life and eternal happiness and glory and all things wonderful and filling. Nothing is temporal or superficial or empty. While on my mission, I am privileged to wear the name of Jesus Christ on a name tag, over my heart. Everyone will look at me differently because of that and because of the light that I will hopefully have with me. I know that when I get home I will have to take of my name tag and that is going to be the hardest thing. I won't want to do it and I will probably be crying. But my deepest hope is that when I come home and take off my name tag, that people will still look at me like they did when I was a missionary. I hope that they will see the light of Christ in me and see that I am different and that they will be drawn to that. I hope that when they look at me, they will know without a doubt that I love my Savior Jesus Christ and I hope they KNOW that I am His disciple when they look at me. That is my hope and sincere desire. That is the thing that I really got out of the devotional last night, among several other things that I can share with you when I come home. I know that this gospel is true and I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to serve! I leave for Mexico in like, ten days or something like that and I can't wait to be down there learning Spanish and teaching the people of Puebla. I am very grateful for the Lord for this opportunity to be a missionary. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Love,
Hermana Walker :)