The Power of the Priesthood Is Real

Akon Pamilya!!

Thanks so much for the jump-rope! It's light weight, but nice. So perfect! 

I am so sorry to hear about Grandpa. I will definitely fast for both him and Grandma tomorrow. 

We had in-field orientation yesterday. Can't believe that already happened. It was very inspiring yesterday, despite being 8 hours long. I loved how much specific direction they gave us on how to fulfill our purpose. We learn about our purpose a lot in class, but it was nice to learn specific ways. We learned about goal setting before planning, finding, key indicators, referrals, working with members, etc. I loved it. 

In the key indicators section, we learned about finding balance. For example, not focusing too much on contacting so that you don't even have time to teach the people you find. It is a simple enough principle in theory, but I know that will be a hard one to accomplish in practice. 

One thing that I really didn't like about yesterday was that we didn't have any study time. 
We had to make up for it today. Which is great but hard because it means that we don't have enough time to get those other things done that can only be done on p-days. For that reason, p-day is almost always my most stressful day of the week. 

Sister Lewis and I are making good progress on teaching in unity as a companionship. I feel like we are both pretty good at recognizing promptings from the spirit, but we lack faith in following those promptings because we don't know how to say it in Ilonggo, and if one of us does follow that prompting, it isn't a very certain thing that the other companion will understand, and so the other companion is lost. In most cases, that "other companion" is me. I can usually speak better than I can understand. But I'm getting better, and we're learning how to plan better. Especially focusing on inspired questions.

Mom! I get to call you at the airport on Thursday morning! Uh...I leave the MTC at 3:30 in the morning, but I can't remember what time my flight leaves. I think around 8. So I should call you like. 7am? Maybe even earlier? I wish I brought my flight itinerary with me to the computer labs...
We fly to Tokyo and from there to Manila, where we spend 5 days in the MTC. Then we fly to Bacolod. No idea what we're going to do in Manila for 5 days, but I'm sure it will be great. They don't teach Ilonggo there. The Provo MTC is the only facility in the world that teaches Hiligaynon or Ilonggo. 

Another cool fact, the MTC is the number one language learning facility in the world, and we only spend one hour of language study and one hour of language instruction a day. The gift of tongues is real. Seriously.

It was really cool to see Lexi and Natalie! The retainer is a lot better! Much better than the first one. 

I had an early departing interview with Brother White, the 2nd councilor in my branch presidency. He gave me some really great, specific advice. One being to start a journal for scripture stories. Write down the basic story in a few sentence and the main characters and the scripture references. Then write ways that the story could be applied to a lesson. He said that Christ taught through stories. They apply to people. 

It reminded me of the blessing that Papi gave me before I left. He said that I would find ways to apply every-day things to the gospel principles. So I decided to include analogies or examples in the story journal as well. But I think that advice was inspired. I've made three or four entries in it already. It's really fun actually.

This week after devotional, our district president, President P, asked the elders in our district if they had consecrated oil. He told them on Sunday to get some. They hadn't yet. He kinda scolded them for not having it and for not offering Sister V, who lost her voice. (Her voice sounds really raspy. She has Laryngitis. It comes and goes I guess. Once she lost her voice for three months!!) Anyway, so President P let them borrow his oil, and they gave her a blessing after district devotional review. 
It was all of their first time giving a blessing. I held the missionary handbook for Elder Benedict as he gave the blessing. He was super nervous and stumbled over his words. It was the simplest blessing, but he told her not to worry about her voice. It would be healed. 

Directly after the blessing, she shook all of their hands, then went and got a drink of water, and then said, "ayos." Which means, alright or okay. Then she stopped suddenly and put a hand on her throat:
"I can speak!!!" 

She could speak. She was singing and laughing again at the residence hall that night. We were all so grateful! 

Later that night I was washing my face, and Sister A came to one of the sinks next to me. I said to her,

"Do you know what surprises me the most about tonight?"

"What?"

"How unsurprised I am."

The power of the priesthood is real. The gospel is true. Miracles really do happen.
I just realized yesterday when I was looking at my four generations chart that Elder Benedict and I could be related!! Granka's maiden name is Benedict. Hm. Cool. 

Hope you have a great week!! 

Sister Marriott


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