Called to Serve in DC North: Last Week at the MTC

Hello everyone!!! :)

IT HAS BEEN SNOWING HERE!!!!! :)

This week has been kind of sad... my sweet companion left for the Long Beach California Mission and the rest of the Elders in my district left for the Baltimore, Maryland Mission! It was so sad saying goodbye to everyone! They have been like a second family to me here at the MTC! I have one more week for my Visitors' Center training (we go for three weeks instead of two). SOOOO now my new companion is Sister Starling! (She used to be in a trio companionship with Sister Miller and Sister Losada.) All these wonderful girls are in my room and we all are going to Visitors' Centers! Sister Starling is probably the strongest person I know! Her mom has been having heart problems and had to have surgery and it didn't really go as planned... so she has to take a bunch of medication (keep her in your prayers). Sister Starling decided and felt like she needed to go out on a mission! She seriously has the most faith! She knows that this gospel truly does bless families and that her mom will get better as she is serving as a full time missionary! Her mom is already getting better slowly. Ahh I get the chills every time she tells that story! She is an amazing person! "I never said it would be easy... I only said it would be worth it." That is so true! I'm not sure who said that quote but I know that everything will be worth it in the end!

So this week I started my Visitors' Center training! There are SOOO many different Sisters here from ALL AROUND THE WORLD. In my class there are 20 Sisters in the training and they are all from either Mexico, Korea, Chile, Argentina, Switzerland, Peru, or the US!! Our teacher was telling us that out of the 87,000 missionaries they call, only 600 go to the different Visitors' Centers around the world! The training has been so great! We get bused up to Temple Square in Salt Lake to do some hands on stuff tomorrow! We all are SO EXCITED! Something cool that we got to do this week was answer the chats from Mormon.org!! It was such a cool experience! If you ever have any questions, go to Mormon.org and chat with someone!! :)

For the Sunday Devotional, it was all about families! Brother Zeidner (my Mission Prep teacher at BYU for Summer Term) gave the devotional! IT was so awesome. I miss my family SO MUCH but I know that this is the right decision for me right now and that the blessings will flow to them as I am serving the Lord. We are all members of God's Eternal Family!!!!!!! We are all in this together. :)

It was super sketchy... A couple days ago at dinner........ALL THE LIGHTS WENT OUT!!!!!!! Haha it was such a weird experience! None of us knew what to do.... They had to put on the emergency lights!!! :0 Later that night... all the fabulous girls in my room and I went out to brush our teeth... and no one brought a key... (because we normally keep our door unlocked BUT we just had a cleaning check and had to lock our door because that was one of the things we had to do to pass it) haha so ya just as we were thinking how we all were going to have to go all the way to the front office (WITH NO SHOES ON) in the freezing weather in our pajamas to get the spare key.... a lovely sister and her companion volunteered to go out and get it for us! They were still dressed in their warm clothes! We were so happy! Everyone is seriously so nice here and it makes me want to be a better person and to go get people's spare keys when they lock themselves out!!! :)

Something that I learned a lot about this week was obedience. We CANNOT be successful missionaries without EXACT obedience. I always heard this but never really thought much of it! Obedience affects missionaries in every aspect. As a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints we have authority! We get that as soon as we are set apart to be full time missionaries... HOWEVER the power comes from God and we get that power by being obedient. That power is all up to us. More importantly, we have to be obedient to Heavenly Father and align our will with His. This is HIS gospel and HIS work, so we have to do it HIS way:) "God does not begin by asking us about our ability, but only about our availability, and if we then prove our dependability, he will increase our capability" (Neal A. Maxwell).

Well I miss you all and just challenge you to come unto Christ and be perfected in Him (Moroni 10:32). A way you can do this is by striving to follow His example and be like Him! He is humble, obedient, a healer, kind, a teacher, courageous, a servant, submissive, selfless, full of love, and the list goes on! Pick a Christlike attribute to work on this week! Jesus Christ can heal us physically and spiritually if we just exercise a little bit of faith! How are you using Christ's Atonement to overcome your weaknesses/trials? Come where Jesus Christ always was and is and overcome your fear and have faith. Everyone has to be strong because Christ was strong!:) Love you all!!

Love, Sister Freeman!:)