Week #2 MTC

Wow wow wow.........another week come and gone. I learn more here in a day than I learned in a semester of college. First off, I am changing as a person. We were in line at the cafeteria when this one worker started giving this guy wearing a University of Utah sweater a super hard time and was just so rude to him. I guess Utah lost pretty bad last weekend. I saw the guy later and APOLOGIZED for how rude the BYU fan had been. Who the heck am I? I was just so embarrassed at how horrible that worker had been. So family and friends, you may not even recognize me by the time I get home.

Okay, now for some real cool stuff. My testimony of Joseph Smith has grown so much this week. I know that he was a prophet of God and that by humble people are great things brought to pass. Yesterday, my companion and I were doing weekly planning and right now we have two "fake investigators" but we are to treat them as real ones. Florina is one of the investigators. She is a very humble single mom. When we asked her to read a scripture in the lesson, she was very hesitant because she could not read very well. During planning it hit me how important it was that she understand how humble of a person Joseph Smith was and how the Lord used him to do incredible things. Then I saw how incredible Florina could be as a member. She would be just the sweetest member of Relief Society. It was the coolest experience to get see someone's potential. It was such a testimony to me of what the Lord sees in each of us. Whether we belong to the Mormon Church or not, our Father in Heaven has a plan for each of us and has somebody He needs us to become. As I learn more and more about our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ, I get overwhelmed by just how much they love us. Everything that God and Christ have done for us is out of love. Our trials that we must go through? They have been given to us out of love. Just like Dad makes his basketball boys run up that hill every monday so they can be stronger, our Heavenly Father gives us hills to strengthen us and to teach us. Without hills we could return to live with him after this life. Here's the difference between Dad and Heavenly Father, Heavenly Father gives us Christ to run up the hill with. We are NEVER alone. (I don't think dad is running up that hill with his boys.)

This week, we also learned about the power of prayer. In Romania, everybody knows what prayer is but they use memorized prayers that don't really mean anything to them. Our other investigator is a college student. At the beginning of the lesson, he was being way rude and kept on pulling out his phone and stuff. I told him (in Romanian) that the only way he was going to get something out of this lesson was if he was focusing on what we were discussing and how he felt about it. So I guess I haven't changed that much, I'm still pretty fiesty. My companion loved it though. As soon as we got out, she told our whole zone about it. So now everyone knows the real me not the sweet sora I was pretending to be... opps.

Back to prayer though. I had the opportunity to testify of the power of prayer. As I did, the spirit testified to me of how strong prayer really is. Prayer is a conversation with God, can it get any better than that seriously? Heavenly Father hears our prayers, every single one of them no matter how humble or disjointed they are. Most of my prayers are half Romanian half english but he does not care. We are his children and prayer is our opportunity to communicate with him. Prayer can change hearts I know it can. I pray everyday for each of you. Thank you so much for your prayers. I beg of you to take your worries and pains and questions to the Lord through prayer and you will feel peace. Whenever we invite an investigator to pray, they always look so worried. But after they do, we can see the feeling of peace that comes over them. When our hearts are in the right place, prayer will bring us peace and strength in our darkest times. I bear testimony of that. Okay, that's my high horse of the week. But seriously PRAY!

Romanian is going well, mine is still very broken but I am working on verbs and we are starting to learn a lot about grammar which is hard. But it is still good. I have memorized a couple of scriptures in Romanian and I am working on the First Vision. When I bore my testimony in Romanian to Parker he said I sounded really "white" so I should probably work on my accent also. The main thing is I just have to keep working though. It is crazy how much cross country has prepared me for this mission. I know from cross country that I cannot think negative thoughts if I am going to accomplish what I need to accomplish. I also know from cross country that we must edify those around us in order to succeed. Did you know that word edify comes from the word edifice which is building so to edify someone is to build them up? We learned that in devotional last night. I also have a testimony of hard work from cross country, so I know that through the Lord (and hard work0 I can do hard things.

Life is good here. My name is on the board in the gym for the pull up record so that is way cool. I can also break the dips record. I found that out yesterday when I tried it just for fun. Also I ran a mile and got a 6:41 which I know is not great, but I was kind of proud of myself for it. And I have not passed out once so there you go! I also balled it up with this girl that played basketball at Snow College last year and that was so much fun. The MTC truly is an incredible place. During the morning, I'm defending this 5'10" girl on the bastketball court and in the afternoon I'm giving a lesson about Joseph Smith in Romanian. I really do love it!

Okay family friends, I'm signing off. I love each of you and your prayers are truly blessing my life. Know that your Father in Heaven loves you no matter what and He wants you to come unto Him! I have experienced a joy here that I have never felt before. At the same time, I am so humbled by this call.

Mult Dragoste!

Sora Armstrong