My last week at the MTC has begun! I'm getting so close to heading out I'm getting so freaked out and antsy, I can't wait to get out to France!
This week was super fun and really awesome, despite it being relatively normal for the MTC. We started last Wednesday by welcoming 10 new Elders into our zone here, as Zone Leaders Elder Kelsey and I got to welcome them and give them the tour and orientation. They are all going to the Canada Montreal mission, and it was super fun to meet them all and they're all really cool people. One of them, Elder Bennion, even knows Nick! He hung out with him throughout his BYU track camp and they were good friends there, so really cool and funny he's in our zone!
We had a lot of fun this week, my funnest part of every day is gym each night. Our zone always plays volleyball against each other and even though I am terrible, I always get a few amazing plays that make it all worth it and that I always freak out about and over-celebrate. It's super fun, and we're all like family now, it's kind of sad to think we'll be leaving them all soon.
When we leave for France our district will be split in half, the Elders on a 3-stop flight to Lyon, and the sisters on a non-stop to Paris. It'll be sad to part ways, but it's been super fun with these really great girls in our class who are all so cool and caring and really like sisters to us while we've been here with them. I'm excited to go to France!
Left to Right: back: Elder Zhu, Elder Laney (me), Elder Kelsey (my companion), Elder Carlson
front: Soeur Tilbe, Soeur Vincent, Soeur Pace, et Soeur Woolley
Oh and that reminds me, we got our flight plans!! The Elders, like said before, have a 3-stop flight. Me, Elder Kelsey, Elder Zhu, and Elder Carlson will be on a flight with the other Lyon missionaries to New York JFK, then to Paris Charles de Gaulle, and then off to the Lyon airport. Super excited.
I've had a great week, and lessons have been awesome because we're teaching a real investigator now! It's cool, her name is Chrissy and she moved here with her brother to Utah and got a job at the MTC being an investigator for missionaries. Kind of a funny job position, but we saw her one day and her gold tag which signifies her investigator status, so we dropped by and talked to her and scheduled a lesson. We've taught her twice since, and each lesson is really awesome. It's been in English, which is really cool, and we've been really helping her understand a lot that she's been confused about. She's about our age, so it's interesting to be teaching someone around our same age, its a really cool experience.
I learned a lot by teaching her this week about faith and the story of the seed in Alma. In Alma, a book in the Book of Mormon, Alma, a prophet, speaks about a metaphor of a seed. When this seed is planted, one sees that it starts to grow, and sees that it's good. When they see this, they feel the desire to help it grow further, so they nourish it with water and take good care of it. It then grows and grows until it becomes a sturdy tree, immovable, and beautiful. In this analogy, the seed is faith, a belief in that which is unseen, but which is true. As this faith grows, one begins to desire to know more and to grow closer to God. The tree is then a firm belief, a faith and knowledge unshakable, joyful and beautiful bringing them more joy than they could ever imagine.
What I realized in this is that one has to plant that seed, but it's not the missionaries that plant it. It's the person, by opening their heart to the possibility, and to the influence of God through the Holy Ghost, to plant that seed for them. However, to do this, I read Alma 32:27:
"But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words."
So to gain faith, one has to exercise just a little bit of it, even if it is just a desire to believe. And if one exercises that little bit of faith, and thereby opens their heart to the very possibility of the truth of these things, and shows God that they do want to know, and believe, then He will plant that seed they have shown in their hearts, and they will grow to know, and He will answer them if they ask.
Sorry for the long email, but I just wanted to leave that message. Don't be afraid of finding out if something is true or not, or helping someone else to. It is either true, or it is not. If one wants to find out, they just have to know how to. The way how is to show that faith, by asking God, because He will let them know. Prayer, and reading the words of God, will lead to an understanding that can never be shaken, to a believe firmer than the toughest rock, and a conviction and knowledge and love in God that no one can take from them.
Sincerely,
Elder Laney
I think that is a great story about his "real investigator "
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