Wow, it has been a big week. My three-week Preach My Gospel training is officially over, and all the elders in our district are already serving in the field (Washington D.C. and San Diego). We only have a few more days here to to Visitors' Center training and we are off as well! I never thought I'd say this, but the time has really flown. I miss our elders already; I learned so much from them! But I am excited for this week. As part of our Visitors' Center training, we get to go to Temple Square twice in the next week. It is going to be awesome! I am so excited to go out and share the good news with "real" people. We have been taught that one of our best tools in missionary work is our personalities. Sometimes when we get nervous, it gets easy to start acting like a robot... Boring! But I like talking to people, especially about things that I am excited about. I can't think of any news more exciting than the idea that God's true church as Christ himself organized it has been restored to the Earth through living prophets, can you?! But somehow, it is a lot easier sometimes to tell people about your new favorite restaurant than about the gospel. I got some good advice this week to help me not be nervous when I'm sharing this message though. It was simply to pretend like everyone is your best friend. Don't wait to know everything about them, just decide to like them immediately and that you can talk to them about anything, especially something that will help them. It really helps me to loosen up a little bit around strangers. We'll see how it goes once I actually will need to talk to strangers everywhere I go, but from what I can tell it's a brilliant outlook to have. :)
So... the SECOND most exciting thing on my mind this week is Christmas. Who doesn't love Christmas? It is a great way to start a gospel-centered discussion. I almost wish I were already in the field just so I could talk to people about Jesus Christ while they already have Him in their minds and hearts at this time of year. I would like to challenge each of you who read this to talk to your friends about Christmas, and in the conversation to focus on inviting your friend to come closer to Christ. (That is the official purpose of missionaries of the LDS church: to "invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel".) It doesn't really matter if your friend is a member of this church, another church, or no church at all, if you are inviting others to Christ, you are doing missionary work and you are serving the Lord. I know that if you do this with even one of your friends in this week leading up to Christmas, you will have an extra-special spirit of Christmas with you this year, "for the spirit of Christmas is the spirit of Christ," as President Uchtdorf said in his address at the First Presidency Christmas Devotional this year.
Speaking of Christmas, I will miss you all, but I am SUPER psyched to spend Christmas in the MTC. I am already starting to receive cards and packages, thank you to those who are sending me mail (I never realized how much missionaries LOVE mail!). I know I am not being forgotten this holiday season, and I am really excited to be able to spend this Christmas thinking about and serving others. There isn't a whole lot I can do to serve while I'm at the MTC but I know there will be other missionaries I can cheer up and love. I am especially excited to have a Christmas so focused on Christ. I feel very blessed to be able to celebrate the birth of our Savior in a place where he is learned about and taught about ALL THE TIME. I honestly can't think of another place on Earth where so many people have sacrificed so much and worked so hard to devote their lives to His work. So I fully expect Christmas to be awesome. I hear that general authorities usually visit for Christmas, and I have heard rumors that whoever it is this year is going to be exciting, but I guess I will have to update you from New York on that.
Speaking of which, the MTC has awesome speakers all the time! This last Tuesday, we had a devotional given by Sister Dalton. Yeah, be jealous; she rocks. I love her! We have a speaker like that twice a week and it is such a blessing.
I only have three minutes left, but I do get another p-day this week on Friday because we are doing visitors' center training so the schedule is different. Really quickly, I wanted to share my little miracle of the week. I believe I have shared a little bit about Lawanna in the past. Well we taught her for the last time this week. We spent a lot of time preparing, trying to fit her needs. After the lesson, she told us that although we had addressed the needs of the investigator she was playing really well, our topic, discussion, and invitations also perfectly fit her needs as a member. Something awful had recently happened to a friend, and she had to learn to forgive, and we had been teaching about how the Atonement can help us forgive, even though that's not on the "checklist" of things we have to teach. I felt really blessed to know that the Spirit had been able to work through my companionship to teach this amazing woman.
Gotta run. I love you all! Write you soon. :)
Sister Schank
