Another week in the MTC

First order of business: Sister Allyssa Elliot, whom I've had the privilage of seeing almost every day here for the past 3 weeks, has left for the field. I'm putting her address here for anyone who'd like to write her. I know she's way excited and would love to hear from you. Write her to find out her adventures!

Californial Roseville Mission

8583 Watt Ave.

Antelope CA 95843

USA

The Temple is open again! My companiotn and I just got back from the Provo Temple. We did initiatories. Mom, going there, losing my companion at the end, feeling the spirit, totally rmeminded me of you and I our first few times together. It was really special. Also the last name I went through I pictured one of our investagators going through for their first tiem. I diecided that it would be confusing, but filled with the Spirit that this was right. I'm glad for the chance to go to the temple. How awesome that Heavenly Father gives us a place to learn of Him and feel His power so close on the earth.

We are doing work on this and the other side of the veil!

I love p-days because they help me re-focus my energy for teh next week, and get to share our expereinces with all of you! Please dear elder me if you have questions, and Ill be sure to write you back :)

This week we said good bye to all of our older districts as well as our native Koreans. Sisters Song, Kim, Song (twins) and Lee are beautiful daughters of God and they are going to touch the world of Korea with their sweet spirits! Sisters Knapp and Henrie were our first coordinating sisters and they have a love for the gospel thats unstoppable. I know the Lord is with them as they go out.

There was an experience we had last night that I wanted to share.

We'd just finished cleaning our classroom. Our lesson had been on the fundemental (basic principle behind missionary work) "Recieving Revelation through Church Attendance." It was a really neat discussion because a few of us missionaries had not really connected the idea that goign to church is a way we can receive revelation from our Heavly Father. So being taught about it and then role playing with our companions was mroe difficult at first. Then I started listening to the comments of our fellow missionaries and our teacher Brother Pendley and visitor Brother Wilkonsen. How do we recieve revelation from goign to church? how can we share the importance of it with our investagators? How does it help them grow closer to baptizm, faith, repentance?

I loved teaching! As I spoke to Elder Cook in particular, I felt the Spirit very clearly, and I felt confident about what I said. More than that, I could feel that he was feeling the spirit too! I directed my words to his concerns. The Spirit was truly teaching Elder Cook as the investagator he played. There is a calling unlike any other in sharing the Gospel-in missionary work! We ended that lesson with so much more than I had going into it. I want to go into detail, but may I invite you to think about it for yourself? How does attending church, all three hours, help us be converted to Christ?

I know that it is a place where we can feel uplifted, inspired, and clean from the world. it is a place we can share and strengthen our testimonies. It's been a place for me to recieve personal revelation I didn't realize I'd needed.

When we open our hearts and turn our pitchures right side up, personal revelation for us through the Spirit will be poured out upon us like a river. I've felt it. I'm sure you have too! There's such a power in going to a place where the Lord wants us to be :)

Dad I love you!!! I know a lot of this stuff is addresssed to moom but I'm thinking of you and I treasure your letters.

Keep praying, I'm praying for you! Glad to hear gk health is good!! Please let me know what else you want me to write aboue next week, how I can do better

With all the love I have,

Sister Brooksby
 

WEEK 4!

Hi Everyone~!

 

I was going to copy and paste my most recent letter to my Branch President, but I wasn't able to. There was a really neat experience I had with faith.

 

Firstly, Katie Cook you are an angel! Thank you and your sweet mother so much for the "greenie package"!

 

Mary M and Jen, a letter is on the way, thanks for your patience! Love you both :D:D

 

Bishop Christensen, I am so glad your thinking of and praying for my brother and I. I do plan on writing you soon :) Keep up that beautiful humble spirit. You've been an example in my life.

 

1. So many have asked and I've neglected to tell you about the language! Okay so, yes, it's a different alphabet-Characters, really, but it's not bad. If you think of it like a secret language. A for this character, g/k for this one, etc.! It's really fun :)

 

Also! If you want to hear my companions take on our adventures at the MTC, read here at: anna.roueche.org

 She's super funny and you can get stories I didn't remember to share :)

 

This week we were learning about onions and adjetives. Onions are sentances that include a gerund of some sort (it really feels like I need to re take English sometimes :). A gerund 'thingifies' a verb. So like "Running is fun" is a gerund in Korean. We're also learning about indirect questions, such as "We will teach you about how Heavenly Father calls Prophets." In Korean, it's something like "We Brother (you) Heavenly Father Prophets calls (with a few jaws or characters to change the verb into an adjetive + "JI") will teach IMNIDA~! It's awesome and very backwards. But awesome! I'm just learning the best thing we can do is practice a TON! :)

In the lessons, sometmies our investagators ask questions that my companion and I want to answer, but we just don't have the vocabulary to yet. So we say "Daume!" or "Next time!" So that we can look up what ever they had questions about. We're really learning to adapt. :)

 

I also wanted to tell you all about the neat expereience it it being here at the MTC with all other languages and cultures represented. Just this morning in the sack lunch line, my compnaion and I struck up a conversation with some elders going to Madagasgar. They were in for 9 weeks to learn Malagasy. Hahah I love that name. Any how, we were talking about the differences in our language: how it's formed, tenses, and vocab. Guess what we discovered?

In Malagasy, every word that's a verb starts with the letter M. Nearly every noun begins with K, and to chance the tense to past or present, you just put an H or another letter on the beginning of the word. Easy as pie.

And in Mandrin. The Elders and Sisters here don't learn the writing system. They don't learn how to read. They just learn how to speak, supposing to pick up the written language once they are out in the field. And in Mandrin, they don't have past or future or progressive tenses at ALL! They just say. Yesterday i ran. Today I ran. Tomorrow I ran. CRAZY huh?? I'm really jealous...Actually, no, I'm not. They do have so SO much fun and our Mandrin missionaries always SYL! They are an example to me. But Don't catch them on the volleyball or kickball fields. They are absolutely.........energetic?? I'm not sure how to describe it....It's just something youhave to see :)

 

Okay update really quick!! I'm almost out of time. Our old districts are leaving for Korea next Tuesday! That means our district will be the old experienced ones. That's a bit mind blowing to me. We have a new batch of missionaries from all over (expect Korea) coming in August 8th. President Shin asked me to be the Coordinating Sister (kind of like a female Zone Leader), and I totally said yes! SO we get the opportunity to do orientation for these new fellow missionaries next Wednseday and I'm really excited! Thought I still feel awfully new myself :) I also get to do nightly visits and work with our Branch Presidency a lot more now. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to serve.

Keep our newest missionaries in you prayers? I know they'll be exicted and really nervous!

 

finally, I wantded to share a quick thought. Elder Allen (who does everything missionary related) spoke to us on Sunday for our Fireside. His address was really interactive, having all of us stand up for different reasons (I'm thinking this is an execellent strategy for the sleepy ones of us ;) and sing with the Mormon Tabernacle Recording of "Come, Come ye Saints". During his message, I was on fire. Firstly, I love the spirit of music and the power it brings to the message. And secondly, his message was awesome.

I don't have time to post them here, but if you can on your own, look up the words to that hymn and imagine yourself as a missionary in the MTC or field. It gets discouraging. Sometimes you see your classmates progressting so much faster in the language than you are. Sometimes your overwhelmed with your own weaknesses, or you feel really alone. The power in the message of that hymn...

"Though hard to you, this journy may appear, but with joy wend your way!

All is well, All is well!!"

 

I do know that when we place our trust in Jesus Christ, our Savior, no matter what happens, all is well. I love this Gospel. I love the Lord!

Thank you for your bright exapmels and may angels watch over you and your loved ones alwyas.

This work will go forward!

 

Always yours,

Sister Brooksby

Finally a letter from Haley to Post

Hey everyone!

So I've decided to use all of my computer time on writnig this email so as to fill you in on everything that's been going on. Please Dear Elder me! Love you!

Day one went something like this. I got graciously dropped off at the curb of the MTC in Provo Wednesday, June 27th, left in the fantastic hands of sisters who guided me through each process, pointing to arrows, telling me to fill out forms and answer questions. They didn't have our home phone number correct so I got sent to another line....duhn duhn DUHN!

Anyways, there was this cute Sister Christensen who actually left today for her mission in the Phillipenes, (She has a picture of the two of us at the Temple on her blog "Hillary Christensen: Mission" If you google it maybe you could see it?) She was SO awesome, she even bought me a pen when I couldnt' find one for class. Because class was the first place we went :)

Brother Tanner was already there, and I and Elder Houston were his first students. He spoke. But not anything I knew.

With Korean flying faster than I can run, he explained the alphabet (which are characters based on the shape your mouth makes) in Korean. I loved it because I already knew the aphabet, but I did need a refresher. Because of the background I'd had in Korean, I was so so so SO SO blessed to understand a lot of what was going on. As more of our new district (District 28 Fighting!) reported, I could see the desire to learn, but also it was scary! We didn't nkow what he was saying, and played the "gesture gameh" as he put it, for much of the time. there I met my incredibly perfectly awesome companion, sister Roueche (pronounced Roo-shay), and soon found out how much fFUN she was. She has the courage of a lion, and when i asked if she was nervous or missed her family at the curb, she said "Not really,". I'll tell you more stories soon!

 Then we had a break for Dinner, which blew my mind. Have you ever seen the MTC Cafeteria? Well, I guess I hadn't considered that it feeds THOUSANDS OF MISSIONARIES! There were so many different thinsg you could eat! Ice cream, HOT FUDGE, oreos. sprinkles, caramel, (Oh ya, there was dinner items too like french fried and chicken sticks, lasanga, etc.) and Salad!!!! Since then, there hasn't beent he same salad served twice. it's amazing what they do here. I love the salads.....

Dinner being over, we were told there was a New Missionary Workshop, so off we went! I basically followed the crowd. The workshop was neat. really neat. All of us in the theater-type setting became each other's companions as investagators came out. We asked them questions and interacted with them. The first and probabaly the couple that touched me the most was a hispanic couple. He had questions about why so many bad things had happened in his past. He wanted to know why a God who could love us let such things happen. We all tried multiple scirtpures to help him understand. But when one elder stood up and bore his simple testimony of his faith in a loving God, even when we don't understand, i could feel the power of the Spirit in that room. So many had things to say and add, but the power of that simple testimony prevailed with me throughout each expereience. I wish I could tell you about them all!

Time is 14:21 left.

Currently, Sister Roueche and I have two investegators. Kim Min Soo, and Yun Sung Churl. Both are interested and have a desire. One is easier for me to understandl; the other we couldn't connect with just yet. That first meeting I learned SO much. We'd asked to start out with a prayer. He responded saying it was strange and awkward (he wrote these words down, so we could look them up afrter). We knew that the Spirit wasn't with us. We wondered whre to go. So we talked about the Spirit. HE didn't understand. I pulled out True to the Faith and asked if he would read the despriction of the Spirit. It wasn't my best move ever ;)

He read EVERYTHiNG in that section which felt like 10 minutes long. My comnpatnion was just laughing by my side. Then we asked if he had questions. he talked about the Trinity, and we tried to explain. It left both of us renderless, and he pointed to his watch just as my companion got an impression from the Holy Ghost. She wasn't able to share her thought or bear testimony because he was out of time.

Walking out of that room, I felt the weight of failure. We hadn't helped him draw closer to Christ, and we'd only made him thing of the bad things about his religeon.. (How his minister when he was uyounger told him "Repent! Repent or be dammed to Hell!")

But we learned! I'm learning that the MTC isn't a place for us to come and succeed every time. Its not a place where the Spirit just gives you what to say all the time. Sometimes, youir brain freezes. Sometimes you don't know how to express in your language what you want to express. sometimes you're certain your investagator won't call you back for a 2nd appointment.

I'm learning it's okay! We are growing! And that is why we are here. :)

Our lesson with Yun Brother went really well. He is growing in faith and he commited to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. We aske dhi m to read Mosiah cahpter 5. read it if you ahve a sec!

PS RECORD BREAKING NUMBERS FOR INCOMING SISTER MISSIONARIES WERE ANNOUNCED LAST WEEK!!!!! GO SISTER MISSIONARIES!!!!!

Another quick expereicne: We did Teaching resource Center for the first time this week, where volunteers come in and weteach in theri language. Sister Boone was trying to ask her investagator "What do you want for your family?" As a question into the importance of the Gospel. Her investagator was a single young man, a bit older than her, unmarried. He looked at her strangely, as did her companion. Aftet the lesson shs asked "Wat happend?" Her companion repsonded "You said, 'Do you want a famiy?'"

She told us taht night and we were all CRACking up :D:D:D:D LOVE bloopers htyeamke everythign fun :)

Dad-I told alll of my roomies my running away story at dinner the other night. They were all crackin up hahahah ;)

Sister Mickiff said "you are asked to give up a lot of things on your mission. Make-0up is not one of them!"

Breanna Asbelll! Thank you so much for your goodie bag- it really came at an awesome time1! I only regret not haveing your address to write you . Mom can you get her address or email addres for me to send her a letter? Thank you so so much you're an angetl both of you!

Mary Mecham, Jen, I am so thankful for your letters and your experiences and your encouragement! I will write next week! I ran out of time today.

I love you all ,please take care and tell me how you are doing! I love you missionary work is the best!

Sister Brooksby

Haley's First Letter home!

 I love the TMC. I Love the Spirit here, and how we really feel the mantle of the missionary. I was talking withour Branch President (A Korean) Shin about what he could for me. I just asked for his prayers, because the first few days here were really challenging. He told meto remember  that out of the 14 million current church memebers, 10 million pray for us at least once a day, and the temples and our families and they and so many others do. That's pretty inspiring.

So the next time i knock on the door to visit our investegator, I can remember I've been blessed with 10 million + prayers behind me. :D

 

That's something I'm lreaining int he MTC. OUR first lesson we taught in Korean was on Friday, two days after we entered. we learned the ABCs and other stuff Wedsnday.

That lesson was pretty short, but our goal was to let Choi Moon Young know that Heavenly Father loves him. He's a college studen 26 ywears old, met the missionaries on the subway. He wanted to know more about the Restoration. He has a strong desire to learn about history, and he's progressing!

 

This last lesson #3), we taught him in more depth about the Apastacy and the Restoration. Just before we taught, our language teacher met with my companion, (sister Roueche "Roo-Shay, form Tenessee) and I. We wanted to know how we could understand our investagators needs if we didn't understand him and waht he said. Then we taught our teacher. He gave us good complements (said he was impressed) and geaave us a challenge. It iwas to NOT LOOK AT OUR NOTES :)

 

So, we took it. A few minutes before we went in to teach, we erased half our lesson form paper, and used very simple words: "Many , Many different churches" and "Joseph Smith, Church Don't know, Don't know, church don't know"

 

We bore our testimonites to him without looking. We prayed with him.

And he accepted our invitation to read and pray about the Book of Mormon.

 

I just want to testify that Heavenly Father grants us the tools we neeed in the time we need them, that He truly loves each of His children, and he will use us as tools to teach them!

 

I love this Gospel1!!I Iam so thankful for you and your prayers.

 

Always your daughter and sister,

Sister Haley Brooksby