Week 5

Hi Mom and Family,

Thank you for the snacks and all the other stuff in the packages. I was so excited when I received your cookies. Estuvieron fantastico! Thanks for all the support. As for all my other friends and stuff, I don't know if I will have time to read all the emails, so a weekly or monthly email would be great. Good luck with Trek this week, I hope it goes very well for you.

Another great week at the MTC. Probably my best week so far. I love the MTC, and I know that I am going to miss it when I get out into the field. I have grown so much in the past month, and I can't wait to get to the field.

Here are my highlights of the week:

First of all, I got my travel plans!!! I am going to Texas! I leave monday August 5 at 8:30 in the morning. This means waking up at around 3:30 in the middle of the night. Woooo. I am so excited. I will probably be calling you around 7:00 in the morning before I leave on the plane. I have a direct flight straight to Dallas, and I will get their at 12ish.

My week started out great, with probably my best day at the MTC so far on sunday. Each sunday, we have to write and prepare a talk in spanish. This week I was one of the randomly selected people to give my talk. It is very hard to speak when not knowing the language very well, because I don't like to write out my talks completely. I had to for this one though. Even though I had to read my church talk, I was still able to bring the spirit really strong, and it really helped my confidence in the language. For the devotional sunday night, I had the oppurtunity to usher, which was another great experience for me. To end the day off, after the devotional we watched a talk given by Elder Bednar entitled: Character of Christ. It was very motivational, and probably my favorite talk of all time. It was very direct, and I learned that I have a lot to work on to become the missionary I want to become.

This week I also hosted new missionaries on Wednesday. I realized that I really haven't been gone very long, because I remember getting dropped off like it was yesterday. It was fun to see this process from the other perspective.

This week, I have also learned so much about what I must do as a missionary. I have an amazing teacher that has taught me so much. His name is Hermano Salisbury, and he had a very successful mission when he served. He has taught me so much, but the most important thing that I have learned is to make each lesson very specific to the investigator. Teach to their needs, and get to know them the best you can. Elder Holland said something like, "As you get to know your investigators, what they say will tell you exactly what you need to teach and how to teach it." Knowing the lesson plans can be great, but knowing the investigator is much more impoartant. I learned that companionship study is the place where we really find out what to teach. So here is my experience:

We have an investigator who is very familiar with the Bible, doesn't go to church, has a daughter and lives with his girlfriend. He is also a very self confident man who wants to be right, and likes to hear himself talk. One night for my companionship study, we discussed what our investigator needed to hear. Revelation started coming, and we came up with and adjustable plan that would boldy tell him that he need to go to church. The key in our lesson was being bold, but doing it in a sweet way. So being sweetly bold. The next day in our lesson, the spirit was very present, and our investigator (who is Hermano Salisbury) was feeling the spirit very strong as well. Our lesson went great even though he didn't commit to going to church. After our lesson, Hermano Salisbury gave us some feedback on our lesson, by saying, "As an investigator, I tried to find ways to argue what was being said, but I couldn't. As an investigator I try to follow how I am feeling as myself, and I knew that I needed to go to church. The investigator though didn't want to be proven wrong so instead of answering yes, I just said I don't know. Even though I knew I needed this." It was a great experience for me, and I knew that with the Lord's help I am able to change lives. I was able to know exactly what to say and how to say it because I had the spirit with. It gave me great confidence that I would be able to follow the promptings of the spirit, and teach with power. I can't wait to be in the field. Only 9 days!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Stewart