MTC - Week 3

HALO! Apa Kabar? Well another week has come and gone...Preparation Day is still the highlight of my week!  I love having the opportunity to reflect on my week through writing this email to you all. Well, I’ll start off with last Saturday, the 19th. We taught Lesson 1 from Preach my gospel all in Indonesian, no notes or anything at the TRC! That morning, Sister Hewlett and I had the opportunity to practice-teach one of our teachers, and it went so well! I felt the spirit as I recited “Penglihatan Pertama” (The First Vision) and it testified to me that what I was saying was true. It was amazing! We were so pumped after that. So it comes time to go to the TRC, we feel pretty confident because of the way things went that morning. To make a long story short, the lesson didn’t go too well. I don’t know if it was the guy who was our “investigator”, or if it was my companion and I, or all of us, but we just kept forgetting what to say and the spirit wasn’t there. Afterwards, I felt so low. I was frustrated that I wasn’t able to say the things that I wanted to, and sad that it wasn’t a good experience. Turns out our whole district had similar experiences…our teacher tried to cheer us up by saying that it was only our third week and that our “investigators” all said they were impressed with us. Later that day for companionship study, Sister Hewlett and I watched a CES Fireside by Jeffrey R. Holland called “Lessons From Liberty”. It talked about how the period of time while Joseph Smith was in Liberty Jail was some of the darkest moments he had known and yet that was the time that he received revelation to write some of the most powerful scriptures in the Doctrine and Covenants. D&C 121:7—“…peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment…” Like in the song that we sang at Clint and Maddie’s old ward, “My Kindness Shall Not Depart From Thee”. In fact, that’s where the song came from. It was song by the BYU choir at that fireside. At the end of section 122 I believe, it says that the Son of man hath descended below all…art thou greater than He?
> We finished watching the fireside, and I cried pretty much through the whole thing. We reread sections 121-123 in D&C, and I felt a comforting peace inside. Like I said in my farewell talk, Christ has been through everything we have and will go through. He knew how I felt at that moment, the struggles and frustrations I felt trying to learn a new language. He shared the burden so I wouldn’t have to bear it alone. As Jeffrey R. Holland said in his talk at devotional last week, “if it was hard for Him, it’s got to be a little hard for you…the road to salvation always goes through Gethsemane.” I know that my Savior is right beside me as experience hard times, that it would be a lot harder if He hadn’t walked the way before me. Since last Saturday, my determination to learn this language and teach by the spirit has increased. We are doing the greatest work there is!
> Okay so guess what? On Monday the group going to Mongolia left... going with them was the Coordinating Sister. We knew the Branch presidency would be calling a new sister to fulfill that calling, but the week passed by and nobody knew who it was. Sunday morning rolls around (the day before the original Coordinating Sister leaves) and my companion and I walk in the door to Sacrament Meeting. Guess who’s there to greet us at the door? The Second Counselor in the Branch Presidency! He shakes my hand, and then asks if he could talk to me outside. So…guess who’s the new Coordinating Sister??? I was nervous at first—I’ve got a language to learn, principles to remember, scriptures to study…but I know with the Lord’s help I can do anything! I work with the Zone Leaders to welcome new missionaries, we do a little orientation thing and give them a tour of the MTC. I am responsible for all the sisters in the zone…Hopefully I’ll fill the calling as well as the last sister did!
> These past couple days I really feel like I understand the language more. Now that I’m getting the vocabulary down and I understand the prefixes/suffixes, it’s coming a lot quicker. My teachers are great! They are so willing to help us all the time…
> I love my district! They’re awesome. I feel like I’ve known these missionaries a lot longer than 3 weeks! It’s amazing to see how much they’ve grown even in this short time…they are so strong! And the sisters that I share a room with are awesome as well. We all get along and have a ton of fun. When the Mongolians left, they couldn’t carry all of the food/candy from the packages they had received so they gave it all to us! That was a nice surprise.
> This Saturday we teach Lesson 2 at the TRC…please pray for my companion and me! Hope all is well back home. Know that I love you all, you’re in my prayers.
> Please write when you can! It’s so nice to get mail!!!
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> Dengan kasih banyak,
> Sister Okamoto
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> P.s.
> So there’s one other district that’s learning Indonesian along with ours, so we always play them in sports and stuff. We have a ton of fun!
> Everybody calls me “Sister O”…that’s my new name here! Haha.