Rakas everyone!

This week has been really busy, but has gone by so quickly. I have had a lot of cool experiences this week. I experienced the Training Resource Center for the first time, which is a program where church members come to the MTC and we get to practice teaching them in our mission languages. It was kind of scary, but the people were really nice and understanding of our minimal grasp of the language and tried really hard to help us understand them and express ourselves. I felt the Spirit very strongly, even though I had no idea what they were saying. It was amazing, but also a little frustrating because I knew what they were saying was incredible but couldn't understand most of it. I've been praying a lot for humility and patience, and I think it's been helping a lot.

On Sunday, the sisters in my zone performed Nearer My God To Thee in Sacrament meeting. We checked out the MTC violin so I could play for part of it, and it was so nice to play the violin again, even for just a little while. Sisar Owen and I were called to be the Sister Training Leaders for the zone, since the Hungarian sisters are leaving. Basically what we do is go to Tuesday zone meetings, and we interview the sisters once a week or so and make sure they are doing ok and basically just be a support to them. Which would be great if we weren't the only sisters in the zone after next Tuesday. But the new Albanians are coming at the end of the month, so hopefully we will have some new sisters to check up on.

Sisar Owen and I taught one of our "investigators" this Monday. We've been struggling to get her to understand the importance of the things we are teaching her and wasn't following through on her commitments, so we took a step back and had a lesson all about why she needs to pray and why God wants to hear from her. She was way more interested during the lesson than she had been in any of the others and she made comments that sounded like she was finally understanding the importance of prayer. We committed her to read the Book of Enos, which, for those of you who aren't familiar with it, is all about Enos's experience with prayer, and she actually sounded interested and wanted to do it. We couldn't get her to pray at the end of the lesson, but we are starting to feel more confident in her progress.

Yesterday, those of us in the Finnish districts who still need to get our visas straightened out flew to Los Angeles for the day. We got up early and there was a lot of waiting (I hate waiting in airports), but we got to the Finnish Consulate and got everything taken care of. It took only about 20 minutes total for the five us, because all we had to do was sign a couple papers and have our fingerprints scanned. We did get to do a little sightseeing. We went to lunch, then to the Los Angeles temple, which is HUGE! We went to the visitor's center and watched a really cool video about eternal families. They also have a Christus statue there with a short presentation about Christ. After we took a bunch of photos in front of the temple, the shuttle driver took us to the Santa Monica pier. We wandered around the pier for a while and on the beach and took pictures and enjoyed the balmy 64 degree weather (although I do prefer the cold of Utah, especially in January). The worst part of the day was when we got to the airport and our flight was delayed for close tot two hours. We didn't get back to the MTC until about 11pm. But was nice to have a break from the MTC just for a day, even if it was a loooong day. And we had an amazing conversation with the shuttle driver, who had a lot of experience with missionaries, and has been trying to find the right path to Christ. We (and by we, I mean mostly Vanhin Johnson. He's a little ultra-enthusiastic, but that's better than not talking about the church) basically gave him the first discussion and left him with a Book of Mormon. Plus, the sister missionaries at the LA temple visitor's center got his contact information so they could get in tough and answer his questions. It was a very cool in-field type of experience and got me very excited for the work I am preparing to do. It taught me that the Lord has prepared people to be ready to hear the gospel, and we never know who or where we might meet.

This morning, we got to go to the temple. I used to think the Provo temple was...well, less than pretty (honestly, I still do, but it's almost as dear to me as the Columbia River temple, since I've been to it almost as much, so it's grown on me). But it's amazing how much your perspective of what's on the outside changes once you get to go inside and do the ordinances. Plus it is beautiful inside, so that's what really matters :) The temple is super important, guys! I can't wait to share that with people.

Well that's about it for this week. Three down, six more to go!

May the Lord bless you all. Thank you all for your support and love!

Rakaudella,

Sisar Hillebrant