Hello!
I am good. This week was like an 8 or a 9. Actually I don't really know what number to put to it because it was just a good week. Thank you all for your letters. I should have brought your letters with me so I could comment about things you guys wrote about or asked me but I didn't bring them, so I will try my best. Easter in the MTC was fun. We had a special Easter Morning Devotional. We all were banking on an apostle coming but guess what! no apostle came....... it was the presiding bishop and seriously people I thought there was going to be a riot. When the doors opened up and the non apostle walked in everyone was just silent....and disapointed (can't spell that word). We then came back and had district meeting. Sister Nichols gave the lesson and it was on the atonement. She did amazing! I told her afterwards that she did every good teaching practice known to man in her lesson. In the lesson people in my district gave really powerful testimonies of Christ and how He's our elder brother. I felt a little left out because I was feeling and I still kind of feel that my testimony of Christ isn't as strong as theirs. I recognize the need for a savior and that I couldn't be clean without his sacrifice, but I don't start crying when I think about him. I don't know I probably shouldn't compare myself to the others. I said a prayer before the testimony meeting that day that I would be able to know how to have a stronger testimony of this topic. During the testimony meeting I had the prompting come to me to share my testimony just like everyone else and Heavenly Father would show to me as I shared my testimony how strong my belief in Christ really is. I was stupid and felt like I had nothing to contribute to the meeting and so I actually didn't end up bearing my testimony (stupid I know spare me the chastisement) Later that night and the normal Sunday devotional Sheri Dew came and spoke to use. I don't know if you guys like Sister Sheri Dew or not but her talk was insane. The lady is like an animal. The talk she gave was completely different from the talk the presiding bishop gave. I mean I took like 3 pages of notes. One thing I really like was that she said she learned in her 20's to ask God to teach her how the spirit speaks to her. I really liked this thought so I have started doing this myself. Promptings from the spirit have been on mu mind lately because I'm gonna receive promptings to go teach this person or go knock on this door and I want to be able to know when it is a prompting. I think I am getting better about recognizing these promptings like the one i had in testimony meeting. I guess i need to better work on acting on those promptings and not out right ignoring them like i sis on Sunday in the meeting. After the devotional on Sunday we have the chance to go to different rooms and watch a church movie for an hour or so. I stayed in the big gym hall where we have devo and watched the character of Christ which was a talk given by Elder Bednar on Christmas day at the MTC 2 years ago or so. IT WAS INSANE! His talk was crazy! I have never seen a general authority call it like it is so much in my whole entire 20 years of existence. He talked about putting off the natural man and becoming more like Christ. He says that we do this by focusing on other people. This last week I have tried doing this and prayed for opportunities in which I would be able to do this. I don't really know how I'm doing but if I had to guess probably not very well. I had the chance to host again this week which was cool. It was really hot and just a normal hosting day so I'm not going to write much about it. Yesterday was in field orientation. IFO is when they take up the whole day teaching all the departing missionaries how to work with the ward and members in the field. I really enjoyed these meetings because of the teachers. At the end of the meeting the teacher who was giving us the summary of what we had learned and stuff like that told us that were going to be nervous talking to the first 100 people no matter what (he went to Mexico by the way) so we could either drag it out and talk to 1 person for 100 days or talk to those 100 people our first day. I really liked this thought because I'm gonna be in Chile next week not knowing anything that people are saying. Basically its gonna be uncomfortable and nerve racking for the first few weeks and then its just the same thing every day. In IFO we watched another video by Bednar (it was shorter) in which we told a story of two missionaries in his ward when he was at Harvard or Duke or where ever they were. He said the missionaries came over one Saturday morning, talked with them for a bit, played with there 2 kids, ate breakfast with them, and then after it was all over having been there for an hour and 15 min asked if they had any people they knew they could teach. Elder Bednar said he told them that for them they had no one to teach because they were not obedient missionaries. He told them that there visit should have gone more like this. You come to our house ask if you can share a short message, we would go get our children and make this an important moment for them. after finishing the short message you would then ask me who I would like to pray, He said I would call on one of you and you should give a short powerful prayers. After the message and the prayer you would then ask us if we had any people you could teach. He then told the Elders to get out of his home. The story of course has a happy ending. 3 weeks later the Elders knock on there door and do exactly those things Elder Bednar told them they should have done at the first visit. The point he was making was that we have to act in such a way that the members will trust us, Elder Bednar's tells it like it is! BAM! anyways time to go. Next week ill be writing you guys from CHILE! wish me luck!
Elder Cropper
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