Referral Center, Temple, TRC, and MTC life!

Date: Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 2:01 PM

Family!

Hello! We just got back from going through the temple and it was so incredible. The temple is such a holy place and the spirit so strong. While there I just thought to myself, "This is why I am on a mission, I have to teach people about the restored gospel so that they can experience that kind of peace and happiness for themselves." It's amazing all the insights you gain each time you go. That is one of the reasons why it is so important to keep going. Oh it is so wonderful.

Our district was able to go to the Referral Center yesterday for the first time and it was really neat. To be honest I was pretty nervous when we first got there, but after my first few calls it was so much fun. I have a lot to improve on, as far as being a more effective teacher, but I loved bearing my testimony to people and letting them know that the truth is on the earth and that they can find out for themselves through the Book of Mormon. We had a devotional a couple days ago about using the Book of Mormon more in our teaching and the speaker was so funny. He said that when we teach people about the restoration and tell them to ask of God we should bear our testimony and say, "Ask God if it's true. He was there!" I was like, "yeah, He was." I thought it was funny. There are so many good devotionals here and firesides. They are awesome. It's a complete spiritual feast. Our Branch President's wife in one of our District Meetings was saying how we need to treasure this time we have to study the scriptures and the doctrines of the kingdom, because after our missions we will not have that time ever again. We will have different responsibilities. This is the time to get to know the scriptures deeply and love them and learn from them and teach from them. I know that to be true.

Also we had our first "real" "pretend" investigator in the Teaching Resource Center a couple days ago. Because of all the holidays we haven't had volunteers so we've just been teaching other missionary companionships in our branch or our teachers. Though, it does provide good practice it was just so good to have an actual person there that didn't know you and didn't know exactly what you were going to teach. Before my mission I was pretty nervous about the whole teaching part of mission life (ha ha, yeah that's what missionaries do) and wasn't really nervous about the language part. But now after teaching so much I have gotten over that fear more and more. Teaching that "real" "pretend" investigator was really inspiring to me to. It really helped me see how far I had come, and what I can still work on. She was really nice and was actually from Japan. She's only been in the US for 5 months and her English is amazing. She didn't have any English before hand. That gave me hope for my German. I know I'm learning things all the time, but it's still hard to try to say something you want, but don't have the words at all to say it. It's coming though. I do understand more and more of what my teachers say, which is a blessing.

Mission life is great. I am so glad to be a missionary! I saw Elder Hansen from Lyman 2nd ward (?) yesterday and I welcomed him to the MTC. It was fun to see a face from Rexburg, but funny that kids I used to babysit are serving missions! It just made me so excited for Ritchie to come and join me in a few months. Ritchie, Chris, Jason, and Crozier I hope you are excited to serve missions because it is the best thing in the world. I haven't even got out into the field yet, but just being here preparing is so wonderful. Teaching is such a highlight and fills you with even more desire to teach. The gospel is true and I know that with all my heart. My very core wants to praise the Lord always for what He has given me and for having the gospel restored to us in the latter days.

I love you all! Sie sind miene Lieblings! (Y'all are my favorite!)

Love,
Sister Fitzgerald

P.S.
What is Tara, Sean and Kim's, Candace and Evan's email addresses?
You can respond with DearElder.com if you want ;) or a letter, or email works too. :) Love you! I'm sending you a letter too.