November 1, 2016- Hannah's first real letter home and she forgot to add her MOM and DAD to her email list. Thank heavens Calsita was on the coveted email group list. If you didn't get an email just follow her on this page or send your email to me at lynece01@gmail.com I am going to try and convince her next week that mom should be doing the email group and she just needs to spend her time writing for us!
KELUARGA DAN TEMAN ANDA!!!! Apa Kabar?
I
can't BELIEVE tomorrow makes it a week since I've arrived at the MTC! I
love it here!!! I'm going to be completely honest and say that this
week was one of the most challenging, emotional, but uplifting weeks of
my entire life!!! No one told me the first 3 days of the MTC would
WHOOP my spiritual butt into shape!!! It was like a spiritual
rollercoaster!
Wednesday:
As soon as I stepped out of the car, I was overcome with the spirit,
He told me that I was meant to be here! My host was like "It's okay to
cry all day sister I did." LIES I had no time to cry! So I cried
myself to sleep that night LOL. It's fine though, I was just super
homesick and had a very interesting experience during my first "My
purpose and People" class. BUT LET ME TELL YOU about the first thing
that happened once I put my bags in my room, this is classic. I walk
into my classroom and there are two sisters there already, and our
teacher. As soon as I walk in he's like
"Sister!
Apa Kabar?" and I responded in Indonesian since I had previously
studied over the summer a little bit. and then he's like "Siapa Nama
Anda?" and I'm all confident and say, "Nama Saya Hannah!"
djkaf;sdjkl;asd SO EMBARRASSING , He looked at me all weird and then I
was like OH OH OH NAMA SAYA SISTER ROWNTREE, all loud and
ridiculously.... A typical Hannah Moment. and then I learnt the hard
way that our teachers LITERALLY don't speak an INCH of English.. I'm
being taught bahasa indonesia in bahasa indonesia 😑 the struggle was
real
Thursday:
I wasn't as emotional as I was Wednesday, which was bagus. And
indonesian class was FUN! My district consists of Me, and my two
companions, and ONE Elder! Isn't that hilarious? He's a solo
missionary, so his companion is in the Malaysian district. Kinda
awkward.. but my zone is AWESOME, there are the 4 Indonesians, a
million Thai speaking, Cambodians, Mohng speaking, 2 Laotion speaking
Elders, and Vietnamese! I LOVE ASIANS. I mean, they're all not asian
obviously, but we're all going to the beautiful continent of Asia.
Anyways, the day was suuuuper long because all we really did was study
and get ready to teach REZA <3 but we had our branch presidency
meeting and I just love everyone so much.
Friday:
OUR FIRST LESSON WITH REZA! She's beautiful and I love her so dearly,
her dad is Muslim but one of her siblings (I have no idea if it's a
boy or girl because my bahasa STINKS) is a member of Gereja Yesus
Kristus dari Orang-orang suci zaman akhir! (LDS) Her mother has
already passed away, but she wanted to know more about God and Our
Savior. So cool!! So... the first lesson... kinda was rough... As
companions we literally just wrote down a bunch of simple phrases and
read them to her... so awful haha!! BUT she did accept our invitation
to read the pamphet about The Plan of Salvation!! So at least I could
understand that right? But she didn't accept our invitation to go to
church.
After
our lesson we had the gift of tongues lesson, in bahasa indonesia of
course, AND IT WAS SO AWESOME! It really opened my eyes on how much I
needed to humble myself and chill out. All I could do was stress about
EVERYTHING and not being perfect.
Saturday:
We met with Reza again!! annnd she read our pamphlet!! I was so
happy, I could actually kinda understand what she was saying to us..
She said that she really liked the part about eternal life, WHICH IS
WHAT I HAD PREPARED, so I kinda talked the most during our lesson, but I
just explained to her that God wants us to be happy and to have eternal
life and that she CAN live with her mother again for all eternity
because the gospel is all about families!
Sunday:
BEST. DAY. EVER. Everyone kept saying "Just make it to Sunday Sister
Rowntree you'll be okay" Yes, the MTC is AWESOME, and being a
missionary is AWESOME, but this past week was SO HARD!! You study for
HOURS UPON HOURS and you work SO HARD for your investigator AND YOU
CAN'T COMMUNICATE without reading from a script and I have been WAYYY
too hard on myself!!! But, I learned this Sunday that this is how God
shapes his missionaries. God puts us through trials to learn and GROW. I
have SOOOOO MUCH to say about Sunday and what I learned so I'll try to
sum it up!!!
(also
sorry this email might not make sense, I forgot my journal at residence
so I really can't remember much from the week AHAHA)
OKAY.
So, Sacrament meeting was amazing, I really tried to prepare to
partake of the sacrament and really reflect on my week and what I needed
to work on. The theme for all the talks was "Enduring to the End"
It's exactly what I needed. WE ARE NOT PERFECT, but we have to KEEP
GOING. Ask yourself everyday, "What can I do to be a little better
than I was yesterday?" and don't forget to rely on the Lord!! I kept
saying to myself this week, "I can't do this, I'm going to be a
terrible missionary" I was RIGHT, I CAN'T do this without the help of
my Savior!! I need to stop thinking about myself and more about Him and
what I can do to become more like him.
Okay,
and then we had our first devotional!!! IT WAS AMAZING. To summarize
it in one phrase.. It was like a giant sludgehammer/ slap to the face.
But in a good way!! It was Richard N. Holzapfel who spoke, and it's like
he KNEW EXACTLY, what I needed to hear. His talk was about failure,
and he compared us to little toddlers learning how to walk. Think about
it, when a parent sees there kid starting to walk and stumble they yell
out "GET OUT THE CAMERA THEY'RE WALKING" and most of the time the child
falls right? BUT the only way for the kid to learn how to walk, they
get back up again to try again.
HELLO,
that's us! Missionaries and as children of God, when we take what we
learn in church, in trials, and afflictions and try to apply the
principles of the gospel in our lives Heavenly Father says "GET OUT THE
CAMERA! THEY'RE WALKING, TRYING, PROGRESSING!" We do not have to be
perfect in everything, and I know it seems like sometimes life can get
SOO overwhelming because we can't do EVERYTHING at the same time. and
that's okay, Heavenly Father doesn't expect us to be perfect in one
day, ask yourself, What do I need to work on to become more like
Christ. Diligently study and seek for the knowledge and then PRACTICE,
PRACTICE, PRACTICE, You're not going to get it perfect in one week, or
even a month, but sooner or later it'll become second nature to you!
I hope that made sense...
Monday:
We had another lesson with Reza.. AND IT WAS AWFUL.. YOU GUYS. I was
the only one that talked the WHOLE ENTIRE TIME. My companions don't
understand bahasa indonesia!!!!! it was so so sos
osossfodijfsdoafooooooooooo awful. I tried my best, she asked me, "Apa
Pendamaian?" "what's the atonement" and luckily I had underlined a
definition in PMG about the atonement and I tried my best to bare a
simple but powerful testimony about The atonement and through Christ's
sacrifice we can have eternal life etc... but i felt SO DOWN on myself,
for being a blabber mouth and not doing my best in answering Reza's
questions ): So yesterday was a little rough ahah I had my first real
breakdown, Elder Hurt (our district leader) gave me a recess
peanutbutter cup thing and said Happy Halloween and I started sobbing
ahahaha I was just overwhelmed by his kindness ahahha and it made me
homesick cuz I LOVE Halloween and my family and it was just a bunch of
pent up stressed bursting out of me. My companions were dying laughing,
it really was hilarious.
OKAY
MY COMPANIONS!! 1st, we have Sister Fuglsang (FUL SANG) and she's
from Australia. You will NEVER. EVER. EVER. guess how old she is!!!
I'll let you come up with your guesses real quick.. She cried like the
first 4 days here ahahhahah she's soooo stressed about the language, but
I know that she can do it!!
Then,
we have our sweet little flower, Sister Patton, she's from KOREA! But
has lived in the US for the past 6 years, her english is pretty good,
but sometimes she'll mix up her words. It's adorable. She is SO SHY,
but lately she's been opening up to us! It's crazy that the lord put
us together, we are all SOOO different,. Sister Fuglsang is head strong
and has all this life experience, she was a high school art teacher
before the mish. Then there's our little flower starting to bloom each
day, Sister Patton who's very kind and always has the tissues ready for
Sis F and my tears ahaha. But I've learned that the Lord really wants
me to put their needs above mine, and I pray everyday to find ways to
help them and to understand what they need. We might not seem like
we're having as much fun as the other sisters who like have giant fort
sleepovers in their rooms and hug all the time.... but we've had very
special spiritual experiences together as we learn how to work with one
another and lift each other up.
SISTER
FUGLSANG IS 33! CRAZY HUH! She's like our mom and makes sure I obey
EVERY rule here.... ESPECIALLY the no chewing gum rule! THAT'S THE
HARDEST ONE HAHA
I
promise next weeks email we be so much better, I'm just frazzled and
dead from this last week and have no idea what's coming out of my mouth
to here LOL. I'll be more prepared I swear. I love you guys! I love
the Lord, and I love my Heavenly Father, this work is SO REAL. And the
times are coming. Be a missionary everyday and ask yourself what you
can do to serve someone else everyday, know that Heavenly Father IS
aware of you and knows how you're feeling every second of the day. Come
unto Christ, He's waiting, and He's willing to embrace you in his
arms. Everything will be okay. Saya tahu bahwa benar itu!
Sampai Lagi! <3
