Hola otra vez! 2-23-12

This week has been a good one! Our mexico elders got their new temporary travel plans last night they are going to colorado springs.... ENGLISH speaking. I felt really bad for them, they have been working so hard to learn spanish the last 9 weeks. There is a reason though and i'm sure they will love it. We got some new elders last week, they seem pretty nice.

 

I made our companionship do a companionship inventory on saturday... it was very much needed. Hermana Marcum and Larson hadn't been getting along very well. They are both super opinionated so sometimes they clash when we are planning lessions and what not. So I interviewed them both and then we had the inventory. Pretty intense.. i was like the ref. in the middle. It was a little awkward at times but it turned out well. Everyone ended up happy so i guess i did my job for now.

 

My 8th sunday at the mtc was a good one, as always! The president of the mtc spoke to us, president brown. We sang called to serve for the 100th time but we sang it like the 2000 strippling warriors marching and coming over the hill to fight, soft, medium and loud and then we stood up for the last verse. I loved it. It's cool too because there really is 2000 of us in that room. I was worried the temple walk would be closed again because it had snowed all morning but we got to go :) it was nice to take a walk outside of the mtc. We had fun throwing snowballs at eachother and having a photoshoot with our district. We had a departure meeting with a member of our branch presidency. He said that we are one of the best districts that has ever come through this branch! That was really good to hear. I had my accountability interview with the president too and he had some really really nice things to say too! Hma larson got called to speak in sacrament so that means either me or hma marcum are most likely speaking this week! yikes.

 

Something cool that i heard this week was that 'one of the only things we can give to heavenly father that he doesn't already have is our will.' I'll go where YOU want me to go dear Lord, not where I want. I also learned a lot about the prelife. It's so amazing to think about. It gives me a lot of confidence reading in abraham 3 about the noble and great ones. We choose our circumstances according to our obedience- just like in heaven we were obedient so we are here, we must have done something right because we were blessed to know the gospel too! On earth we chooseour circumstances after this life accourding obedience on the earth. Someone related this to my mission. According to my obedience in the mtc will be what my circumstances will be in the field- kinda makes sense.

 

Our district - except for hma larson and i leave next week, so it's hard to stay focused! Everyone can't stop talking about the field. Next wednesday I will start my visitors center training though, and i'm sooooooooooo excited! We leave for temple square at 8 in the morning and get back around 12 30 and do a few things just in time for sam to come at 3!!! it's gonna be a great day!

 

Tuesday night we had elder wilson from the 70 come speak to us, it was really good! Aunt tracy sent me a letter saying that they had had dinner with him the week before because he was there for stake conference. I felt all cool knowing who was going to speak before anyone else because it's always this big, fat secret here... not sure why. Elder Wison talked about the book of mormon and how we need to be a mentor for people while they are reading it and help them understand it. The book of mormon is one of the 20 books that have changed america, kinda cool! Elder wilson is a very very smart man. Graduated from harvard and has many many accomplishments. I just had the impression during that devotional that God needs his servents to be educated.

After the devotional our district came together and bore testimony of what we learned. It basically just turned into a 'goodbye' testimony meeting. Sad.

 

We got a new investigator Juaquin. I felt the spirit so strong that i just needed to be bold with him. All he wanted to do was argue about the the book of mormon because he loves the bible so much. I was bold and just told him how it was. We committed him to baptism. Awesome.

 

Hma marcum taught at the trc yesterday. We taught our favorite volunteer, hma gonzolas. She's this cute little mexican lady and she's the sweetest lady you'll ever meeet in your life. We taught about revelation through prayer and the book of mormon. We decided to experiment and trust in the spirit. 1st we had her think of a question or a problem she has been struggling with. Next we told her to pick a number 1 through (however many pages are in the spanish book of mormon) Then we told here to pick, left or right (on the page) the last step was to pick a number according to however many verses there were on the page. We found her verse. We had her read the verse before and after her scripture she picked as well as the one that she picked. As she read it, she started to cry. We didn't understand all of her spanish, but one thing is for sure, she recieved revelation through the book of mormon. Yep... I cried too. I was so cool!

 

I met with president hacking to talk about the meeting with sam next week. We didn't figure anything out so he decided to just call dad right then and there! He was on speakerphone so i was like, 'oh hey dad!!' Everyone was so jealous. that was fun. We got to 'host' the new sisters coming into the mtc again this week. When I was waiting for a sister to come through so i could take her around, i ran into one of cory's old companions! That was really fun too! That was a good day.

My scheldule is way different next week, so my p-day is on friday.. so no letter on thrusday.. but hopefully friday :)

 

Anyway, my time is up, but I love you all and hope you had a fantastico semana!!!

Tenga fe in Jesucristo y su expiasion :)

Seek for the eternal!

 

Love,

Hma Cottrell

(partial) Handwritten note 2-16-12

Mom & Dad,
Thank you for the packages! They made my day so awesome! I didn't expect my Valentines day to be as good as it was! I was literally jumping for joy when I saw that I got new clothes! Best package ever!!!! Ahhh..... it was everything I needed, thank you thank you thank you! I got 5 packages on Valentines day! I was feelin the love!
.......Our district got to Host this week- where we take the new missionaries around, I got a girl going to Russia and a girl going to Virginia and on the Arkansas, I think that's right. They were all scared to death! The first girl I picked up, I gave her a valentines package when we went to her new room. she seemed to like that.
The language is much better this week for sure! I'm feeling  better too.
So, last Thursday was when I got a blessing. It was a really cool experience. I really really didn't want to ask for a blessing because the other Hermanas had needed one recently so I didn't want it to seem like I was just jumping on the banwagon. So we were packing up to leave the classroom and go to bed and my heart started pounding. I knew I needed a blessing- really bad. But I sat and watched all the elders walk out the door without saying anything. I wanted to cry. I prayed so hard and said, " Heavenly Father, please, please, please make them come back! Please!" Right as I lifted my head, an elder popped his head in the door and said, " are you sure you're good?" I said" ok, can I have a blessing I guess?" They said absolutely! They gave me a blessing and it was almost like dad giving me a blessing- before they started, they said- who do you want to give it- I said I don't care, the priesthood is the same- that was reaffirmed because he used the same wording and phrasing that dad would use or someone that gives me blessings often- it's because it's not wording or phrasing from them, it's from Heavenly Father! I literally felt a weight lifted off my shoulders and I have felt so good ever since!

Feb 14, 2012 Valentine Photos- MTC

From the Elders

Ally Harris- I graduated with her- she went to Texas- Spanish speaking a couple weeks ago.

Not sure. 

Elders stole my camera

Sister Shropell

Cory's package- the card says inside, " you know, I usually have such a hard time
finding the right valentine's day card for you" I was laughing pretty hard.

Waiting in line  for the devotional

Devotional line

Skillz

Elder Kener fell asleep on his notebook

Fruit rollup hearts

Handmade from Mexico

Back stretches? I dunno... Hma Marcum said she knew what she was doing but I couldn't stop laughing

Laughing really hard with Hermana Marcum

Hermana Ferguson

2 more emails and then I'm off to AZ

Hello!!

Happy late Valentines day!!! I hope everyone had a good one. Mine was soooooooo fun. Probably the funnest day in the mtc so far. This week has been a good week :) I wasn't feeling well still so after a stubborn couple days, i finally asked for a blessing. It was just what i needed. It was one of the most spiritual experiences that i''ve had here. I wish i had time to tell all of you! On the devotional on tuesday we had Don R Clark from the 70 speak to us. He talked about love because it was valentines day. but he also said to include your family in your mission D&C 100:1 and share your spiritual experiences. I can probably do a little better with that. He said something like, if you serve the lord with all your might, you have the right to call upon the powers of heaven to help your family with whatever they are going through. I will use that right :) I pray for you guys.  I wrote in my journal about how my testimony has grown in the mtc: I feel like a blindfold was taken from my life and I can see almost every tender mercy that the Lord gives me. I have learned to more fully trust in the Lord even when it's hard. I''ve learned that Heavenly Father is here. Scriptures that i''ve read over and over mean completely different things to me now. I have a stronger testimony of the eternities. The stories in the scriptures are more applicable to me than they ever have been before. The biggest way my testimony has grown in the mtc i think is that heavenly father knows me. I think I''ve always known that.. but it takes on a whole new meaning when it is being tested. Especially with the miracle of learning a language. I couldn''t do it if I didn''t know he knows me. I''ve also learned more fully that we are never safe. There are so many strong people in the church that have fallen, satan is good at what he does. I''ve learned that charity never faileth. I don''t think i have realized that I have had so many charity opportunities, but i have acted on all of them that i''ve seen and I can see the difference that it has made in my happiness. I have more energy when i serve, i have more confidence, and i have love for those that... are somewhat hard to love sometimes. Like i said, i knew these things before but its never been tested this much. I have a testimony of prayer. I''ve learned that even Christ prayed more earnestly when he was in agony (luke 22:44) and we do that too. I''ve tried to pray more earnestly even when I am not in ''agony" and just have a conversation with Heavenly Father. A lot of times I just sit there and say, ''Heavenly Father, do you KNOW how much i love you?'' We have so much control with our relationship with Him, He has become my best friend in a literal sense. I have grown a testimony of testimonies. My patriarcle blessing says, ''learn from the lives of good men and woman'' I have written down so many ''gems'' that people have said while i''ve been here in my study journal that has really opened my eyes.

Valentines day was awesome! Us hermanas had the brilliant idea of decorating envelopes with all of our elders names on them and filling them with personal notes, quotes talks and fun things along with a bag of candy. We set them out the night before so they would get them when they walked in. They were sooooooo embarrased because they didn''t do anything for us. Men.... They loved it though. Later in the day i had gotten a package from mom with a bunch of cookies and things to share. We thought it would be fun to put more valentines things on their desks with cookies. They walked in and was like, really hermanas??? So while we were on the computers for language study, they whipped up some candy and made special designes of valentines things on our desks with hearts stuck on the wall shaped from fruit roleups. it was pretty funny. I got pictures that i will send today. We were hyped up on candy all day. When we saw or elders we apologized and said that we didn't mean to make you feel like you had to do something for us, we just wanted to do something nice! Well... right before we went back to our rooms, our district leader was passing out mail and he gave us all an envelope with letters from all the elders and a XXL shirt from the bookstore that they had all signed. They had to "one up" us. We had gotten mad at them earlier because a few weeks ago they had all boughten that same shirt for all the elders and didn't tell us about it, so we gave them a hard time about excluding the hermanas. That was so thoughtfull of them.  We really are a family now. I can't believe they leave in a week and a half! Some of our elders are being temporaraly reassigned. They were going to go to mexico- connor ogdens mission- but they aren't giving visas to mexico right now for some reason. We will find out soon where they are going. I also got a few other packages and i was beaming alllllll day! I have the best family and friends in the world!! Thank you thank you thank you everybody!!

Sunday we had Mary N cook talk to us for relief society. She showed the mormon message about the little leage football player getting struck by lightning. She talked about how important the priesthood is and how we always need to be ready and worthy to act and we need to SANCTIFY ourselves. Right after that mormon message ended.. she stopped and said, there has been an emergency so we will end now. One of the sisters in the audience had like a seizure or something. Mary N Cook's husband got up and imediately gave her a blessing the ambulance came and everything. Talk about CRAZY timing! The lightnight struck and he was ready to use his priesthood. So awesome slash NUTTTS.

 

Anyway.. love you all! Write me letters! My address will be changing soon so I'll be sure to send that.. probably next week!

Me caya bien

 

Mucho amor,

Hermana Cott cott

6 weeks down

Hola!

It's been a crazy week it feels like. Last Thursday my companions and I went and did cealings for the first time ever. It was definitely one of my favorite experiences in the temple. The spirit was so strong. We didn't get to go to the temple this week though :( i'll get to that later.

We got a new district in our zone this week. They are really nice Elders. No hermanas though! Sad.. maybe next week. I took them on a tour and they seemed really excited, but I could sense that it was about to set in on how long they're actually going to be here. I felt bad, i've been there. They all got up in sacrement on sunday and cried through their whole testimonies. They'll be fine.

This week has been really frusterating with the language! I'm losing my confidence.. hopefully it'll come back so i wont be in trouble when I get to arizona! 'Don't demand things of yourself that are unreasonable, but demand of yourself improvement.' I just keep telling myself that. I think what's been bothering me is I met with my zone resource teacher and I asked him to be honest about how he thinks i'm doing, he said that I'm about in the middle.. about where most missionaries are. I hate being average. It's driving me nuts. Hopefully I can pick it up this week.

I have been so exhausted this week. We were in 'TALL' and I was trying to repeat the sentence in spanish back from what was coming up on the screen and I kept falling asleep in the middle of the sentence. It was terrible. My back has about a million knots in it i'm pretty sure. I've been in a lot of pain this week with my back. It's more annoying than painful though.

I interviewed the sisters in my zone on saturday before we met with the branch president on sunday. I said a little prayer that the sisters would be open and honest about what their feeling and how i could help them. Be careful what you pray for. I found out some things that were very eye opening. We are taking care of it though and it makes me feel good that they feel comfortable telling me things, so it was a good thing.

Sunday number 6, check! We had mission conference with the whole mtc because it was fast sunday. We fasted for a good 26 hours. I was fine without food but i was soooooooooo dehydrated. It was pretty bad because I got up the next day for my workout class in the morning and I didn't feel good at all. It's hard to keep hydrated here. I bore my testimony in sacrement in spanish for the first time! I was pretty excited. I started out saying, 'yo se mi espanol es mui mal, pero tengo un testimonio asi ustedes tambienuhhhhhh' I know my spanish is pretty bad, but i have a testimony like you guys tooowahhh! We watched 'mountain of the lord' for films. that was pretty fun learning about the salt lake temple. It's crazy what they went through to build that.

Monday I talked to a guy about meeting with sam, he ran into me in the hall and said, hey i just got off the phone with your dad! He said your brother is going to come see you. Someone needs to call the mtc back and say exactly what time you will actually be at the mtc so he can inform security. He didn't say anything to me about temple square though. So yeah, dad or someone, will you call and work out the details? I can go talk to him again, but i don't know what time you guys are planning on coming for sure so it'd be easier if you just called porfavor :)

At the devotional on tuesday we had the first counselor of the presiding bishopric come talk to us. His wife spoke first and said 'after you have partaken of the tree of life, don't complain about the taste.' I really like that because we ask for all these blessings from god, like a job or being on a mission and then we say, oh the work load is too much or something like that.

Brother edgley talked to us about never being intimitated by anyone on your mission because you have the authority of god on your side. I related this to my district after and taught that we should also never be intimidated about the language. Heavenly father taught us spanish in the prelife, we are just being reminded so we shouldn't be intimidated. I was mostly talking to myself.

Mother, you have motherly instincts like i've never heard of before. You said, i've been thinking about you a lot today, i hope you're ok. Welll.. I woke up yesterday not feeling the best, as usual. But i kept going and tried to brush it off. I was getting frustrated with the language and just not having a very good day. We went in to teach trino, one of our investigators who is really one of our teachers and we were teaching about the law of chasity and the word of wisdom. Right in the middle of it, within 5 seconds my body felt like it was 1000 degrees. My ears felt like they were on fire and i was dizy and nausiated. Without even noticing or controling myself, tears started coming out of my face! I literally couldn't stop. The lesson kept going though and I didn't know what to do. I thought about making it seem like i was just feeling the spirit, but what was i going to do? cry while saying, 'you can't have sexual relationships before marriage?' finally i looked at hma larson and said, you need to end this lesson please, like.. now. I swear like an eternity later they said the prayer. I thought I wasn't going to make it. It was a miracle that i didn't pass out. We said amen and i got up and said to my poor/awkward teacher, 'i'm really sorry, i just really REAlly don't feel good. I went in the bathroom and splashed some cold water on my face and came out right when my whole district was taking a water brake. They were all like.. what the?? What happened in the lesson? Lets just say I was sleeping for most of the day and this morning. I have had a fever that just keeps coming and going. I'm not really sure what's wrong with me. I might get a blessing tonight though if i'm still not feeling well. It's a good thing today is p-day. I felt bad for my companions though, we didn't get to go to the temple this morning. Anyway... all will be well.

Thank you for all your letters! It's the best when I get letters! Keep writing! Love you all!

Love, Hma Cottrell

Meetings galore!

Hola familia!

All the days seem to mix together this week so i'll just go through and tell you the important stuff! It's been a great week. I got called as the coordinating sister in my zone! Although we had two sisters leave this week, we are hoping more come next week. Basically my resposibilities include welcoming all the new sisters, giving tours, helping the zone leaders with all their responsibilities (keeping them in line) and meetings meetings meetings! I never thought it was possible to squeeze in one more meeting here.. but apparently you can sqeeze in like 10 more a week. It's so fun though, i love it! It's amazing how Heavenly Father prepares you for your mission before you go. I have used so many of my leadership skills that i've learned in school and in church. Awesome :) Mom and dad sent me a cute valentines package yesterday and it was truly inspired! I was asked to be the coordinating sister in another zone as well this week because they didn't have anyone called- they didn't have any sisters in their zone yet so they asked me because they had new sisters coming.-if that made sence. Usually the coordinating sister wecomes them and tells them all the rules and about the residency and everything. So I went to their welcoming meeting and gave them a huge hug. Sisters don't get very many hugs around here. I put together some candy packages and a card and helped them move in. They seemed really grateful. I'm glad I could help.

I am so excited to see sam!! It's amazing the tender mercies that heavenly father gives me. If i wasn't going to a visitors center, I would leave with the rest of my district on the 28th instead of my extra week of VC training, sam comes the 29th! So amazing how that worked out.

I had an impression to write this- Sometimes miracles happen or we recieve revelation or something maraculous, but satan wants us to believe that we are not important enought to have revelation.. but we are! As long as we have the spirit and are doing what we are supposed to, the veil is VERY thin and heavenly father is VERY aware of us. There are tender mercis literally surrounding us everywhere and we need to not only recognize them, but realize that they are because heavenly father is aware of us and knos every single detail of our lives. He knows every thought... everything! We are special and important to Him and we are His whole world.

We taught trino. The first sentence I said, trino didn't understand. I was about to get frustrated but I said a little prayer and said, "please help me heavenly father" I looked up and saw Christs picture. I literally got chills from my head to my toes!. He was there and he helped me. Our teacher later said that it was our best lesson and we really got through to trino and the spirit was definitely there.

Sunday was really good. We watched the spoken word andhad Carole stephens from the relief society board come to talk to the sisters, that was awesome. We taught our district about the book of mormon. In the spoken word, they talked about a famous painter that was diagnosed with arthritus so bad that he had to have a contraction to hold up his sheets in his bed because if anything touched him he would be in too much pain. Although the he was in pain, he would have someone stick a paint brush in his hand and he would still paint beautiful pieces of art reflecting happiness. Someone asked him why he not only still painted, but why his paintings never reflected his pain. He said, The pain passes, but the beauty remaines. I talked about this with the book of mormon. There have been so many pains and afflictions to bring the book of mormon to us. So many people died for it and suffered for it. Like the man said, the pain passes but the beauty remains. How lucky are we that we can sit down and litterally say.. heavenly father, please talk to me, and he DOES! all we have to do is open the book of mormon.  I have a testimony of the eternities and the book of mormon is the key to eternity. If the book of mormon is true, everything else is too. No matter how many times you've read it, take the challenge to ask heavenly father again if it's not true. Robert swenson spoke to us for the devotional and then we listened to another devotional by elder uchdorf during or "movie time"

 The rumors about the first  presidency coming for the 50th anneversary were.. well rumors. It was so amazing though. We stood in line at 2pm and the devotional didn't even start till 7.  Elder nelson and elder holland came and spoke to us! It was amazing. Elder holland gave a blunt but loving testimony of what it means to respect the history and honor it. He said he was grateful to be elder nelson's "jr companion" tonight. Elder nelson talked about the history of the Mtc and then rededicated the buildings! It was amazing being in the same room where an apostle was praying. I felt angels there.. maybe former missionaries.. there is missionary work in the next life too.. maybe it was them :) I felt it especially when we sang "behold a royal army" I'm in that army! You guys are too. So cool to think about. "what e're thou art- act WELL thy part"

Hope everything is going well for everyone! I lovvvvvvvvvvvvvvve letters, write me if anyone has time, thank you for the letters that have come! You guys are amazing and i pray for you at least 50 times a day :)

Seek for the eternal

La iglesia es verdedero!!!!

Love,

Hermana Cottrell