So another week has flown by! Seriously I am so happy all the time because spring here is soooo beautiful. now I know why they call New Jersey the Garden State. There are trees that are pink, red, yellow, white basically every color and everything is so green. I dont think I was ever depressed during the winter.... but definitely have a hightened level of spring in my step (no pun intended)
ANYWHO. this week was super inspiring. we had zone conference and we also had a mission leader training. I feel like at these meetings I am drinking out of a fire hydrant. like sometimes, i even have to bring like tylenol because my brain just goes like 100 miles a second. something that i learned at zone conference that i loved is that a CES teacher who teaches institute at Princeton University taught us about how we can help our investigadores progress. He said "the most crucial events of your investigadores conversion, happen when you're not there" we taught us about how to teach better and according to the needs of our investigadores. He said, they may not be prepared, but we can teach in a way that will prepare them for the restauration. This example he used helped me. He said "you can take the horse to the water, but you cant make him drink... but you can salt the oats" and BOOM that made so much sense to me. when we meet people, sometimes i just wanna go straight into the restauration, which isn't necessarily made, but we really have to take a sec, ask them questions and really discern what it is they need to hear and help them feel understood because we teach. Its been amazing for me to see how real the gift of discernment is.
After zone conference, we were feeling so pumped up that we decided to go out to a place in our area and apply what we learned. so this town is called sterling. and i kid you not, we had zero names in this place. nada. we were going blind. we werent even sure if there were hispanics there. but we went out on main street and started knocking. the 3rd door we get to, a woman answers and we start talking to here and she said, "pasen!" so we go inside and we see that she is making pupusas and she tells us shes from el salvador... well there are like NO el salvadorians in jersey and sister dubon nearly fainted because shes el salvadorian and so there was an immediate bond. we got to talking to her and we learned a lot about her and related just about all of her answers to a gospel principle. she insistied that we eat pupusas with them ( SOOO yummy) and then she said she wanted us back that tuesday. what a milagro! seriously. I think the greatest thrill ever in my life is finding people. It so exciting. awesome things are happening in this area.
Then at leadership training, I had to give a training on the NJ approach. This approach is what our mission does to approach people in contacts. Its hugely successful. we basically go up to people and instead of saying "we are reprentatives of jesus christ" we go and say "hey, so youre probably super busy right now, its probably kinda strange talking to two strangers here in the street/at your doorstep, and you probably already have a belief in Jesus Christ, but that's exactly why we are here!" we are training to overcome objections before they happen. there's more too but its super cool to see how receptive people are to it. I mean come on, people can read right through people when they are being awkward or fake, and we just have to be real! so i gave that training.... solo.... for 2 hours. it was set up as a work-shop and so by the 4th round, i was pretty tired. sister dubon asked me how it all went and it was weird, looking back, every training i gave was different. I think the greatest thing i am constantly trying to learn is how the spirit communicates with me, and as i have strived to follow that my whole mission, i almost dont even recognize following the spirit, it just becomes a first instinct.
something really cool that happened this week was that we went on an exchange and i stayed and was with an english sister. We set an appt with a referencia of a recent convert. it was cool because when we were walking up to him, he was already outside waiting for us. We had a lot of questions prepared to ask us. I felt that everytime he asked a question, i just needed to first ask him what he thought, and then testify. I followed that pattern throughout the lesson. I felt like every time i testified, the spirit just got stronger and stronger. i pull out the book of mormon to give to him and he said, "i am only accpeting this because i felt something when you said that you know its true, so it must be, and i want to know for myself. I know that you are an instrument in God's hands because your spirit must be clean. my spirit is not clean so i could not impact someone that way you impacted me." i testified again that that is exactly why we are here, so that he can become clean because God needs him to build his kingdom.
SERIOUSLY moments like this happen all the time! this is why the mission is so happy!
well love you all, my hair is brown, my skin is white, and ive never felt bettah
no pics this week (we are gonna take pics of the pretty spring scenery)
Hermana Mortensen
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