Ryan is having a wonderful time in the MTC. The following photo captures the essence of why Ryan will be a good missionary - taking the time to read to his nephews before he left to walk down the concourse to his flight. I think that is called "serving the one."
Some excerpts from Ryan's last email ...
Dobar Dan moj obitelj!
aka good day my family! What is up! How is everybody? It seems like AZ slash colorado slash everywhere else is doing pretty good.
I keep learning all kinds of stuff. This past sunday @ our devotional Pres Breinholt from the MTC presidency and his wife gave the devotional about music focused on hymns. He began by talking about the importance of hymns and the blessings that can come from hymns. I realized that it had gone unnoticed what an important roll hymns have played in my testimony slash overall happiness. He referred us to the 1st presidency address in the front of the hymn book that describes all the blessings that can come from them. It's tight. Then he had like 14-15ish random elders slash sisters come up to a mic and share their fave hymn and why it was their fave and then we all sang one verse of their choice. It was choice... I wasn't anticipating it, but singing hymns with missionaries has become one of my favorite things.
We taught the first lesson in the Teacher Evaluation Center aka TEC this week. Usually, you teach people (usually members) who come as volunteers and act as if they are looking into or investigating the church. THen we would teach them according to their kind-of made up profile. This week, our tight teacher, Sister Harper, decided to change it up. This weeek, she had us teach THAT person, the way they were, LDS or not. We were pretty sure the person we were going to teach was LDS, so we felt a little wierd / nervous about that. Like, how would we teach and LDS person about the restoration and it be like a real lesson? IDK, we thought it would be kind of wierd. But it wasn't. We got in there, and for the first few minutes, just got to know her. It turns out she was LDS, was a student @ BYU, and was a convert to the LDS church when she was a little girl. Her family joined the church when she was 6 and she got baptised when she was 8. When we knew who she was, we taught her principles from lesson 1 based on HER needs. We found ourselves not following the strict outline we had practiced in our study time. We asked her questions, heard her testimony, shared our testimonies, and we ALL learned and were better slash more fortified in our testimonies after we were done. We hadn't wandered aimlessly with what we taught. We are following the Spirit. It was Preach my Gospel style. It was sweet. It was the best lesson. I learned that ALL of us, whether members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or not, are on a spiritual journey back to our loving, living Heavenly father. We can all benefit from the message of the Restored Gospel and the testimonies anytime, anywhere. The church is a huge support system, not just a gathering of perfect people. It's far far from that actually. I know that this church is true and it was restored by the power of God through a humble servant and prophet Joseph Smith. Because of that truth, there are Prophets, or God's chosen servants and leaders, who know the will of God for men, so that they can guide us back to him and have peace/joy in this life. THe Book of Mormon is convincing evidence of those truths. It's a wonderfully importent message, eh?!
Some excerpts from Ryan's last email ...
Dobar Dan moj obitelj!
aka good day my family! What is up! How is everybody? It seems like AZ slash colorado slash everywhere else is doing pretty good.
I keep learning all kinds of stuff. This past sunday @ our devotional Pres Breinholt from the MTC presidency and his wife gave the devotional about music focused on hymns. He began by talking about the importance of hymns and the blessings that can come from hymns. I realized that it had gone unnoticed what an important roll hymns have played in my testimony slash overall happiness. He referred us to the 1st presidency address in the front of the hymn book that describes all the blessings that can come from them. It's tight. Then he had like 14-15ish random elders slash sisters come up to a mic and share their fave hymn and why it was their fave and then we all sang one verse of their choice. It was choice... I wasn't anticipating it, but singing hymns with missionaries has become one of my favorite things.
We taught the first lesson in the Teacher Evaluation Center aka TEC this week. Usually, you teach people (usually members) who come as volunteers and act as if they are looking into or investigating the church. THen we would teach them according to their kind-of made up profile. This week, our tight teacher, Sister Harper, decided to change it up. This weeek, she had us teach THAT person, the way they were, LDS or not. We were pretty sure the person we were going to teach was LDS, so we felt a little wierd / nervous about that. Like, how would we teach and LDS person about the restoration and it be like a real lesson? IDK, we thought it would be kind of wierd. But it wasn't. We got in there, and for the first few minutes, just got to know her. It turns out she was LDS, was a student @ BYU, and was a convert to the LDS church when she was a little girl. Her family joined the church when she was 6 and she got baptised when she was 8. When we knew who she was, we taught her principles from lesson 1 based on HER needs. We found ourselves not following the strict outline we had practiced in our study time. We asked her questions, heard her testimony, shared our testimonies, and we ALL learned and were better slash more fortified in our testimonies after we were done. We hadn't wandered aimlessly with what we taught. We are following the Spirit. It was Preach my Gospel style. It was sweet. It was the best lesson. I learned that ALL of us, whether members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or not, are on a spiritual journey back to our loving, living Heavenly father. We can all benefit from the message of the Restored Gospel and the testimonies anytime, anywhere. The church is a huge support system, not just a gathering of perfect people. It's far far from that actually. I know that this church is true and it was restored by the power of God through a humble servant and prophet Joseph Smith. Because of that truth, there are Prophets, or God's chosen servants and leaders, who know the will of God for men, so that they can guide us back to him and have peace/joy in this life. THe Book of Mormon is convincing evidence of those truths. It's a wonderfully importent message, eh?!
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