MARCH 21, 2018 - FINAL WEEK AT THE MTC - WEEK #3

M-T-SEE--YOU LATER

March 21, 2018

(I had sent this email about the my final week in the MTC, which was the week leading up to March 20th, but due to time contraints I sent it my first week in California, or the week leading up to March 27th)

Oh boy, last week at the MTC!  What's gonna happen? Well, a lot. We were busy, but it was the busy where you know you're busy, but you don't always feel busy. This letter, by the way, was brought to you by the word "busy."

In our classes, there was beginning to be this creeping realization that our time together as a district and with our teachers was beginning to come to a close. For me, it hit when we started counting down the number of volleyball games we'd all get to play with each other. But we tried to just enjoy the time we could spend with each other while we still could. 

Also, Elder Tripp is the best! And I had the absolute pleasure of helping him out with this project. So earlier in our time at the MTC, we went to the store, and he bought 10 hardcover copies of The Book of Mormon, and them moved down the counter to send them to an engraver to get everyone in our district's name engraved on them. So we each would get our own personal copy with Elder/Sister (last name) engraved on the cover. But that's not all, Elder Tripp was sneaky, and got everyone to write our testimonies down on sheets of paper. We then went and copied and sized them to fit in the backs of the copies of the Book of Mormon, and we spent a couple hours taping them in for everyone. So now, we'd  each have each other's testimonies with us as we'd go on our missions. It was great! Kudos to Elder Tripp for creativeness! I'll have a picture of all of us with the books in this email. 

We finished up with our TRC's, and got to learn more about the one we'd been teaching from the beginning! So, context, at the beginning of the MTC, we went and taught our teacher Sister Karren, who was acting as an investigator she had taught while on her Mission in Ukraine. The investigator we taught was a woman named Dina, and we all grew attached to her as we learned more about her and taught her. So finally, in the last class all of us had with Sister Karren, she told us Dina's story. And we got to see pictures of her adorable child! We all loved her, and it was a great way for me to practice loving the people out in my mission field. 

One of the other things that happened in this last week was we got to do was have "Member TRC's." As a missionary, one of the things we do is strengthen the members and encourage them to invite their friends to come unto Christ themselves. So, we went to practice this. And we met Sister Finnegan. 

Now, Sister Finnegan is a Scottish lady, who joined the church many, many years ago, and she is one of the most fantastic people I've had the absolute pleasure of meeting in my life. She had a powerful testimony of the Gospel and great love for her Savior, and, pretty quickly, the discussion became less about how we could strengthen her, and more about what she could share with us from her experience. And she had had a lot of experiences. 

One of the things that she said really struck me, because I'd been thinking about faith recently, and she put it perfectly. See, I'd been thinking about what increases our faith. I had read a scripture (Alma 5:45-47), and it's about this prophet who talks about how he came to learn about the Gospel himself. He says that he prayed and fasted, and then God taught him through the Holy Spirit. Praying, fasting, as well as reading the scriptures and attending church can all increase our faith, but it all boils down to our personal encounters with God through the Holy Spirit. Those are the things that invite His Spirit to help us grow our individual faith. And that's something that I think may be unique to what we teach, is that our conversion to Christ is strengthened if we go directly to God and ask Him whether or not what we've learned is true. If that's not true and other denominations teach that, let me know. But I think that regardless of what we've been taught, the pursuit of an individual testimony is still something worthwhile. 

Now, back to Sister Finnegan. What an incredible woman! I wished I had brought my notebook to write quotes from her down. But she started talking about her own conversion to Jesus Christ, and she related it back to the story of Joseph Smith (Recap: Joseph Smith was reading in James 1:4-5, and had a question he wanted answered. So he decided to "ask of God" as James directed. So he went out to a grove of trees behind his house, and pray. Long story short, he received a powerful answer). And Sister Finnegan said that, "Every heart has to go to the grove." With that same desire to learn and change and grow, we need to go to ask God for ourselves if we want answers. That's what Sister Finnegan did. She was stubborn in accepting God's love in her life, but then she went to the "Grove," knelt before God and asked, and then she received an answer. And that is such a beautiful image to me. 

Sunday night was kind of rough. We had gone to the devotionals, and gone to listen to talks after, and then we got together for some pictures, and said a prayer altogether. There were a few tears, but I looked at everyone present and knew that they would all be fantastic missionaries, even if they didn't think so. I'm excited to hear from them, and the miracles that they will experience out there.

That's the majority of Week 3 at the MTC! Hopefully I'll get caught up more soon!

Ready to go! 

Elder Richardson 

P.S. So thus far, I've really haven't talked much about the physical "Goings On," and more on some of the spiritual experiences I've had. That's mainly because those are the things I remember better, and I've been a week late. As I catch up, do you want more everyday play-by-play? I don't know. What do you want to see?

P.P.S.S. Also, this email is for my final week at the MTC, so the Subject is a bit misleading. But it was so funny to me, and didn't really fit the next email, sooooo... Yeah... :P

Benjamin Richardson

California Redlands Mission

Feb 28, 2018 - March 3, 2020