Probably not even people who know Spanish will be able
to read this text, but it was a super cute birthday text from one of our
investigators who I thought didn't even know it was my birthday! Essentially,
it says, (with a lot of grammatical edits), "Hola, Hermana
Praht, I want to congratulate you on your birthday of yesterday, God bless you
and take care of you, and give you lots of years of life." Again, lots of
editing. But it was so sweet! I was pretty happy about it.
Hola! So I can't remember whether I mentioned the fact that
Elder Bednar was coming to our mission, but he did! On Saturday! Also, with him
came his wife, Susan Bednar, Elder Lynn G Robins, of the Presidency of the
Seventy, and Bishop Davies of the Presiding Bishopric! It was super intense!
And also like the coolest thing ever.
Something funny that he said: "The Sisters will do 100
things and they will get an A+ on 99 of them, and a B+ on the other one and all
they can remember is the B+. A man can do 100 things and will fail on 99
of them, but on one he scrapes a C. You know what he does?" Just use your
imagination on this one, but Elder Bednar beats his chest and yells,
"Yeah! I'm the man!"
The first thing Bishop Davies did when he got up was
impersonate James Brown and sing, "I feel good!" Everyone was quite
entertained.
Sister Bednar is super cute and Elder Robins and Bishop
Davies gave super powerful testimonies. And when Elder Bednar bore his
testimony at the end, I could feel that there were angels in the room. I could
almost see them. It was SO powerful. The Spirit was so strong the whole time.
And so about my comment thing. The meeting went like this: Elder Bednar got up
and told us not to write down what the speakers said. That was like making,
"Large plates." (The long history of the people). We only needed to
write down the things the Spirit told us, which is like making, "Small
plates." (The plates that contained spiritual things and things of great
worth). He also told us we were going to be participating lots. Then he
said, "But we are not going to be playing the, 'guess what's in Elder
Bednar's head' game. That game goes like this: (And I have to point at someone,
don't freak out or do anything when I point at you) (*points at a random
Elder*) Elder, tell me the three elements of a baptismal covenant. (*Elder starts
to shift uncomfortably*) Now, he knows the answer. Until an apostle of the Lord
points at him in front of 600 other missionaries, his mission president, and
some other General Authorities. In that moment, he doesn't even know his name.
He doesn't know where he is. It is not an effective learning tool. It is
something that has developed in the culture of the church, not the doctrine,
but the culture." He talked a lot about the Doctrine of the church vs. the
culture of the church, which I think is an important difference. Then he
explained how when he did that, he made that Elder an object, something to be
acted upon and not an agent to act for himself. That was pretty much his main
thing. That we need to be objects and use our agency and act for ourselves,
rather than waiting to be acted upon.
He had given us three talks of his to read in the month or
so before the meeting, and then he opened it up to us to tell him what we'd
learned from them and from what we were doing in the meeting. They had
microphones that they would pass to whoever he called on (Missionaries would
raise their hands) and they would say their thoughts and he would pretty much
always say back, "Can I ask you a question?" And then would ask a
question based on what they had said. One thing I noticed was that he was so
good at building people up and making us all feel so intelligent and really
just bringing it all back to the fact that it was the Holy Ghost saying these
things, not him and not us.
I did make a comment about the prayer thing I told you about
a few weeks ago and he asked me a question. Its all a bit of a blur, but it was
really cool. He asked me what effect that has had on my prayers and how I am
going to continue to improve. I didn't know Sister Murrell had texted you until
yesterday! I think you guys would be really good friends. You need to meet
somehow in person.
But the Spirit was SOOOOO strong. We were promised
beforehand that if we prepared well we could expect a Pentecostal experience
and I definitely feel like that's what we got! Before the meeting started I was
feeling depressed and worried I wouldn't be able to feel the Spirit but as soon as they
walked in, all of those feelings of fear and doubt completely vanished. There
was no blockage of the Spirit or any feelings of depression. It was incredible.
I haven't felt that way in a long time, and ever since then I have felt a
lot better and much more capable. And I have learned so much more about how to teach effectively.
Talking is not the way. Elder Bednar specifically said, "You probably were
expecting us to just stand up here and give talks. But if we do that, we have
no idea where you are or what you need. So we will be going by the Spirit and
you will be doing as much talking as me." Then we read D&C 88:122,
which says: "122 Appoint among yourselves a teacher, and let a all be spokesmen at
once; but let one speak at a time and let all listen unto his sayings, that
when all have spoken that all may be b of all, and that
every man may have an equal privilege."
And I had never really thought about it the way that this
meeting was conducted, but it was really cool and I wondered why not
every meeting was conducted this way.
Well, anyways, I'm sorry, but I'm out of time. I love you
all and I'll see you on Mother's day!! :) ;)
Love, Hermana Emily Pratt
