First Week=Done

Hey everyone!!

First off, I'm so glad to hear from all of you. It really makes my day a million times better to read a letter or an email from home. We joke a lot here that a letter is to an Elder as a milkbone is to a dog. And it's true. One of my responsibilities as district leader is to collect and pass out mail at the end of the day, and you'd be surprised as to what missionaries will do to get their mail.

Anyway sounds like a lot has gone on! I'm only gone a week and Tori breaks! I'm really glad to hear that she's okay though. Appendicitis is not on my list of things to do.

As for me, I'm doing really really well. Health wise I'm doing good. I went to the doctor yesterday to get this weird rash on my face checked out and it turns out being in the MTC gives me eczema I guess. The doctor was pretty baffled. Anyway enough about the endless adventures of Elder Brennan's random problems....The MTC is incredible. The closeness that I can feel to our Heavenly Father while here is absolutely amazing, and the spiritual growth that's taken place since I got out of the car is breathtaking. I am a completely different person since when I left. But it didn't come easy. As much as I love this place, it's hard. Really hard. But it's so worth it as well. On our first day during the devotional, Sister Nally (the MTC president's wife) said, "There is rarely growth in a comfort zone, and rarely comfort in a growth zone. This is a growth zone." And boy was she right. I have grown so much this past week and I haven't been comfortable a moment of it. But through literal constant prayer and trust in my Father and my Savior, I'm making it through and doing it with a smile.

But being a missionary is awesome!!!! There are so many awesome things that come with being on the Lord's errand. I'm so much more in tune with the Spirit for one. It's incredible how clearly I can feel promptings and understand them (I'll give an experience in just a sec). Reading the scriptures is also a whole new experience. Doctrine and parallels and principles and cross references and everything else you can think of just jump off the page and practically smack you in the face. IT"S SO COOL. Being a missionary is just awesome. I just love it.

So!! I wanted to share with you guys an awesome experience that was a couple days in the making. So on Tuesday we had a devotional and the Primary General President came and spoke to us. (Also I sang in the choir so that was pretty sweet) Anyway she gave an amazing talk, but it wasn't anything that she said that struck me the most. It was two of the impressions I received. One was "What are you willing to sacrifice for me?" and the other was "Why don't you have more faith in me?" I was kinda struck by that. I wasn't entirely sure what to take from it. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was relying more on myself than I was on Him. Especially when it came to lesson planning. So I decided to change that. I talked with Elder Hatman and we both agreed that the next lesson we prepared would be entirely guided by the Spirit. We wouldn't include anything in our lesson if we didn't pray about it first and feel distinct conformation. We immediately put it into practice.

So before I go further, let me explain how teaching goes here at the MTC. We have what we call Progressive Investigators, who are actually actors hired to give us an idea of what teaching investigators is going to be like. Is it real? Technically no. But if we treat it like it is, so does the Spirit. We have one who's name is Lisa. Lisa is a really great girl and we've been teaching her since last Friday. She's had a bit of a rough past, but she's putting it behind her and has been meeting with us to try and find something more. She's been doing well, but Elder Hatman and I were getting a little frustrated because she wasn't progressing as much as we knew she could. We gave her a Book of Mormon on Saturday and she wasn't really keeping her commitment to read it, and she'd already turned down baptism once. But we could tell she was so so close. So we put our plan into action. We planned and studied and prayed, and we came up with a lesson. We decided to read in Mosiah 14 and also read Alma 7:11-12. (Please read these before continuing :) ) That's all. That was the lesson. But we had faith and we went for it. We started the lesson with a prayer, and then asked her if she had any questions. She did. She had been reading in the Plan of Salvation pamphlet we gave her and had really liked the part about Christ's Atonement and how we can be made guilt free through Him. She said she wanted to learn more about that. So we read. The Spirit was so strong. It was so evident that she could feel it. We asked her again to commit to baptism, and she said yes without a moment's hesitation. THAT, right there, was the most incredible moment of my life. We were so excited. So, in short, have faith in your Lord in everything you do and He will lift you up. Guaranteed.

So sorry that this was kind of a long email.....but I hope you liked it anyway!! Keep writing and telling me what's going on :) I love all of you!!

Much love,
Elder Rosenlof

Ps I tried to attach pictures but apparently that's not an option at the MTC. I'll send them when I get out in the field :)