Hola!
This last week went by so fast it is incredible. I wrote a little bit already about what happened on Christmas and Christmas Eve. We had Elder Bednar and it was really so amazing. It is amazing the spirit that enters the room when one of the apostles of God walks into a room. The feeling in the room literally changes.
So anyways...that was awesome and I got some fun presents from family that I really appreciate a lot. It is amazing how good many of you are at knowing just what I may be needing. Anyways...the rest of Christmas day was truly amazing and very surprising. We watched the Mormon Tabernacle Concert with Sissel which happens to be my favorite concert of theirs...but I did not have any idea how many times my sister Chelsi's face appeared on that video. Like huge closeups and everything. Over and over again. I loved it! Talk about such an unexpected tender mercy from God. It was like I was actually at the concert watching my sister and so in a way I got to spend Christmas with some family afterall. Maybe that sounds way dumb, but it really made Christmas that much better for me.
Anyways...after that we had our quick sack dinners...and then comes the big surprise. We went to the devotional that evening a little bit earlier than usual so that we could get good comfortable seats since we were going to be sitting there for 3 hours. We got there just before 6:30 for the devotional that was starting at 7. Shortly after we got there, they called a few missionaries down to the front, including me. I had absolutely no idea what it was about. I got down there and they said that Sister Nally wanted to talk to me. I found her. She is the one who holds the auditions for musical numbers. I had auditioned 1 1/2 weeks earlier, but didn't think there was any way that I was going to play because the song I had auditioned with had already been played at several devotionals and other meetings. I had auditioned with O' Holy Night, but she had put me in the yes stack. But I thought she wouldn't get to it since there had already been several others. Anyways...I found her down by the stage and she said..."did you get a notice in the mail in the last few days at all?" I said that I had not. She said, "I was afraid of that." She then began to explain that she had had musical numbers lined up for all the meetings during Christmas day. There was supposed to be a musical number during the departure devotional earlier that day, but the scheduled person had not showed up...so on her way down to this devotional she was thinking that maybe with the staff being short for Christmas, none of the notices to play for the devotional had gone out. It turns out that she was right. So she asked if I would still be willing to play at the devotional that was starting in 20 minutes....mind you that this is the Christmas devotional with the whole MTC! I said that my violin was locked up in the main building and I didn't know where my accompanist was or how I could notify her...but I was very willing to do it. My heart was pounding like a mad woman! Anyways...she said she would find my accompanist and have someone meet me at the music closet to get my violin. I literally ran to get my violin with my companion, I warmed up for 3 minutes and ran back to the devotional. My accompanist and I had not played through it at all for about 10 days...but we just got up there and were the only musical number for the devotional. To say the least, it was the first time I have felt nerves like that playing the violin in front of a crowd for a long long time. It was a little nerve racking to stand up in front of 2500 missionaries with 20 minutes notice and play...but it went quite well for not having rehearsed it for so long and the fact that we had really only played through it together 3 times I believe. It was crazy! So that was a fun little present that God gave to me. Even though I was super nervous, I really had a great time doing it. The prelude numbers that had been planned that other people were supposed to play, were not able to happen because the people didn't have their music with them cuz they didn't know...so I am grateful that I had just enough notice that we were able to provide a musical number for Christmas Day.
Anyways...there have been some other really cool things that have happened this week. We feel a little lost sometimes because we have a new substitute teacher everyday and they don't always follow what the plan is supposed to be, but we have had some good teaching experiences this week because of it. I want to share just one that really had an impact on me. This whole week we have been talking about how important the spirit is in every persons conversion, including our own continual conversion. So we have been sharing and learning a lot more about how the spirit works and that we may not even know what is going on until after it happens. So yesterday, we were teaching our investigator Lorena. Our teacher had not told us any of the things about her, but it was our second lesson with her. Hermana Crowley and I had a completely different plan than what the spirit led us to in that lesson. As we began talking with Lorena, I had the thought to ask her how her family was doing (I didn't even remember that I had asked that until our teacher pointed it out after). But Lorena began to tell us how she and her family were having a hard time because her parents just got divorced and she didn't know how to feel about anything and she really was struggling with it. When she said that, the spirit hit me like a brick wall and told me that I had to share with her my experience and what I have learned through it. I began to share with her how my parents got divorced and how hard that was for me, especially because of how much I loved my family. I shared with her how important families are to God and that we really can have eternal families. She wondered how that was possible when her parents are divorced. This happens to be a very hard question to answer because I do not know exactly how it works, but the spirit has testified to me many times that I will be blessed with the blessings of an eternal family and I can be together with my family forever even though my parents are divorced. I wouldn't even say that I have just a testimony of this, I really feel like I have an actual knowledge of this, because there is not a doubt in my mind because of the confirmation of these thoughts I have received on several occasions. I truly loved this experience and my teacher shared with us afterwards how incredibly powerful the lesson for her was as the investigator. She could really feel the spirit confirming what I said and that it was so interesting that that came up because only the spirit knew that my experience would be able to relate to her problem. She had not intended to share that with me at all but felt comfortable sharing that when we showed we care about her and her family. but there was no way for her to know that I had been through the same thing. I am so grateful for the mysterious ways in which God works. I am not even out in the field yet and I am seeing literal miracles everyday.
Well I better go...I am way overtime.
I love you all!
This Gospel is so true and I am grateful for the opportunity I have to serve.
Love,
Hermana Eyre
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