Hi all! So I will be responding to some of your questions by mail today, but I only have 26 more minutes on email so I will just give you the basics right now. Thanks you for the letters! I got 5 or 6 on Tuesday and another 4 on Wednesday, and everyone in my district was super jealous. Oh, and also know that while I am still here you can use DearElder.com and I will get the message like the same day. Anyway. This week has been crazy! I really do feel like a veteran now, but at the same time not at all. The new people came in on Wednesday and it was so funny to look at them and know exactly how they are feeling, aka crazy overwhelmed and have no idea what they are doing. I mentioned my Coordinating Sister calling last week- so mainly I just get to kind of oversee the sisters in my zone and make sure they are doing well and know what is going on. We got 3 new sisters on Wednesday and I got to show them my room and how it is a perfect example of what a room should be. :) They are awesome though, I seriously love them already. I have also gotten a lot closer to my companion Sister Frandsen and the other 2 sisters in my district, Sisters Anderson and Ulibarri. We have so much fun together! Yesterday they gave us our travel plans (I leave here on Sept. 30) and we were so sad that we won't get to see eachother after that. Oh mom, I will send you some pictures in the mail today so you can post those when you get them.
Anyway, some awesome things have happened this week! Sunday was fun but of course the busiest day of the week. We were joking on Saturday that we can just forget the work weekend because here, everyday is Sunday. But I especially loved Relief Society- Sister Lant who is the general Primary president came and talked. So cool. It was amazing to see that there really aren't all that many sisters here when you compare us to the Elders. Also, on Tuesday night there is always a devotional, and Elder Holland came this week! It was soooooooo cool. He just talked to us and emphasized how we need to make sure we don't miss a single moment of our missions. He kept saying stuff like "this is not a dress rehearsal!" and "don't even think about wasting a moment!" The whole thing was just so powerful and awesome. I feel really lucky that I was here for that. I also learned a really big/good lesson this week. So I was really struggling because I didn't feel like me and my companion were really on the same page as far as our teaching was going. I didn't feel like we were in unity, which is HUGE in being able to teach together and well. So at one point I was just really discouraged and upset and she could tell, and we decided to go back to class early from lunch and talk to our teacher about it. He had some good suggestions, but I was still feeling bad about it. Then I was standing in the hall waiting to get a drink and my teacher (Bro. Warner, he is seriously amazing) was talking to me some more. I think I started to tear up a bit just because I was so overwhelmed and sad, and he asked me if I was ok. Well of course if you ask someone that and they are on the verge of tears, you can guess what would happen. I started to cry, and he had me go into another room and then came to talk to me after he told the rest of my district to do something else. We just talked about how I had really unrealistic expectations for my companionship, but also just for myself. Even though I knew I was doing that, it really helped for him to talk to me about it. He told me to leave my discouragement in that room and move on, and that is what I have been trying to do. In Preach My Gospel it says that discouragement will drive the spirit away, and I have found that is completely true. So anyway, that night we talked about it as a companionship and things have been much better since then. We had a comp. study that night that was just amazing. Way more than ever before we were able to flow in our teaching and understanding, and we came up with some stuff that I know didn't come from our own brains. It was seriously so cool. I will never forget that feeling of just being able to sit there and have the spirit help us learn and be so excited to teach it to others. Also on Wednesday we did our first TRC/TA (they are changing the name), where you go into a room and teach the first lesson to a "real investigator." We actually got an MTC teacher, but when we were there it really seemed like the real thing. I was proud of how we did and although we can improve on a lot of things, we did well. Sister Anderson and Sister Ulibarri actually got to teach a real investigator! That happens sometimes here. They were able to give her a Book of Mormon and everything. They are awesome. Well, one last thing I have learned this week is how important scriptures should be in teaching. We have been trying to make the lessons really apply to the people we will teach, and I think that scriptures are honestly the best way to do it. They really can relate to people so much, and I think it is way better to let the Lord talk to our investigators through His own words than we could ever do ourselves. So my goal this week is going to be to read the scriptures more and think of how I can apply them to real situations and real people! Anyway, time is almost up. Thank you all for everything you have done for me! Although this is so tiring and so hard and so frustrating sometimes, I also know it is so worth it. I love you all!
-Sister Hafen
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