always #training4ukraine

I was planning on just sending you a picture of a journal entry... but my camera broke so. Ok :) 

Hello family! I love you guys so much. Can you believe I am almost going to Ukraine. One PDAY LEFT AND I WILL BE THERE. Today we may get our travel PLANS. DO YOU WANT TO SCREAM WITH ME CUZ IM GOING TO SCREAM. UKRAINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Quick business:

*Please say thank you to the Christensen's for the donuts and for the sweet note. Best thing ever and they sure tasted delicious.

-Any updates on the world outside the MTC?????

So anyway just an entry for this week:

So me and Cectpa Rubio are teaching a real person named Lisa right?! And she is incredible. We asked her to pray and she was so nervous to do it at home. What if there was a God, what if not? But we just talked about it until she was like ok I will do it. I will pray to see if God is really there. Now she has had a pretty rough life right? So after that I am just begging God to answer her prayer when she got down on her knees. 

(Sorry that was a preface- now my journal entry)

April 23, 2015

"All day I worried. And all day I realized that I just need to have more faith and worry less. I just hoped Lisa had prayed and that God was there and that He told her He loved her. I begged God all day, that he would talk to her. but why did I beg? Of course He talked to her. I told her to pray and promised her an answer beacuse I knew that God would anwer her. I felt it. The spirit was the one prompting me to tell her everything that I did say. 

Anyway, I guess I got nervous because I thought maybe God was preparing me for her to come back and say that she did not feel Him there or she didn't get an answer. Because all day things happened like: 

Casha's Mom (our practice investigator) is against the Mormon church and he was told he has to choose between her and us. He doesn't want to choose. He knows he needs the church but he can not figure out what to do. After we talked for what seemed like ages trying to figure out what to do, crying I told him that he needs to pray everyday, come to church one more time, read his book of mormon everyday, and if he gets and answer that the church isn't true then he can stop listening to our message, but if he feels it is true and he feels he needs to keep talking to us, even though his mom will be upset, he must keep listening. It is salvation! I know God wants him to keep listening and that God will bless his mom. It will be hard but this gospel is worth it. 

Then in class we talked about how to talk to someone when they decide they don't want to hear the message anymore. So I just felt nervous... 

So later in the day we went to talk to Lisa, my mind going crazy. Guess what?! She prayed and she knew God was there and that he was listening. She told us that she didn't really have time to read the book of mormon but that she had anyway and was already to nephi 8 and that she loves it. The first verse in 1 Nephi 1 stuck out to her in a way I had never thought of. It compeletely related to her life: Nephi had many afflicitions yet at the same time he was loved by god. She realized there can be both at the same time and said it completely related to her life. We told her a ton. She asked how if people felt like this how could they ever leave the church? Her ex husband used to be a memeber of the church before she married him and she just doesn't get how someone could ever leave after feeling this way. Golden oppurtunity to ask if she will be baptized. We exaplained all of it (because she has never read bible or really known anything religious besides prayer). She said if she knows it is true she just might :) She clung to everything we said. We invited her to church. Her friend has asked her 14 times to go and she always told him to stop asking, yet now she is going to ask him to go with him. She asked us if you can feel the spirit in the church like you can here at the MTC. YES! she is gonna get baptized :D"

April 28, 2015

"So it has been a few days since I have written. I do not know how I used to have time to write as much as I did everyday...

LISA WENT TO CHURCH. Cectpa Rubio and I sprang forward in our seats when she told us the news. Oh, if only you could meet this woman. She is incredible and is so much our friend.she wants this gospel. Tomorrow we will try to find her again. She is so sweet and contstantly telling us how amazing we are. But I just feel blessed to talk to her and to get to share this! The people in the ward welcomed her and sweet friends took her to church. She was even asked to say the prayer in Sunday School (in sign lanugage)! She was nervous so she didnt but we are still so proud of her. Everytime we talk to her even if it just a quick 5 minutes here and there we bear our testimony and of the gospel and it's importance. She always feels it. I just love that Lisa. :) I am so grateful for my companion and the prompting she recieved to talk to her. I just know, Lisa needs this. She is going to accept it, no matter how long it takes. I am SO HAPPY!"

I am good and the MTC is really a great place. I want to leave to be able to go to Ukraine but I do not want to leave Lisa. She is really making this MTC the very best thing ever. Please pray for my Russian. I felt like I was doing really amazing but suddenly feel like I have hit a wall. I will pray harder and work harder but man it is so hard you guys. The cases and the grammar is basically killer. I love it so much, I hope I can speak it. I have faith he will help me, but added prayers are always the best. I love you guys. So good to hear from you. Send me BUCKETS of Dear Elder this week if you want. It is getting pretty close to not being able to do that anymore. I LOVE YOU! Have a great week. I know this gospel is true and being able to come to our Savior is the greatest gift in the entire world. There is nothing so beautiful as His love for us, which makes all possible. Keep working hard. I know that we can do hard things. It is worth it. REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE. 

And as always, I am training for Ukraine. :D 

Love, Cectpa Karren 

Our teachers in the MTC. 
Brat (Brother) Gill, Cectpa Eyring, Brat Froelich