KONICHIWAAAAAAA

KONICHIWAAAAAAAAA

Sister Marlowe…Week #2

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Konichiwa! 

Hey so I'm just kidding, I'm not actually speaking Japanese, just English haha.

Soooooo I'm so sorry to disappoint, but I think this week's email won't be as completely straight fire as last week's. That's what happens when 79348029483 awesome things happen everyday, so I'm now 4 days behind on my journal writing. But still love all of you.

So, WHAT A WEEK. First off, T-minus like 6 hours after I emailed everybody last week, my homeboy Elder JEFFERY R HOLLAND showed up at the MTC and dropped the most amazing talk evaaaa. Honestly so good. Since I know none of you got to experience this magic, I'll just send a summary of my notes I took on my iPad because it was wonderful:

Pretty much we, as members, and especially as missionaries, are our very first sermon of Christ! Before we talk to people, teach a lesson, bring them to church or anything. Our actions and the things we say preach of Christ, whether we want them to or not.

I love that he repeated the quote "Joseph Smith did more to save the human family than any single person in the world, besides Jesus Christ himself." He had ONE job that he worked on for 10 years, before anything else was done--Book of Mormon. It wasn't until he spent about 10 years translating and publishing the Bom, that God then had him worry about an organized church, temples, endowments anything. BOOK OF MORMON Y'ALL. "GET WITH IT." -E. Holland

He said that no matter how much we read, study, ponder, contemplate, we will never have taken this book seriously enough. Ever!! So get working on that.

One thing he said that I loved, was something he was told when being called as an apostle, "Be your best self. But be yourself. And give all the glory to god." I am working on being my best self!

One of my very very favorite things he taught:

GO ASTONISH SOMEBODY. WE ARE NOT ASTONISHING. BUT OUR MESSAGE IS. AND IT WILL BE FOR GENERATIONS AND POSTERITIES.

*astonish=thunder

If I could pick a missionary quote by Elder Holland instead of scripture, it would be this:

"Salvation is not a cheap experience. I'm going to pay for it. And I'm

bringing it to others. As a missionary I will walk where he walked and

say what he said and do some of what he did and weep his tears. I will

pass through Gethsemane with him. I am a disciple."

When he finished speaking, he gave an apostolic blessing by the Melchchizidek Priesthood "as if his hands were on our own heads." He blessed us with lots of different things, but I really remember him saying that as I serve as a missionary and walk with Christ, that I, and my family, will be blessed tenfold and a hundredfold. So basically mom and dad, (and all the fam) I got a blessing from an apostle this week that if I work hard and do my best, you will be blessed lottsss too fam. Love you.

So I guess I just blew all your emails up with Elder Holland but I don't even feel bad. Also one of the Branch President's counselors told us this week, that our mission is like going to Disneyland. 

Disneyland pretty much summed up is: Wake up early, get to the park, wait in lots of lines, ride awesome rides, have fun, eat food all day, sometimes get sick on crazy rides, go home late and go to bed wrecked. So on my mission I'm going to get up early, walk around and talk to people all day, eat lots of weird food, sometimes feel upset because missions are harddddd, and then HAVE A FREAKIN BLAST THE REST OF THE TIME. Then go to bed every night dead tired. Sooooo y'all have fun while I'm at Disneyland in good old AUS this next 1.5 years, kay?

Speaking of AUS, I got my Visa! Yay exciting. Also my travel itinerary--

Dec. 27, I'll be flying from SLC to San Fran, and then after a 7 year long layover (5 hours), we'll fly to Auckland New Zealand. 13 hour flight, kill me now. Just kidding. But lol I'll be leaving California, on Dec 27 and landing in New Zealand on Dec 29. There goes a whole day of my life that I'll never (except for when I come home) get back *eye roll*

Then from Auckland straight to Melbourne!

I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I don't have a lot more exciting things to share in the amount of time that I have, but I did get to clean showers this week in the dorm bathrooms and oh my gosh it was a traumatic experience. Ew. Also one time I sneezed so loud and scared one of my roommates and told her I got a loud sneeze from my dad (Sorry dad) and she just goes " I think dads sneeze loud to scare away predators." in her british accent and it was fantastic probably had to be there haha. But thanks for that dad. Also our district playing lightning during exercise time and it got soooooooo lit the other  day, like 20 people wanted to join because we are just so cool. Literally love my zone. and District. they're like my fam away from fam except I can't hug half of them and it makes me die inside sometimes. Whoops. Yes I said that. 

Anyways, I love you 700x and you da you da best best I eva had (all of you) (Ps that was totally the lyrics to jam, and yes I'm suffering but it's okay I get to watch mormon messages so who wins me that's right)

Signing out kidssssss,

Sister Kur Marls

  

OH MY GOSH PS. So last week I mentioned the whole breaking an apple thing and how we were going to make it initiation. SO YEAH THAT HAPPENED. This apple tradition has totally been going on in our zone for like "5 years" I'm such a liar we made it up hahaha. But my little baby district sisters believed every word and participated. Wow. One volunteer from the district has to break the apple with their head, then they all can take a bite from the apple of their champion. Greatest. wow Okay. Bye