Finally in Lubbock!!! Week #3

Heather (Left) her Mission President and his wife, Pres. and Sister Heap, along with the new missionaries.  Lubbock Texas, June 20, 2016

She has landed in Lubbock!  Heather's flight to Texas landed June 20, at noon.  Her mission mom was kind enough to send us a photo of her along with all of the new missionaries for the area.

She called us at 6 am that morning and sounded delighted, excited, and so very confident.  Her first words were, "I'm serious when I say that I didn't truly understand the gospel until I went to the MTC."  This made me wonder what I missed in teaching her, and then I wondered if there was something that I myself was missing in my understanding of the gospel!  But I think her knowledge was expanded while she was learning, 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for the past 3 weeks!

We were able to talk for almost an hour.  She told us a little about the missionaries who are heading to Texas with her.  One that stood out to me was a young man who is a convert, and his parents are completely against his being on a mission. They do not support him in any way.  They did write to him a couple of times, but that's it.  It has been so difficult for Heather to leave home and commit her time to serving the Lord for a year and a half.  I can't imagine how much harder that would be if we did not support her, financially, spiritually, mentally.  It made my heart ache.

She is definitely in "The Mission Zone" - a state of mind in which everything is focused on the gospel.  I tried to talk to her about some of  the things going on here, and she was interested, but not completely into the conversation, because she is focused.  The phone call made me realize that there truly is a mantle that is placed upon these missionaries, if they are doing it right, and that she is being given extra gifts of the Spirit.

People keep asking me if I'm okay with Heather not being here.  Of course I'm okay!!!  She is exactly where she needs to be, where she wants to be, and most importantly, where the Lord wants her to be!  I am more than okay!  Heather has had many friends go through some serious challenges in their lives because of the choices that they have made: one friend even committed suicide after being bullied to the point of pulling a trigger.  Heather is serving the Lord; has put everything on hold so that the good people of the Texas Lubbock Mission. can know who they are and what God has  planned for them.  Yes, I am definitely okay.

I do miss her.  I think about her multiple times a day.  I thank God each time I think of her for allowing her to be my daughter!

She is in Texas, finally!  And so begins, Heather's adventures in Lubbock!!!!

Mary Ann Overson

14 June 2016, Week #2

14 June 2016, WEEK #2

This week has just flown by!

The first week here was soo long and soo hard that by the time it was P-Day, we all felt like it wasn't NEARLY long enough.  And then before we could even count down the days to the next P-Day, it's P-Day again!

Tuesday night, we had the opportunity to be in the MTC choir that would be performing in the the Devotional that night.  Little did any of us know that the song we would be performing would be the first time that song has EVER been performed, was written by Elder Bednar, and would be broadcasted all over the world to all the MTCs!  The song is called One By One and it was seriously the most incredible thing.  I had to stop singing a couple times because I was so filled with the Spirit that I was going to cry!  It was amazing because we hadn't even paid that much attention to the words before we sang it on camera, but it was truly amazing.

This past week, my companion, Sister Burbidge, and I had the opportunity to finally get into the TRC (Training Resource Center) and teach people who may or may not be investigators.  We taught a woman named Emi.  Emi is Japanese and lived in Tokyo for most of her life, but moved to Provo about 4 years ago to the ELC at BYU to study English.  She has had the missionaries teach her before, in Tokyo and has several LDS friends that "always seem happy" and she was very curious about that, so she met with us!  We had been teaching her the whole week and she was making amazing progress, we could see the light of Christ in her eyes begin to shine so bright - she was keeping her commitments, and she was feeling the Spirit!  But it finally came time for our last lesson, which was on Friday.  So, in this lesson, we went into it, having prepared the Gospel of Christ and we were planning on having Emi pray about baptism, to know if it was the next step for her to take.  The last lesson we taught her was about the Plan of Salvation and we asked her to pray about what we taught and also to continue to read the Book of Mormon.  We did not tell her specifically where to read in the Book of Mormon, but we assumed she would just pick up where she left off in 1 Nephi.  Well, guess what?  She was prompted to read 3 Nephi chapter 11, just the first few verses that talked about sacrament.  So, Sister Burbidge and I started to get really excited because that

was part of our lesson plan!  Later in the lesson, we moved onto baptism and Emi seemed to start to get a little hesitant, scared almost.  She asked us if baptism is just a one time thing and she told us that the other missionaries had talked to her about it, but that the idea scared her because she knew she wasn't perfect no matter how hard she tried and that she would make mistakes again and that would be it - no more salvation.  We were able to tell her THAT was the purpose of the sacrament and of repentance!  Then we invited her to pray to know if baptism was the next step for her and she was so excited!!  She was excited about everything we told her!!  The Spirit was so incredibly strong in that room!  It was insane!!  We ended the lesson with a prayer, which was said by Emi, and she prayed for both of us and our families and she thanked God for the knowledge she received that day!  She then had us take pictures with her and had us write down our emails so we could keep in touch.  The whole experience was just unreal.  I'm so grateful we got to teach her.  She also asked about the ribbons on my scriptures and we were able to tell her about going to church every Sunday and the YW program and all kinds of stuff about how your growth in the gospel continues after baptism inside the church.  It's still hard for me to believe, but Sister Burbidge and I realized that God gave us that experience for a reason.  We loved visiting with Emi anyway because she was just always amazing, but we really needed that to happen.  So as soon as we were out of the building, we stopped and said a prayer of thanks to God and asked Him to bless Emi for her faithfulness and to help her know how to advance to the next step.

It's just amazing to think that would have never happened if we didn't come out here on our missions or if we gave up after the second day or the third.  I haven't gotten the email from Emi yet with pictures, but as soon as I do, I will send them!

So, our district is pretty awesome.  We're all super close and will probably all be friends for the eternities (and probably were before this life).  So our district leader suggested we do the Tower Challenge.  For those of you who have heard of it, you know it's great, but for those of you who haven't: the Tower Challenge is basically just getting a bunch of people together and draining an entire tower of cereal in the cafeteria.  We have ten people in our district, so we thought we'd have a pretty good chance, so we did it this morning before going to the temple for another endowment session.  We had it almost 4/5 of the way gone when a cafeteria worker came to refill the tower.  So we asked him very politely not to because we were doing the tower challenge.  He decided to go and tell one of the MTC dining leaders and he came over to the table and started chewing out Elder Macdonald (our district leader) for not disciplining us for doing this and how we were going to lead people away from the church by. . . eating cereal??  So, Elder Macdonald was pretty upset, but he kept his cool.  At lunch time, after going to the temple, he went up to the guy who chewed him out and apologized for what we had all done, which was apparently so bad they decided NOT to tell anyone it was against the rules.  All the guy said to him was, "Yeah, the President doesn't want to see that again." and just scowled at him.  So Elder Macdonald came and sat down and was just even more upset than before apologizing!  It was frustrating, but we all had a really good time chowing down at least 4 bowls of frosted flakes each! (Pictures included)

Anyway, my MTC experience has been amazing so far, I am really loving it here.  We all got our flight plans recently and we're leaving on Monday at 3:30 IN THE MORNING.  Our flight starts at 7:30 and we get to Lubbock at about noon.  I'm super excited to finally be going to Lubbock, but I am seriously going to miss my district!  They have been the best thing ever, we do EVERYTHING with each other!  They are all amazing and I love them.

I love you all and I hope you have an amazing week!

Love,
Sister Heather Overson

Sis. Overson's first Prep Day Email

Hello Everyone!

This first week at the MTC has been INSANE.  We finally got a little bit of a break on Sunday when we were in so many large meetings in the big gym that we were able to just sit back and relax and listen to the messages being taught to us (and maybe take a short nap!).

Wednesday was probably the craziest and most confusing, though.  As soon as I started walking away from my parent's car, the host sister who was taking care of me and leading me to where I needed to go started in on all this information I needed to know for my first day at the Missionary Training Center.  We grabbed my luggage and set off to get a little packet with my badges, my MTC badge to get me into all the buildings (for security purposes, they have everyone get little badges to swipe while going in all the buildings), and my "White Bible", or the Missionary Hand Book, and some more information that I would need.  From there I went straight back outside and on the way got some books needed while at the MTC and met back up with my host sister who took me to my residence.  Now, the residence buildings, for some unknown reason, don't have elevators in them and OF COURSE my room was way up on the top fourth floor of the building.  So we had some help from an Elder outside to carry my things up all those stairs while I'm already sweating from stress and from having a cold.  From there, I went back down all those stairs after dropping off my stuff and the host sister led me to a different building while still bombarding me with information and telling me that I probably won't remember any of it.  

In this different building was going to be my classroom, which, unbeknownst to me at the time, would be the room I would spend just about 12 hours or more in every day here at the MTC.  So, my host sister finally left me at the door and told me a gentleman would direct me to my classroom.  Well, there was a couple standing and talking to that gentleman and when I went over to talk to him, he told me that I had the great opportunity to meet the mission (of the Provo MTC) President Burgess, and his wife!  Well, I was super exhausted, not feeling well, and not thinking right, so OF COURSE I shook his hand and while still holding his hand, he asked me how I was and I told him I had a cold. . . .  He immediately took his hand away as if I had the plague and sister Burgess said she would "just rub elbows" with me instead.  It didn't even hit me how awful that little meeting was with him until a couple days later when I realized that not a ton of missionaries even get to meet him TO shake his hand and that he was kind of like the Prophet here in the MTC and I might have given him my cold.  I am happy to report that I DID NOT give him my cold, though :)

I was super worried about not being able to sleep here because of the lack of a fan and my big black kitty to sleep on my face.  I have slept with a fan since I was a baby and seriously have a hard time sleeping without one.  But I have been sleeping pretty well without my cat and a fan, but I still plan on getting both those items once I get to Texas! . . .  Maybe my mission president wouldn't approve of a cat, but I'm still counting on my Mommy to find me a stuffed animal I can use as proxy!

I'm also happy to report that I'm over my cold, but I'm afraid I might have given it to my companion, Sister Burbidge, who is from Salt Lake City.  All of the 9 other people in my district are from the United States and speak English just fine.  There are two other sisters, Sister Bess and Sister Jensen, and two other Elders, Elder Hatch and Elder Cichoski (I'll leave pronunciation to the imagination, but his companion just calls him Elder Sneeze or Elder Bless You), that are going to Lubbock, Texas once they get out in the field.  The four other elders, Elder Pulotu and Elder Hallerman, Elder Macdonald and Elder Allen, are going to the Spokane, Washington mission.  

I'm so grateful for the time I have had here at the MTC!  At first, my companion and I really didn't talk to each other a whole lot except when we had to, but as we teach our investigators (they give us investigators here and only about 30% of the time are they real investigators, a lot of the time, they are already member just pretending) we have grown so close and after each lesson, we give each other a giant hug because we are just so incredibly happy! 

Well, I love you all, and it has been a great week!  I got to go to my second endowment session at the Provo Temple this morning and we get to hear from Elder Bednar tonight at the devotional!  I'm super excited to be here and the more I am here, the more it has been manifested to me that I am supposed to be here at this time and that there are people waiting in the Lubbock mission area to hear the gospel from me.  I am having a great time despite crying every once in a while when I get the Dear Elder letters from my Mom or am reminded of home by a scripture or a thought.

I will send pictures, hopefully later tonight, but if not, next week.  Thank you, again, Mom, for sending my camera to me because I left it at work when I left almost a month ago!

 - Sister Heather Overson