Week 1- First Week!

Dear Family and Friends,

    Well here I am in the MTC and it is my first week and it has been crazy! They keep us so busy all the time we literally have to wake up running and keep running until we go to sleep. They keep extending challenges that are optional but you feel like you should keep. One is we have to read 27 pages of the Book of Mormon a day and I am already behind. Oh dear there is never enough time to do everything I want to. Then we have to write a 3-5 minute talk every week that I am here in the MTC and we might be called on to share in sacrament. This past week was on faith and this coming week is on repentance. Plus, we have already started teaching and we have 3 investigators. Well they are fake but it is still really good practice! There are so many moments of high and lows.

     Our fist investigator is named Jordan and he is actually our teacher but he pretends to be an investigator. Our first visit with him my companions and I thought went terrible. We tried to teach him about prayer and help him know that he is a son of God. I felt like we just could not get through to him. We did ask him to pray and he said he would so I guess that was a success. Then with our second visit, it went really well, we went in wanting to teach about the atonement and it went really good, I could feel the spirit and was so glad that I had prepared and could use some of the scriptures we had found earlier. After we taught him he (as our teacher now) asked us to come back in and told us that we had been great with our first lesson and also with this past. It was such a relief but it was good for us to think that we didn't do great the first time because we could be humble and allow us to grow and try harder.

    Second investigator is our other teacher Brother Pead and his investigator name is Ryan. He is great! He understands the Bible and has said he would be baptized if it was the Lord's will. I was so happy that he said that so I actually asked him to fist pound me. He just looked at me like, "Really?". Yep I made him do it and we all laughed at how weird I am some times. But I know that the Lord has called me Sister Cassidy Jean Lang to be a missionary and He wants me to be myself if He didn't want who I was then He wouldn't have called me. I love this work and it feels so great having people accept the gospel and I just love how good the Spirit feels. Even at the frustrating moments I can still feel the Spirit and it is so nice.

     Our third investigator we have only met once and boy was she hard! She loves to talk! I don't think we talked for a total of 8 minutes. It was really hard and frustrating after because I felt like we got no where with her :( We are meeting with her again on Wednesday. So hopefully that lesson will go better.

     My companions are Sister Curtis from Utah and then Sister Nethercott from Wyoming (she went to Jerusalem the semester before me and also roomed with Carly for a semester up in Idaho.) They are both great and we work really well in a trio. It is so fun to be with them and I love trios now. It is an extra person to receive revelation and have a different perspective.

     One thing I learned this week: From studying the scriptures and then personal studying I have come to realize the difference between loving everyone and every ONE. My goal is to love every ONE. That is how I want to change hearts one by one, loving each individual and know them to be the son or daughter of God that they are. Well I think that is it... I hope everyone is doing well at home or at school. I would encourage everyone to just pray to know that we are truly Heavenly Father's literal children and He loves us so much!

Love Always,

   Sister Cassidy Lang