Still here!

Dearest Mother!

I am staying in Albany for another transfer! And my companion is staying too!! So This means I get to send her home which is cool because she was my MTC companion:) I'm so excited for the next 6 weeks!

You have Sister Missionaries now? Awesome!! That is so exciting! I hope they keep sister missionaries until I get home! That will be so fun to get to know them! :) Tell them when I come home, they should feel free to use me for miles and member presents (as long as it is ok that I use the car while I am home:)) I think that is it awesome that the visiting general authority encouraged y'all to have "gospel discussions" with your non-member friends! If nothing else, it will definitely increase your testimony of the truthfulness of the restored gospel! I hope one day everyone will do that.. It would make it so much more fun to be missionaries:)

President Grayson decided that he was going to put two more elders in our area! And they are going to get a car!! So then we will be able to go to the far away areas more often:) I am so excited for it because it means that there will be so many more people that will be able to be affected! President Grayson officially announced it during transfer calls last Saturday night, but we knew earlier in the week because he would call us what seemed like daily to ask about the area and where a good place for them to be living would be. Its been a pretty hectic week, but it is so worth it! 

I'm glad people are still thinking about me:) I think about all of you all the time and when I get the ward newsletters from Brother Martinez each month, I am just so amazed at how much everyone has grown since I have been gone.. Its crazy how the world changes when you are away from it for even a short while!

I remember at girls camp we were always warned about bears, but that bears never actually came close.. I'm amazed that they did come closer though. I have learned that sometimes it is needed so that we can learn the importance of obedience.. (Gospel tie in ready?) Sometimes we are told so many different times the dangers of the "bears" in our lives. Gossip, bad language, laziness, etc. They don't always hurt us, but the potential is always there.. Until it hits closer to home, or it walks in on you at camp, we think we are still doing good! So what if it isn't necessarily 100% right? everyone else is doing it! We start to roam at night, we start to leave our companion. There is a reason there is the buddy system whenever you are in potentially dangerous places. We can get lost, we won't know where to go! Hope is there! First, know that Heavenly Father is always there, if we but just listen. Understand commandments aren't meant to confine, but to protect and free.. Your choices become very limited if you decide to break the rule of not going into the deep forest at night and you come across a bear. That works the same in life.. It's amazing what Heavenly Father sees in our lives that He tries to warn us about, but because we are too stubborn we don't listen and we trip.. A lot. He is always there though ready to pick us up and help us move forward:)

In some good news!! One of our investigators is getting baptized on Saturday! I am so excited for her! I will talk about it more next week, but I wanted to let you know that because it was so exciting when she passed her interview last week!!! Yay!

Anyway, I love you all and I hope everything is going ok with life:)

Remember to always count your blessing, especially when you are down, to choose happiness, and always TRUST the Lord. He does know you and He knows what is best for you:)

Always and forever my love,

Sister Monica Walker

"I Used To Think I Was Basically Ready"

MOM!!! I love it here at the MTC. You should have gotten my letter already that I sent home, and if you haven't, well its on its way. It is most definitely weird to be called Sister Walker, but I at least respond to it now when it is called out by someone trying to get my attention.

I have learned so much here. I used to think I was basically ready, with a few things here and there to which I would need fixing, but everyday I learn so much.

On Sunday after the Sunday Devotional, our district watched a talk given by Elder Bednar at the MTC. It's titled "Character of Christ." If you can find it, you should watch it. Its absolutely phenomenal.

One of the stories he shared I wrote down so I could share with you because I thought it was really cool. Elder Bednar was a Stake President, and one night in the middle of the night, he received a phone call from a Young Women's President who lived about two hours away. She told him that three young women had been involved in a serious car crash, one of whom was pronounced dead at the scene. She needed him to go to the hospital (which was super close to where he lived) to identify the girls who were in the crash, who were on their way there. At some point in the conversation, Elder Bednar realized that the sister who was on the phone with him actually was speaking on two phones, and on the other phone was an LDS nurse who was with the girls in the ambulance. He could sort of hear what the other person was saying, and shortly after the Young Women's President had asked him to go, and he had agreed, the nurse on the other phone said that the girl who had died had been identified. It was the daughter of the Young Women's president. Amazingly, the first words out of her mouth were to Elder Bednar, and she told him that the mothers of the other girls needed to be called and told that her daughters were still alive. Not once did she break down and become incoherent or even focus on the fact that she had just been told that her daughter had died. One of the other mothers was a Relief Society President, and was a single mother to her only child. That girl died later as well. After the body had been prepared for the closed casket funeral, this sister called Elder Bednar, and invited him to come and see her before her casket was closed, because she didn't want the last time he saw her to be when she was nearly unrecognizable in the hospital. How sweet of this sister to think of how Elder Bednar was feeling in the midst of all this sorrow for her. When this sister was about to leave for her daughter's funeral, she received a phone call from another sister in the ward, who didn't know that the Relief Society President's daughter had just died, and she called to complain that she had a cold and no one had come over yet to deliver her food. This mother, who was on her way to her only child's funeral, stopped by this other sisters home and brought her a dinner, without complaint, with love, and without telling this other sister where she was going. 

The point of Elder Bednar telling this story was to show how these two sisters exemplified the Character of Christ. Christ in the midst of adversity and pain and suffering turns outwards to see other's pains, when the human wants to turn inward. These sisters could have turned inward and been completely justified by crying and thinking only of their loss, but instead they turned outward and helped those who needed it. This is who Christ is. This is who we need to try to be. It's hard, but we have been promised great blessings if we do.

I have so many more insights and notes from that talk. Sometimes I really wish I could call home and talk to you because I am just learning so much that I didn't know before, and I want to share it with you, but emailing and writing letters just take a really long time and I have so much to do. All of our "investigators" are just members acting like investigators, but even still we are learning so much. My companions Sister Pilimai and Sister McCulloch are amazing teachers, and both are about half a year older than me, so its strange being at this same stage in life when we are all learning the same things, when sometimes I feel like they should know more. Its also strange that at the MTC, even though I haven't been here for very long, the new missionaries in our Zone think we know everything. Its kinda funny. 

OH! One of the Branch presidency members and his wife are from the Modesto area somewhere and they know Brother and Sister Tolboe. I thought that was cool. Their names are Terry and LaNiel Nielsen. You should ask the Tolboe's if they remember them.

One of my branch presidency members said something I liked and wanted to share with you all. He said "A short pen is mightier than the longest memory" -Brother Gallacher. Basically it means that we need to remember that writing things down will make the thought, impression, or lesson last longer, and be more effective than if we just tried to remember it all. I've definitely seen that considering I teach three times a day, and if I didn't write things down, I'd forget what I had taught everyone and just gotten it all confused.

The last thing I wanted to tell you is concerning the sacrament. We usually refer to the sacrament as a renewing of our covenants that we make at baptism. No where in the scriptures does it say this. In fact saying it would be incorrect. Partaking of the sacrament isn't renewing our covenants, we are actually making new covenants every single time we take the sacrament. Think about that next time you take the sacrament, and then ask yourself, why do I need to make new covenants every Sunday? Its interesting what you might find.

Love you all:)

-Sister Monica Lyn Walker

PS Robert, I read this in the scriptures the other day and I thought of you want want you to read it. It's in the Bible Dictionary under "prayer". Read it, study it, then tell me what you learned. Will you do that? (The rest of you can do it too if you want.)

Snail Mail

[Transcript of the above letter]

Dear Mother,

I have been told I'm supposed to write you a letter telling you that I am alive. So...

I AM ALIVE... probably. After all, it's been a few days since I sent this

so... haha. I did feel out of it my first day. I honestly had no idea what to expect.

Everyone always talks about their mission and rarely their stay at the MTC. So other then knowing

I had some kind of class I had no idea what to expect. Every day is packed from start to finish

but despite how tired I get I honestly love it. It's a little hard sometimes transitioning, but once I

get started it is hard for me to stop. And that's even though the lessons we make are for fake investigators.

I have two companions who are both wonderfully fantastic people both of whom are going to

Georgia Macon mission. Sister McCullock* served a mini 3 month mission in Salt Lake City

South (started after Josh left) and was released from that mission a week before being set apart as

a missionary for Georgia. So she actually only has 15 months left of her mission. She's from

Sandy Utah and she's super nice. My other companion Sister Pilimai** is from Sandy, Utah too.

She grew up in Ventura, CA. She's pretty awesome too :). Both of them are a few months older

than me and I love their spiritual though. It's just great.

I love the MTC, but I am so anxious to get out to the mission field and talk to

real investigators. The classes we take are super helpful in letting us know what to teach, or rather

how to bring the Spirit so it can teach. Everyday is scheduled to the brim and I don't 

even know how we can have enough time to sleep.

Well, I love you all, but this is all I'm going to write because I have a lot to do.

I will be emailing you next week and you will probably hear more then.

Love, your favorite missionary :D

Sister Monica Walker

P.S. I forgot stamps, can you send some to me?

*pronounced (Mec-cull-ock) it's Scottish

**pronounce (pé-lé-my) it's Semoan