January 3, 2014

Thanks for your emails! I love them. I loved hearing about all of the festivities this week. Mom I hope you had a great birthday. I thought about you the whole day. Love you! Bunnies how was your birthday?! I can't believe you are 13! That is so crazy. Hope you had a good day too :) New Years Eve sounds like it was a lot of fun! I loved the picture of Brig and Brent. Tell them congrats from me! I can't believe they are married. That is so exciting. Brig looked beautiful in the picture! And tell Heidi that I love her and I will be thinking about her tomorrow! Her reception sounded beautiful!

This week was good. On Sunday we had an awesome Relief Society. It was a lady named Camille Fronk Olsen. She is an ancient scriptures teacher or something at BYU. She spoke about women in the scriptures who were good missionaries. It was a great talk. She was super enthusiastic and fun to listen to.

Monday was an interesting day. In class, we practiced teaching each other in Korean. Sister Lynn and I taught Sister Driscoll. We did our very best to teach in as much Korean as we could. Sister Lynn didn't say much and so it was mostly me doing the talking. I tried my best to have the spirit there and know the things to say to her. After we were finished, we evaluated it. We talked about the things we said and then Sister Driscoll said she did not feel the Spirit and didn't feel like there was unity between Sister Lynn and I. I was so discouraged. I tried my hardest to bring the spirit and say the right things. And then she just flat out told us that she felt nothing. After that I was pretty down. I went to dinner feeling discouraged. Wondering how in the world I am supposed to teach the gospel if I don't have the spirit? After dinner we had to teach our practice investigator, Paul. We were teaching him about the Book of Mormon. We testified to him that we know that the Book of Momon is true. After that, he asked us how he can know if the BOM is true. Instantly Moroni 10:3-5 came to my mind. I knew I had to share that scripture with him. I had my Korean Book of Moromon in front of me. I opened it up and it turned straight to the exact page. (It would have seriously taken me 5 minutes to find the scripture in korean. haha) so i had him read the scripture. He pointed to one of the words in the scripture and asked what it meant. I had no clue what word he was saying in korean. Let alone how to explain what it means. Sister Driscoll and I sat there staring at our English BOM and tried to figure out what word he was talking about. We couldn't figure it out. I said a quick little prayer in my head asking Heavenly Father to help me to know what word he was talking about so we could explain it. As soon as I finished my prayer I looked at my scriptures and knew exactly what word it was. It was exhort. I knew that to exhort pretty much meant to ask so I pulled out my little English- Korean dictionary and looked up the word ask, and explained it to him. He understood and then we continued on. I know that Paul is not even a real investigator and that he already knew what exhort means. But it taught me a lesson that Heavenly Father was looking out for me. I was pretty discouraged. It was a reminder that the spirit is guiding and directing me. And that Heavenly Father answers our prayers. Even if they are tiny little prayers like that. It was a cool experience.

New Years was good!! We had a great devotional by Elder Stanley Ellis. He talked all about repentence, and voluntary change. He all tied it in by talking about the new year and how it is a great time to start fresh and make changes in our lives. To set goals and leave our past behind and become better. It was awesome. I loved it! He told us not to be discouraged by failure and that we can always start over again. I loved it. We had a district devotional review after and we all set goals and discussed them. One of my goals is to give it my all as a missionary. I realize that this is the only whole year of my life that I get to devote to serving the Lord. So I don't want any regrets. I hate the feeling after running a 400 and knowing that I could have pushed a little harder. So that being said, i don't want to look back at my mission and think, I could have given it a little bit more. So I am going to give it my all and do my very best :)

This morning my district was able to clean the Provo temple. It was so awesome! I felt like I was at home. For the first time since I have been here, it felt like home. It was peaceful and it felt good. We got to tour it afterwards and we got to sit in the Celestial room for a while. I loved it. The spirit was strong there. I am excited to be able to go for the next few weeks because it opens on monday!

Well I better go. I love you all so much! I will write you individual letters and send them to you!!

Mom and dad will you tell Scott and Tiff and family thank you so much for the package? We had a blast on new years. We ate treats and the cheese and crackers and had our own little party! It meant a lot to me. And of course tell Baba and Grandma thanks for the cute packages they always send! I love them. I will write and tell them too. Dear elders, letters, and packages are the best thing in the world. They make my day!!!

I love you so much! Thanks for doing the chapter a day in the Book of Mormon so we can stay together! I love reading about Christ with the Nephites.

Rach- I will write back to your email in a letter. Loved hearing about everything. Keep me posted!

Dman- Loved hearing about the Snowmobile. Sorry that you ate it and hurt your face! :(

Ellie- Send me dear elders and tell me about your b-day! I love you! Hope you had a good day! Thanks for the thoughtful letters

Jane- Love you! I hope you liked the b-day card! :) I hope basketball and violin are going good!

Addie- that is so neat that you got an american girl case! And you finished junie b jones. I loved reading those books.

Isaac- I can't believe you lost another tooth! That is SO cool. I am glad you emailed me this morning. And I am happy that you are doing hard skills sets. I think of you doing hard skills sets and it makes me be brave and do hard korean.

I love you all so much! Thanks for being the best family. I am so thankful that families are forever. I am thankful for the gospel. I am thankful that I get to share it with Korea.

Have a good week! I love you!

Love Sister Tara Anderson