Week 2, MTC

Dear Family,
It will be easier in the mission field, I think, to send emails to everyone individually. If you could forward this to family or anyone else who wants it that would be awesome :) These MTC computers are super secure. You can only really access church-related things. Even this software that I'm sending the email from is fully custumized by the church. Its crazy! Some people like to think its like a prison. Its not. If you look at it that way then it will seem like a prison... all the "restrictions" on the computers, the voices that call us in our residences from the front desk-- which is actually pretty funny sometimes. Someone will page our classroom or residence hall on an intercom, and I guess there are microphones in the buildings that you can respond to. The other morning, one Elder in our zone said, after the lady from the front desk hung up, "Magical voice, come back!!" It was actually pretty funny. So the voice thing is kind of weird, but its funny. Before every fireside or devotional, we sing about 3 hymns, plus our regular opening hymn. I've found that there's nothing that scares the devil away more than a group of hundreds, maybe thousands, Elders and Sisters singing hymns. It is really pretty amazing. The spirit rushes in like you've never felt before. There's a scripture in D&C 11, verse 21- it says something like this: "Seek not to declare my word, but first seek to obtain my word. Then shall your tongue be loosed, then if you desire, you shall have my spirit and my word." I experienced that the other night in class. I felt like I had nothing to say in class about the Plan of Salvation. So, my teacher pulled me aside and asked if everything was okay, and asked if I would teach it to her one on one. So I did, but still, I kind of butchered the lesson. I was really freaked out. Like "why don't I know anything about this?! I know I know this!" Because I do. But I hadn't really studied it that much before from Preach My Gospel, which spells out doctrine in such a way that makes it simple and understandable. For both us as missionaries to learn, and for us to teach our investigators. Anyways, I studied it really hard that night and prayed really hard so that I could have a better day the next day, which was yesterday. Really all it was, was the devil was having a great time telling me I didn't know anything. And I really did need to look it over again, so I could teach it the proper way. I knew it enough for MY testimony, but not in the ways that were appropriate to share with investigators. But yesterday was a great day! It was the first day that both my companion and I would come out of our practice lessons and say "Wow! We both feel great!" Usually, one of us would feel good and one of us not so good. But we were able to teach effectively yesterday. But the key is, its not US. Its the Spirit. We just have to create an atmosphere where the Spirit of God can be, and focus on teaching the people as people. We're not to be cookie-cutter missionaries who just recite the things we learn in Preach My Gospel. We are to be ourselves, and we are to understand the needs of our investigators, and be able to teach them correct principles and INVITE them, not convince them, to come unto Christ. To have faith in Him, to change their lives, so that they might want to be baptized and recieve the Holy Ghost themselves so that they can ENDURE to the end. That's our purpose. So, yesterday, even though we didn't get to share every point of doctrine that sometimes we feel like we "need" to, we were able to have a good conversation... a conversation with a purpose, with each investigator. We shared our personal feelings and testimonies, as we felt the need to, and that proved to be extremely effective. I don't have any more time... I love you all, you are in my prayers. I leave here on May 14th to head to Canada.

Love, Elder Simper