Sister Ashlyn Biggs: called to serve the Lord in the Canada Vancouver mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Letter Two

Time is blowing by here in the MTC!! I will just start right off into my letter I guess!


I love getting on and seeing lots of emails from people! But just a reccomendation...if you have the chance, please copy that email and send it through DearElder and I will get it that same day, just like an email. The only reason I say this, is because I only have 30 minutes of email time and it is hard to be able to write and read them all. You guys are incredible though, and I greatly appreciate the support!!

I got my travel information for Canada finally! I leave next wednesday the 30th at 11:00am. So I will not be getting any letters that come after Tuesday to the MTC. Just keep that in mind :)

First things first, Brother Blake Scoresby was one of my teachers here for Zone Teaching! It was so great to see him. Also, Derek do you know Sister Kaitlyn Dearton? She is a teacher here also and said she served with you! Always cool to find a connection with back home.

Last week on Wednesday I was having a hard time. Just a lot of stress and homesickness that hit all at once. After a rough night, I asked some Elders in my district to give me a blessing the next morning. Elder Cluff and Elder Silva gave me a blessing. What an incredible experience that was!!!! I can promise you that these young men hold the Priesthood authority of God and that blessing gave me such great comfort. Then, I got the flu a couple of days ago. Super fun! But with a sickness that would have ususally knocked me out cold at home, I was strengthened through faith in the Lord to be able to press forward and continue my work without missing anything! Although I felt terrible and I had no voice, I was still able to perform my duties as a missionary. I received a blessing from Elders Tanner and Berg for that, and I have started improving ever since. I still cannot exactly speak, but I am feeling a little bit better!

So, we have an MTC devotional every Tuesday night and oh my gosh! Elder Holland was the speaker last week!!!! I was 50 feet from an apostle of the Lord (and my favorite one at that!). What an incredible experience that was. Among the many things he spoke about, one of them was that there is no more exciting time to serve a mission than now. Plenty of dipensations have failed and fallen away. But this is the dispensation that WILL succeed, and we WILL see the coming of the Lord in this one! He told us that as missionaries in these last days, we have a greater responsibility than Ammon, Jeremiah, and even Isaiah. What a responsibility that is to live up to! He yelled almost at the top of his lungs about how sick he was of hearing about returned missionaries going innactive from the church. With tears in his eyes, he said "If I see you after your mission, you BETTER have at least one convert. And it BETTER be you!" (All this while hitting the podium of course). What a powerful talk that was! He told us that no industry would put their future in the hands of 19 year olds, unless it was the only true industry of God. How true that is! We are set apart to represent Jesus Christ on this earth and I am so honored to wear that name tag on my chest! He told us some incredible statistics. The MTC has a capacity of about 3,200 missionaries. By next summer, we will be up to at least 7,000 missionaries. He dedicated two brand new buildings for housing, and they will be having to use part of BYU housing to house missionaries! There is just not enough room for the incredible influx!!! What an incredible problem to have!!!
We have learned lately that we need to be teaching people, not lessons. We are all about teaching through the Spirit. We must teach to people's needs, and who knows these wonderful people better than the Spirit?? Definitely not me! I have found that as I listen to the Spirit, I am able to have things revealed to me about these people that I would have not been able to otherwise find out.
In relief Society on Sunday, we sang "I hope They Call Me on a Mission". But the words were changed to "I'm glad they called me on a mission". Tears came to my eyes as I remembered myself singing that song in primary years ago, not knowing where I would be today. I am SOO glad that the Lord is allowing me to serve Him in this manner.

Richard is still planning on getting baptized on the 10th!! We taught him the Word of Wisdom yesterday, and he says he smokes like a chimney. But he promised to do his best to quit because he knows that that is what he needs to do to follow the Savior. How awesome it is to be a part of such a conversion!

So the other night, we are sleeping and all of he sudden the fire alarm goes off in our building. At 1am, we had to run outside in -10degrees and wait for them to fix a blown pipe. So we all gathered into the gym and slept on the gym floor! It was not fun at all! So after 2 hours, we go back to our dorms and try to fall back asleep. The next day, we are in the middle of lunch and the alarm in the cafeteria goes off. Didn't get to finish lunch! Again, hate fire alarms! But it was a fun experience. :)

 I am so honored to be out here. Thank you all so much for the incredible support and prayers. I can certainly feel them as I serve the Lord daily! Stay strong out there. I challenge each of you to preach the Gospel in any way possible. Use Facebook, text messages, whatever it takes to help others come unto Christ!
I will not get anything that comes to the MTC after Tuesday, so if you have a letter then either send it before then, or send it to the address for Vancouver that my mom will put in this message. I love you all so much! This church is true. If you want to find out for yourself, then just test it. Just exercise a particle of faith, and the Lord can help you see the truth too. :) 
I love you!

Love, Sister Biggs

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