Learning to Not Love Someone (In the Best Way Possible)

Hey everyone!

It's been another great week over here in the MTC, and I only have about fifteen minutes to write everything down because my dryer was broken and screwed up my whole schedule while it went through a second run, then I came back from exercise period and we're off to the temple in just a bit, so I'll get around to all of the good stuff and send you off with the pictures I can finally send you! Even if I can't say a ton, know that I'm still loving it here and I can't wait to talk to you all again next week.

So, biggest thing this week was (dun dun dun) TRC. TRC is a role play-ish thing where you have one person (Our is Andrea Perez) who 50/50 may or may not be a member, and you meet with them/teach them three times a week. First time we met her was... terrible. Seriously the worst. We breezed over everything, didn't even finish our lesson, she was confused about pretty much every point, and I left annoyed at my companion, angry at life, and never wanting to talk with her again. A couple hours later, I realized my problem--I didn't love her. We hear so often how important it is to love the community, love the people we teach, etc., and I went in with a lesson and no regard for who I was teaching. I prayed to love her, I tried to love her, but when I walked into the room it just didn't happen. I was frustrated, but prayed again, asking God to help me love her, and went to bed, knowing our next lesson was on Wednesday.

Tuesday I figured it out, but only right before we went to bed. I had struggled all day with how to love her, what that even meant, and how I was supposed to do it when I taught her. After a whole day in darkness, I figured it out--I shouldn't love her. I couldn't. I didn't even know Andrea, and seeing her sit there with glassy eyes and not saying a word I knew I would never be able to love her. BUT, and this is the important part, God did. God would always, and has always, loved Andrea Perez. More than I'll ever know, more than I can if I spent every second of every day trying to. So, for the first time, I knelt down that night and asked Heavenly Father to help me see not my, but His love for her. In that moment I knew. I knew that if I went up to that room in the TRC building, if I knocked on that door and she opened it, I wouldn't love her. I'd see her face and I'd know of a surety, without a doubt in my mind, that she was loved, that God loved her more than anyone in this world, and that all He wanted, more than anything was to talk to her, and have her listen. So, the next day, I confidently walked into TRC with Elder Christiansen, and we spent twenty minutes talking about prayer, and priesthood. We answered questions, we asked questions, we testified, and in not trying to love her, I received some small portion of God's love for her, and I saw her as a child of God. It was amazing, and in the survey we read after she agreed, she felt love, peace, and she felt closer to Heavenly Father.

Thursday was the last TRC this week. We felt really good about it, then Hermana Sherwood wanted to join us and observe. We still thought we did pretty good, then on the survey it was meh on all the scores, but for her feelings she felt confused, worried, talked at, all sorts of bad stuff! Elder Christiansen and I really need to talk through it and see where the disconnect was, but I sill think we can pull through because we have her next week too. I'm really pretty terrified though, which I figured I wouldn't be four times in. I know Heavenly Father is on my side though.

Other than that, on Sunday we watched "Recognizing the Spirit" by Elder Bednar. It didn't shake me as much as Character of Christ, but it was still really good, and later in the week Hma. Sherwood said something that I thought wrapped up the talk really well, even though that wasn't what she was trying to do. She said her old Mission President said "Every thought is a prompting until proven otherwise." You don't have to know something is a prompting in order to act on it, and that one quote is, just, so cool to me.

For the Tuesday Devotional, we had Elder Soarez of the Twelve Apostles talk to us! He was a really nice guy, and his talk was amazing. Afterward, everyone was remarking on how they felt like a spiritual bombshell went off as he entered the room, which was a bit concerning to me since Elder Christiansen and I were like "yeah, he seemed cool, but that's about it." I was worried the entire night after that that I was out of tune with the Spirit because I thought his talk was just, well, decent. I mean, it was good, but all of the devotionals have been really personal and specific, and his was like General Conference--good, but you know he's trying to speak to the hearts of a billion people in different situations at once. But later that night, when I realized how to love/not love Andrea, the Spirit came back to me in full force and it felt like I was finally back in my own skin. It's crazy how much you end up being carried by the Spirit around here, and with all of my thoughts focusing on loving Andrea when I really couldn't by myself, He slowly started to leave me. I hope I'm able to keep allowing him into my life, I can't do it myself out here.

In other news, I've been really sick this week. I had a sore throat on Sunday, which led to really bad voice problems on Tuesday especially and all through the week, and a stuffy nose. I bought some cough drops alongside the SD card reader, and it's slowly, slowly been going away since Tuesday, which was the worst, so I don't think it'll last much longer. It's really hard around here when you have a coarse voice--I think that's the best way to describe it. I've honestly forgotten what I sound like normally. I promise I'm okay though.

I love you all so much! This email ended up being a bit longer than I expected, I'll try to keep it a bit shorter next week for those of you that don't want an entire book every Saturday, but I want to hear from all of you as well so I can know what's up back home!

Elder Preston Bone