Hey! It's my last week in the MTC!
     In exactly seven days from now my plane will be touching down in Montreal! How wonderful is that! And crazy? And scary?! And awesome! I can't wait to be out in the real world again. It's been almost six weeks since I have been outside a mile of this place> But also I'm remembering that the real world is kind of scary, and people in the real world will probably make fun of my french and not want to get baptized. So the MTC feels safe :), and that's kinda scary to leave.
     So this week...Krystal left! For those of you who don't know, my cousin who is my same age and who went into the MTC the week before me left yesterday> I saw her on Sunday before the devotional and we chatted and hugged and cried a bit. :) She is so amazing. I thought she was absolutely glowing the day of her farewell...If only you could see her now! She is absolutely radiating! She has learned how to live close to the spirit and it's had a profound effect on her. She's got such a strong testimony and one of the biggest hearts out of everyone that I know. She'll be awesome, and I am so blessed that I could see her before she left.What an amazing missionary she'll be. Gah! Love her.
     This last week we had the privilege of having Elder Richard G. Scott speak to us at last Tuesday's devotional!!! It was really special. Sister Stiles and I were singing in the choir along with Sister Curry and Sister Del Castillo...The song we learned was Nearer my God to Thee. Our choir director is fantastic! He expounded about how the hymn is actually about Jacob (think Jacob and Esau...? Issac and Rebekah's son?) when he is wandering in the wilderness. Go look it up in Genesis. It's really, really neat. And the arrangement is absolutely superb. So! We were already stoked about the song, and excited because since we were in the choir we had pretty decent seats...:)We'er just sitting there, waiting for it to be time for the devotional to start and in walks an apostle of the Lord...Wow! What an amazing spirit. It was such a blessing to be able to open with that song, to bear my testimony to a living prophet, and then to hear one of the most amazing discourses on prayer that I've ever had the opportunity to hear. He was so complimentary of the sisters...It made me cry.:) His first words? "I fell like I've died and gone to heaven...And I'm so happy to see so many sisters." He gave us a lot of promises that our missions would bless us, our future families  more that we can ever know. It was amazing!
      After telling us how wonderful we were for making the decision to serve, he said that he wished he could sit down with each one of us, to hear our stories, to hear our struggles, our hopes, our progression...and we'er all in the audience were wishing SO badly that that could be possible...and that's when he goes on "it would not be practical or possible for me to do that with each one of you...But there is one who is capable of such a thing...Our Heavenly Father."...Wow. I think we all had a bit of a reality check realizing just how huge the blessing of prayer is in each of our lives. He reminds us to pray often, take our time, and feel the responses...He urged us to really TALK with our Father, to tell him all the desires of our hearts, not just the big ones, but all of them...He reminded us that if the Lord seems a bit slow to answer our prayers he's giving us the opportunity to exercise faith, and that it's our time to act, not just sit around and wait.
     Ultimately so much of his talk was promises. A promise for those learning the language, that if we pray and remind Heavenly Father that he called us to speak a language and that we want to master that language...that the language will come. Over all...I fell like my notes aren't adequate to express the power of his talk. It was very comforting.. He reassured us that we are not alone,, we always have help, that He called us and He will help us and ultimately fit our calling to our capacities. :) Awesome.
     So, in our zone, next week 17 of us are headed to Montreal, only 4 of those are Elders. Sister power!!! Sister Stiles' dad told her in an e-mail that there was a massive maple syrup heist in Canada a couple of weeks ago. I laughed, really hard. I mean c'mon...A maple syrup heist?! Is that even a real thing?! I'm going to Canada!
Love you all,
Sister Ferguson