He Taught Almost Completely From The Scriptures, Which I Loved

Hello family!

Will you thank kathy michaelis for the package for me? That was so sweet of her!

Sounds like you are all staying busy with soccer, as always! I'm glad ali is starting to feel a little better! Hopefully she gets better quick so she can actually play soccer :). Thats cool she still gets to be a part of the team though, and gets to help coach. 

I do remember the members from north carolina, they were soo sweet!  They really are the nicest people.  That must have been a lot of fun to see them again.  Are they the ones that said they weren't going to visit any family or friends when they came out? If they were, I can understand why they visited you anyways, you guys are the best!!

It sounds like you all enjoyed youth conference a lot! Thats great!  I know I always loved those, especially the ward ones.  My favorite part is always the testimony meeting at the end.  I love hearing everyone's testimonies and just feeling the spirit.   

My week has flown by, again! I really love it here.  We haven't got to pick up missionaries from the curb yet.  But me and my companions are the sister training leaders (haha sorry I forgot to tell you last week I think) since we're the oldest, so we did give all the new missionaries in our zone a tour and stuff like that the night they got here.  So that was fun to meet them right as they got here and were still a bit overwhelmed by it all :).  They are doing great now though!  The new ones are going to different missions and are learning Ilongo.  

Cebuano is coming along alright.  Right now we are starting to get into some of the more complicated grammar stuff, so thats a bit challenging.  But its coming.  Our teacher says he feels like were are all progressing just fine to be ready to leave, so thats good.  We teach lessons at least every other day.  Honestly, that is what is helping the language the most.  It's easier to memorize words when you know you're actually going to be using them in the next day or two.  And then they stick in your mind better because you can kinda remember how the fit into the lesson you taught.  At least thats how it is for me haha.  

My favorite part of this week was the tuesday devotional.  Well I guess thats kinda my favorite of every week haha.  This week the speaker went over pretty much all of what you would want to know about repentance.  He taught almost completely from the scriptures, which I loved.  It was wonderful.  Then after, we have a district devotional review. (I don't know if I've told you about these, emails and writing in my journal kinda blends together haha.)  We meet for about an hour in our classroom after the devotional, and talk about what we learned, or questions, or anything like that.  One of the things the speaker asked during his talk was about how YOU were truly converted to the gospel, so that is what we all talked about.  These missionaries in my district are going to be AMAZING :).  

Well, I better get going, but THANK YOU for writing to me:).  I especially loved your quote from Elder Ballard, mom.  And the words of wisdom are wonderful, as always :).  I havent been writing any down yet from here, but I'll start!  One thing I do remember though.  The word for 'killed' in cebuano is 'patay', and 'died' is 'matay'.  Our very first lesson the friday we got here, one of the elders mixed up the words and said "Jesus Christ killed for us"! Apparently the teacher could barely keep from laughing haha.  And then like a week ago, Elder Kim did the same thing in another lesson!  I think we all remember that word by now though. Haha oops.

I love you guys and am praying for you all!  I hope you have a fabulous week!

Love, Sis Mortensen

Sister Mortensen, Sister Chu, Sister Piutau

Sister Malito (the solo sister), Sister Piutau, Sister Chu, Sister Mortensen