Sep 6

Dearest Family,

I believe that this heading for an email is perfect for my lovely week haha. Lets be honest I love football and i act like I know what I'm talking about when I meet people who play! This week Pittsburgh played the U and UW played BYU. So we had many visitors!! Lets start by saying... people are so interesting and apparently i find the strangest people possible. This week has been very interesting with many ups and downs that is the truth! First of all... i feel a chill in the air aka ew its getting colder aka I think coat shopping might need to happen soon. We had so many people from all over the world and I loved it!! I try to stand in any possible sunlight to get tan.. its fading:( And I'm starting to get whiter which is NO BUENO. I am learning so much about the gospel its hard to really explain it all. For studying I have to know.. All of the history behind temple square itself, then all about the buildings, then the legacy of the pioneers, and then oh the entire bible, oh and don't forget the Book of Mormon please! Its a lot to study and honestly I don't know half of anything ha but I'm leaning every day a little more!

I was shocked when these two things came out of my mouth... we were taking around this guy with some elders for a tour. He is from Japan and he is interested in the church... now the Elders didn't tell us anything about him or where he is in his spiritual journey so it was purely by the spirit we knew what to say and where to go. We went down stairs in the NVC to talk about prophets and the cycle through out time. This man believed in the bible so we used to bible when talking about prophets. We came to a Scripture on the wall from John 14:26 " But the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." I felt very strongly to share this scripture and then I asked him, what he thought it all meant. He replied well if we are trying to go to heaven maybe we will need to know things for the future? I then said .." see how it says that he will bring all things to your remembrance?" That means that he knew us before. In Jeremiah 5 it talks about before i formed thee in the belly i knew thee, that means that we lived with our Father in Heaven before this life and when we feel the spirit it feels familiar like something we knew already. He just stared at me as did the elders with big eyes, as did my trainer with a smirk. I literally didn't know how that had come out of my mouth... it was all purely through the spirit. As we walked into the next room one of the elders just looked at me and whispered Thank you! I felt so good after that tour I knew the spirit was working through me and that I wasn't alone. At the very end I said... When you read the Book of Mormon and pray with all your heart, you will feel the same way your feeling right now. And you won't be able to deny it.... again silence and the man couldn't speak he just said thank you i will. It was so intense but i knew the spirit was the teacher in that moment! I would have never said any of that before the mish... let alone would i have been able to explain it in such a way.

Dean Lovewell.... Is a legit angel. He was standing by the construction of the temple and the minute i saw him i just walked right over. My comp didn't want to go over to him cause lets just say... he was very good looking haha. I just smiled big and told him all about the temple, he was so nice 24 here for a business trip. We started taking him around the different buildings and getting to know him. Dean had no religion and all he did was work. We went inside of the assembly hall and i started telling a pioneer story that the spirit led me to bridge to my testimony. Dean was literally staring into my soul ha it was so intense as I just bore out my heart pretty much. Telling him how this book would comfort him when life gets hard. Then I invited him... i said Dean can we send you a copy of the Book of Mormon back home in Pittsburgh?... he just smiled and said i would actually like that. He is excited missionaries are going to come teach him more. Umm we were only with him 20min it was amazing! He was like.. I'm glad you came and talked to me.. and i said me too. HAND SHAKE goodbye and he was on his way:) ! I wasn't flirting if that's what you were thinking... RUDE I'm on a mission pshhhh.

This is a story of a man named nick... he is the clipper for the Pittsburgh panthers...and grown men DO cry

We met nick and his other friends around a painting in the SVC. We started talking to them and saw they were decked out for the game against the U hah.And me being me i pretended to know everything there was to know about football and what a clipper does ha. I was smiling so big cause I legitimately had no idea what i was talking about haha. But it worked cause they let us take them around. There were about 7 men all around 40 and they were football guys if you can picture that. As we took them around.. i noticed that Nick was more of a one on one kinda guy... so naturally I took him under my wing. He started asking questions about the temple and what it all meant. I told him how marriages are for time and all of eternity... He was really impressed. But as time went on and we talked about Joseph smith he thought that probably wasn't possible to have such authority. In the Tabernacle we talked about general conference and then he had many questions about us and missionaries in general. His eyes got so big when we talked about how we are sent all over the world, he was like " Uh no God wouldn't let women just wonder the streets of Spain without a man or protection." I said of coarse not... missionaries have God as their protection. He didn't quite understand that but I saw his heart start to soften. He then I told my comp to go in front and I would walk behind with Nick. We talked all about the church and life and what it all meant. He was a very big family man and loved his family and children so much. He was stuck on the fact that no man has greater authority then another. I prayed with all my heart to know what this man needed to hear. Clear as day it came in a question, he said " sister mettra what about your family? How are they?.. tears in my eyes i said you know Nick .. not so good to be honest. He got really angry for a moment telling me I needed to be home and I shouldn't have left my family.... He then said, sorry this must mean a lot to you if your out here huh, I'm so sorry to hear about your family. I stood tall and said something i will never forget... " Nick the reason why I am here today, my purpose on this mission...Is to spend time away from my family so YOU can spend ETERNITY with YOURS." Tears started forming in this mans eyes. I said nick you can know this for yourself. We started talking about the authority and I said, I have had a blessing from my father with that authority when I was sick and I was healed. Nick then walked aways from me crying he couldn't hold it in any longer. I said nick you love your family so much the Melchizedek priesthood is such a powerful thing a man can have. And you can protect your family with God on your side. He sat down and we were both crying... all of his friends were just staring at us along with my comp.... I invited for missionaries to come teach him more and bring the Book of Mormon... he filled out the card and said we will see what happens when they come to my house. It was such a miracle I have never felt the spirit like that before. I knew i needed to have the trials I've been through to help me express my true feelings. i will never forget this man and I pray that he will be baptized... In fact I'm pretty sure he will be.

Last but not least.... the couple from Russia! They were so cute and they spoke very good English. The wife's brother was a member but her husband had never heard anything about this church. They were only a couple years older then us and here we were answering lives deepest questions. I want to tell you the whole story but i will tell you the part that sent chills down my spine. After teaching them for sometime we took them to a display that had a book of Mormon in Hungarian and Russian. We let the husband hold and read through the Hungarian copy... I felt impressed to read the promise so I had him turn with me in his book to Moroni 10:4 and read along... he could not speak he was silent and so was she... we invited for him to have his own copy in his language... he said yes he would. Then we were walking into one last room and these men asked sister R a question so I took the couple into a room and showed them a clip from Elder Nelson on prayer... after words I couldn't help but have tears in my eyes. I said mike and daria you love each other you want to be together forever... open your heart and read this book together. I promise that when you do this and pray together with a sincere heart you will know this is true. The spirit was so strong it was just me and this couple. they both thanked me so much and I know that they will accept the gospel.

Its stories like this that keep me going and help me love my mission. I was reading my patriarchal blessing and it says that i will touch many hearts... Heavenly father needed me hear to talk to hearts from all over the world this work is the most important on the earth and I'm started to feel that everyday. I hope you all paid close attention to that last line in the story... the definition of a missionary is one that spends time away from their family so others can spend eternity with theirs! Its true

i love you all I'm praying for you!!

Love sister Mettra