6th--and LAST--P-Day at the MTC

Rachelle reading her dad's MTC journals. I love this picture because I have so many of these same pictures from when she was a toddler and used to sneak books into her bed. My heart!

Hola family and friends!

Today is going to be SO BUSY because we are leaving to McAllen on MONDAY!!!!!!!! So today is SO busy trying to pack and mend and write letters and send packages and get everything ready, so emails are probably going to be very short today.

I am including some pictures of some of my favorite murals from the MTC here. I just love the story of the Widow's Mite, and these murals have touched my heart so much. 

The Mural of the Widow

The Widow's Mite

The Widow's Mite

I also love the story of Moses. He is one of my favorite Old Testament prophets, so I am including this mural of the parting of the Red Sea because I love to look at it and think about Moses and his calling to serve the Savior.

Mural of Moses parting the Red Sea

First off, haha I want to say that I have loved my teachers Hermana Christainson and Hermano Savage. I feel so lucky to have been able to learn from each of them.

Speaking of which, here are two cool spiritual experiences okay maybe three haha that happened this week. 

One day Hermano Savage shared an amazing analogy with us of the mariposa (butterfly). He said that we are caterpillars. And caterpillar life is pretty cool, you kind of just sit around eating leaves and stuff you know haha you can move around in the sun, chill and kind of do what you want. It’s pretty nice and you’re pretty comfortable. So we hang out as caterpillars for a while, but then what happens to caterpillars eventually? They build a cocoon. And in the cocoon the caterpillar might be super unhappy ☹️ because it’s dark, he can’t see the light, he can’t move or wiggle, he feels trapped and alone and isolated from the light. Hermano Savage said, “I promise if this hasn’t happened already then it will. Satan is going to tell you the biggest lie--that your caterpillar life was better and that you should go back. He’s going to tell you your caterpillar life is easier. DONT LISTEN, because if yo do, you’ll never discover what it’s like to be a butterfly.” What about butterflies? They can FLY, they can feel the sun and the wind, they can go wherever they want, they’re free, they’re BEAUTIFUL. But to get there sometimes we need to have cocoons. So when Satan tells you to go back to your caterpillar life because it was better or because it was easier, don’t listen because Satan doesn’t want you to become a butterfly." I love that. My mission might be a cocoon, but it will also be how I turn into a butterfly, so when Satan tells me to go back to my caterpillar life, I’m going to tell him to go eat a brick. Hahaha that was a joke this week, but the story is too long to tell.

Also this week in class we were reading in first Nephi chapter 17 where Lehi and his family finally arrive to the land Bountiful, and it is so beautiful and they love it. After all that, they are commanded again to leave the land, build a ship, and go across the waters to the promised land. We were talking about how we don’t think about how hard it must have been to leave the land of Bountiful. They just journeyed so much and then finally found a beautiful place where they were happy and comfortable, and then they were commanded to leave it. I realized, that it was kind of a parallel to my own life: Our family left Seattle, our Jerusalem, even though I didn’t want to because I had found a family there and I didn’t want to leave it. Then we went all through the wilderness (or I did at least haha because I struggled for a good few years). And then finally Heavenly Father brought me to the land Bountiful, which was the last little while at BYU  where I was the happiest I had ever been. And then, Heavenly Father called me to the mountain (the temple) and commanded me to build a ship, or in other words, “GO ON A MISSION.” Even though Heavenly Father led me to the land of Bountiful, he commanded me to leave it and to build a ship, which is and was so hard, but it only means one thing: that Heavenly Father has a promised land for me. I couldn’t be more grateful for that.

Last cool thing that happened is that today at the temple I had a very personal and beautiful experience. I love the temple.

I love you all. I will check in next from Texas!

Con todo mi Amor.

Hermana Clarke

Hermana Clarke and Hermana Clifford and their investigator Daniela. Rachelle LOVED teaching her.

Hermana Clarke and Hermana Clifford

Some less serious moments with her companion she loves.

Sister Clifford on Valentine's Day. Rachelle has LOVED her MTC companion so much.

Rachelle and her roommates on Valentines Day. The Inflatable Valentines from the Dollar Store were the biggest hit!

Accidental meeting with Brother Mack. It really was an accident!!! What do you do when Sister Clarke is going out through a door and Brother Mack is walking in the same door? Well. Take a picture!