Ashley's Second email:

I wanted to talk to you a little bit about some of the experiences that I've had with some of my role-playing investigators.  Something they do at the MTC is give you three investigators, two are TRC progressing investigators which you get to see twice and one is a teacher who plays the role of an investigator.  When we first started doing role-playing I thought it was sort of making a mockery of God but as I started having amazing experiences I realized that role-playing is how the Lord prepares His missionaries and that sort of learning is truly of God.  My first investigator is named Linda (my teacher) she was incredibly difficult and stubborn and after the first visit I wanted to give up on her.  She didn't even want to know if the church was true but she'd been reading the Book of Mormon and visiting the missionaries for a year.  But Sister Thompson and I decided to just try to get her to want it so the last time we talked to her we just asked her questions.  Nothing happened.  But at the end we bore our testimonies to her and the spirit flooded the room, we were truly guided by God.  Our next investigator's name is Michelle.  We could tell that being there made her nervous but I think she wanted us there because she could feel the spirit of our words.  The spirit especially touched her when we prayed with her.  Our last and my favorite investigator was Barbara.  The women role-playing as Barbara kept helping us explain things to her, it was so funny, we could tell that she was actually a member.  But Barbara was so sweet, I'm so sad that  I can't be at the MTC longer and that I can't teach her again.  The spirit explained so many things to her and she truly had a desire to know things for herself.  After I left I desired to just go back and just teach to her some more because she was so eager to know the truth even though when we first came in she was only curious what we believed.