Hey Everyone!
It's been a crazy long/short week. Goodness and I have so much to write in so little time! We have an hour to write emails but I am also doing laundry at the same time so I'm going to have to go change my laundry in about 30 minutes so hopefully i can remember everything that i want to tell everyone!
Once i got into the mtc i was completely fine and ready to learn and believe it or not i'm not homesick! i absolutely love the mtc minus the food, i'll get to that later. My district is so amazing. We all get a long really well and our teachers are awesome as well. There is a ton of studying in the mtc, personal study, companion study, additional study and even doctrine study. That doesn't even count our class time. It kind of stinks that the weather is so nice and we are literally stuck in the classroom allllllll day. It seems like all we do is eat and are in class.
During class we usually have a lesson taught by our teachers and just recently we've been teaching "investigators" who are actually our teachers acting but it's really nice to get some experience. Our "investigator" is actually kind of easy to teach because he is really open. Yesterday we started a new thing called TRC which is basically teaching an investigator that volunteers to come and be taught so you don't really know if they are members or not. Our TRC investigator is from Holbrook, AZ! I was so excited to meet her and finally meet someone from Arizona. When we met her we talked a lot about AZ and then we got into our lesson. She had been taught by the missionaries before so she saw the Joseph Smith movie from the elders so we basically touched up on that and then at the end I bore my testimony and it was the most powerful experience ever. I kept telling her how much her Savior and Heavenly Father love her and she finally asked me how i knew that and i told her that i could feel His love for her and that i could see the light of Christ in her eyes. After i told her that she just lit up and told me that she had never heard that before. The Spirit was so strong. Besides my first Sunday here, that has been one of the best experiences yet. Did i mention she doesn't believe in Christ? If she is an actual member then she is a really good actor! It seemed pretty legit to me.
So Sundays are pretty much the best day ever here because the Spirit is seriously amazingly strong during the meetings. First we went to Relief Society with all the girls in the MTC and Janice Kapp Perry spoke, she wrote the music to As Sisters In Zion and wrote A Child's Prayer as well as a ton of other children's church songs. During her talk she had us sing some of the children songs that she wrote which invited the Spirit so strongly but then at the end of her talk she had all of us sing a song that she wrote just for sister missionaries which is basically a different version of As Sister's In Zion but it's called As Sister's of Zion. We were the first people to sing the song... ever! Before we started to sing it i felt like we should stand up to honor not only her song but honor our calling so i stood up and after everyone saw me stand up the ENTIRE stadium stood up behind me and that was probably the strongest i felt the spirit besides when we were singing the actual song. Then we went on our temple walk which was really fun but also pretty hot. Later on we had a meeting with our Branch President and during that meeting my stomach started hurting really bad. It had been hurting since the day i got here and i couldn't figure out why... it's the food, but Sunday it was hurting so bad during that meeting that tears just started to roll down my face nonstop so i tried to cover my face as best i could because i didn't want to disrupt the meeting and i was hurting too bad to move or tell my companion that i needed to leave since they have to be with us at all times. The Branch President finally asked if i was okay and i told him no then asked for a blessing. Elder Milner, a missionary in our district gave me the blessing. It was his first one ever and it was so good! After that i started to feel better and my stomach hasn't hurt since unless i eat anything other than salad, cereal or a wrap. Later we had sacrament meeting with just our Zone which was only about 24 people because there are 2 districts in a zone and 12 people make a zone, at least in our case. After sacrament we had devotional and after that we had basically another devotional but it was by David A Bednar... Don't get too excited it was just a film. I wish it was actually him because that was such a good talk! It was on the Character of Christ.
My district is so cool. It's probably the best one here in the mtc. We all went to the temple this morning and it was awesome! like always. it was really weird taking off my name tag. i didn't like that at all. I've only been here 6 days and i could barely take off my name tag... i can't imagine what it's going to be like when i get off my mission!
The days are long but i honestly can't believe that tomorrow will make it a week since I've been here. I miss you all so much but i wouldn't trade anything for what I'm doing right now! The mtc is better than i thought it would be so don't feel sorry for me! (: I don't leave until the 28th for London because we are being trained in Salt Lake in the visitor's center there! so exciting. Our district leaves a week from tomorrow though because they aren't all going to London. We have some going to Eugene, Oregon and the others are going to Sacramento, California. There are only 3 of us going to London so we will probably be put in another district that is going to a visitor's center. I'm going to miss them so much but I'm excited for them to be out in the field!
I can't wait to hear from you all! I love you all so much. Don't forget to write me! You can also write me through dearelder.com and I'll get them that day. (: Nifty right? Talk you to next week! <3333
