December 1, 2018

Hi, family and friends! Well, the MTC is awesome and crazy! We all feel like we've been here for a couple weeks and it's only been 4 days! I can't imagine being here for 6 or more weeks for the missionaries that are learning languages because even 3 weeks feels like it will last forever. We have every day here planned out pretty much to the minute so by the end of the day we are all exhausted, but in a good way. 

Wednesday: After my flight arrived in Salt Lake the group of missionaries on my plane just sat around waiting for the shuttle to take us to the MTC. I talked to a man from Hawaii who was there to visit his family and he talked to me about where I was going on my mission and wished me luck. Super nice guy. None of the elders would talk to the sisters, I feel like they were afraid to do something wrong and get in trouble or something but it was a little weird. Once the shuttle brought us to the MTC we were given our name tags, brought to our rooms to drop our stuff off, and we went to a meeting with all the new missionaries. I was one of the first people there so I was asked to give the opening prayer. I was welcomed to the MTC by pretty much everyone I passed because I had my dork dot on. After we went to our first class and met our district and our companions, (my companion is Sister McCullough and she's super nice, very tall, and she's from Salt Lake City) we went to a workshop class thing with like 60 other new missionaries and taught three different investigators together. I didn't know that we'd be teaching people so soon so it was pretty nerve-wracking. There was a guy named Joe who wanted to know more about the Plan of Salvation and the Book of Mormon but didn't really believe it was true. I don't even know where it came from but I shared a scripture with him that I can't even remember now about how Christ never leaves us alone and answers us when we pray to him. Pretty sure it was in Matthew but that's all I can remember now. Wednesday was felt like one of the longest days I've ever experienced but it was all good. 

Thursday:  We went to a bunch of classes and talked a lot about how to talk to people about the gospel without being super awkward. I feel like I can make conversation with people pretty easily, but finding a good place to interject with a thought about the gospel is so hard for me. We did some role playing and I was super frustrated with myself because I'd get nervous and then just throw something about the gospel into a conversation in a really weird way and it was just bad. That makes me nervous for when I'm going to actually be in Ohio talking to people who have never heard of the church and probably don't want to have to deal with an awkward sister missionary stuttering about how Christ is what will make them happier. Anyways, Thursday was pretty stressful but I know I'll get better in time. That night we met with our branch and had an interview with our branch president, which took like 3 and a half hours to get through because I guess we have a really big branch of like 50 people. I didn't know that was big but I guess it is. I was told that the group of  missionaries that came in on Wednesday was the biggest ever with more than 800. Oh, also I saw Amy, my trip leader from HEFY and I got to talk to her for a little bit, I've missed her so much! I've seen a bunch of people from BYUI and Mesa who are going on missions and I can't even name them all because there are so many.

Friday: We learned more about naturally bringing up the gospel and making people feel loved before mentioning anything much about the church. It sounds like it should be really easy, but my whole district has been having a hard time with coming up with good questions that will start a good conversation and not just yes or no answers. I also have been smiling a lot to be friendly and my face kinda hurts haha. After some of our classes we went to meet with our first investigator. Her name is Vanessa and she's from Florida. Her fiancé is going to college at BYU so she's going to college with him. She's studying communication disorders and wants to go into speech pathology. She knows a lot about God and Christ because she grew up in the Bible Belt but she doesn't know much about the Book of Mormon and feels bad when she drinks coffee in front of her roommates because they are all members. We scheduled to meet with her on Monday to teach our first lesson and Sister McCullough and I are planning on inviting her to read the Book of Mormon and pray about if after we talk about what it is, where it came from, and our testimonies about it. It sounds simple, but Brother Dewey (one of our class instructors) gave an example of how to teach a lesson, and it was way smoother and better than I feel like I'll be able to teach. My hands also get really sweaty and shaky when I try to teach people so that's kinda gross. That night we got to exercise for the first time and it felt so good to just run around and de-stress a bit. Also, I'm in a room with three other sisters and we've gotten extremely close already. We got kinda slap happy and started laughing at things that weren't even funny because we were so tired. Also the showers are kinda really gross. I was wondering why my packing list said bring shower sandals, but now I'm glad I brought them because the showers are like campground showers. 

Saturday: This morning we got up an got ready to go to the temple because it's our Preparation Day. We did an endowment session and when we came out an older sister stopped us and said she wanted to talk to us about the symbolism in temples. It was pretty nice but at the end she added something in about when we wake up in the morning, be sure to expel our liquids as soon as possible and then drink a glass of water and expel that about an hour later to flush out our kidneys and stay healthy. She said she knew all that because her daughter is a urologist. I thought that part was pretty funny. Later on today we're going to have to teach a mock lesson in front of the class for 15 minutes and I'm pretty nervous about it, because I always forget to say things. Oh, and on each floor of the building where we have our class, there is a canvas picture of different gospel stories/Christ. They are really pretty and they look really lifelike because they're lit up by a light in the back. It looks really cool, and if I remember to take pictures of them I'll send some next week. The sisters in my room and I are making each other stand up and say "I'm a star, I'm a star, I'm a star, you're all stars" if we forget to call each other sister or elder or say "freakin" or "crap". We were also told we aren't supposed to say "cool" or "awesome" because that's not how Christ would talk. That's going to be hard. Oh also, every Sunday we need to have two talks prepared on specific topics in case our branch president calls on us to talk. It's supposed to prepare us in case we need to give a talk on the spot in the mission field.