Week 6

This is my last email from the MTC and I had high hopes to make it well thought out and sentimental, but I'm quickly running out of time to write because we had lots of wrap-up errands to run. Let's see...what happened this week...

We sang our special song at the two devotionals. It was a little more legit than I expected and very thrilling to sing in front of a couple hundred people with my own microphone. The MTC President came up to thank us afterward and I didn’t even know what a FUNNY candid man he is until now. Overall very cool and fun experience, would do again. 

Pretty Provo Views

We had double the amount of TRC lessons we usually have this week because we’ve also been doing little lessons with members. The first one was over Skype with a member in Bolivia and kind of awkward and then the next one was in person and was very encouraging. He said my Spanish is way better than most missionaries he’s met with at the MTC after 6 weeks and my accent is very good. 

The MTC has been so weird because it’s like “wow I blinked and it’s over” but at the same time it’s like “this is the only life I’ve ever known, there is no outside world”...Or really the best way to describe it is “ew I’ve only been here for 6 weeks, why do I care about all these kids so much”. 

The hardest thing I’ve worked on at the MTC is learning how to function as a WE instead of an I with my companion. It’s hard because at home you can just appreciate people that think of things differently and live your separate lives but here you’ve got to work together and be unified as you plan lessons and go from place to place. 

I’ll certainly miss the chocolate milk on tap and also being able to take huge risks in TRC lessons just for the sake of practicing that I probably won’t be able to take in the field. This whole week has been full of pockets of terror at the realization of leaving so soon but also pockets of inexplicable excitement at the thought that those scriptures that we read over and over again in the church are going to be BRAND NEW to people I teach. 

Anyways. That’s mostly it I think. You can all expect a lot more spice in the next email cause I’ll be out of cozy ol' Provo and into the fire of Panama (speaking of which, Sunday was the first pleasant sunny day we’ve had here I feel like. My skin has forgotten what the sun is and it’s about to get a rude awakening in 90 degree Panama..)

 Everything (my toothpaste, my notebook pages, my mascara, my shampoo...everything) is running out right on time and it’s very satisfying to me and a sign that it’s time to be movin' along. 

I know all the people I’ve met here and interactions I’ve had have been very intentional by God and I know that Christ died so we can choose to be better than we are.

I guess I’ll talk to you all oN tHe oThEr SiDe, 

hAvE a GrEaT wEeK 

-Hermana Tolman 

Hna Rollins' Mom sent us a package with Easter-themed stuff, including these bunny silly straws

Veronica, our TRC Investigator

We achieved 100% SYL! (Speak Your Language)

Hermana Rollins talked us into having a District 5K relay-race... let's just say we did it cause we love her, not necessarily because we wanted to, haha.

MTC Zone

My District!

Hermanas of my District

Week 5

Hello helloo! 

This week started out with haha lots of tears (something along the lines of I love my District but they don’t love me back.. which is so funny and dramatic now that I’m looking back) but ended up being probably the most wholesome good week yet. 

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this in an email before, but my big toe was hurting super 100 bad and I started walking weird so it would hurt less. Anyways I thought it would be stupid to go into the clinic over because nothing happened that made it start hurting BUT my Branch President happens to be a foot and ankle surgeon so (after some pep talks from the other Hermanas because I felt really stupid) I asked him after Sacrament meeting if he could tell me how to make my toe not hurt and he just went in to Doctor mode and told me everything about how my feet work. He said “Hermana do you not see the bruising and swelling on your toe?” And then said I just had some mild tendonitis and told me all these things I should do to help it and my toe hasn’t bothered me again this whole week. It was a lesson to me in not being..mm.. tonto.. and asking for help when I need it even if it’s something as dumb as my toe. 

We started teaching a new person for TRC this week and she is FUN. She spices it up by asking lots of questions that challenge us and force us to abandon our lesson plans. We record our lessons so we can go back and remember what happened and do things better or translate something they said that totally went over our heads but always when we listen back there’s random English that we say totally subconsciously and makes me want to die cause I don’t even realize I’m saying it and I ALWAYS know the Spanish word that I said in English. Like one time I just randomly said “Capítulo four” Instead of cuatro and my brain didn’t even recognize that I did it. It’s always that or I say things like “so entonces..”. It’s schoo stupid and I hate it. 

Anyways. We also SANG in one of our lessons! We mentioned that we like to sing and she said “sing one of your church songs for me at our next lesson” so we did and it wasn’t even as awkward as I thought. OH, and. We had a lesson with her about the Fall of Adam and Eve and then we planned on teaching about the Atonement for the next lesson so we invited her to read some verses in the Book of Mormon that talk about the Atonement. But as we were talking after the lesson we said “hmm we want to make sure she actually understands the Fall and feels comfortable with it before moving on” and like 5 minutes later we had this AWFUL realization that we assigned her a totally random scripture to read because I had a brain fart while writing the chapter and verses on a sticky note. So we rushed to look at what the heck we invited her to read and it just HAPPENED to be about THE FALL! You know that quote from President Monson that says “God can turn a mistake into a miracle”? That’s like.. exactly what happened. It was cool. 

The MTC holds auditions for missionaries to perform at one of four events and we said “oh that sounds fun” so we auditioned (Hermana Hopkin and I singing "Be Thou My Vision" with Hermana Rollins on the flute, and Elder Peters on the piano) and we got not one but TWO performances out of the four (once at the Devotional for all departing missionaries and once at the Devotional for Senior missionaries)! And the audition list was FULL. We’re sorely excited about it. 

Anyways I think that’s all I’ve got from this week. I know my life is about to get real uncomfy in like 9ish days so I’m trying to appreciate the luxuries of the MTC while I can. 

......ok see ya, bye, love ya, talk to you all next week.... 

-Hermana Tolman 

Me With My Love Letters From the MTC Inviting Me to Sing for Them.

I made Hermana Hopkin laugh while she was drinking water so she spit it out and was coughing and I think she looks like Anakin in the third Star Wars when he says “I hate you”.

Silly Fountain Ducks

Here's a recording of us practicing Be Thou My Vision with Hna Hopkin singing soprano, me singing Alto, Hna Rollins on the flute, Hna McCormack as our (dance) mom who supports us and holds our coats, and Elder Peters from the Zone on piano!

Week 4

Well well well.. another week down. This week was a lot, but in a different way than the other weeks I've had here. 
I think at the MTC we repeat a lot of the same things with the sentiment of "You can do it! Believe! Angels! Yay!" and we do a lot of role playing where we bear our testimonies over and over and over again, and of course we believe what we're testifying of but when it's the 5th time you've struggled through teaching the Restoration in Spanish in the last 10 minutes it's easy to glaze over and just want to get it done. Furthermore, I've seen the hand of God a lot here but usually I recognize it in a very in-my-head way like "Oh wow I had way more to do today than I could handle but somehow I got it all done and that was an answer to prayers" or "Wow finding this scripture was a tender mercy because it explains the doctrine I'm trying to teach so well and makes up for where my Spanish really lacks". 
Anyways, the reason I'm saying all this is because this week sHoOk ThInGs uP for me in the feeling-things-in-your-heart department and it's funny because nothing crazy shocking or dramatic happened to start me on this little walkabout I'm having, so I don't know where to start. I was reading The Book of Mormon on Tuesday before dinner, Alma 34:27-28, and it kind of made me ponder about how much time I've spent trying to measure out how much more of one quality I need or how much of another part of me I need to cut down and how I can manage my time better and if self criticism can ever be constructive, and just if all the goals I'm setting are actually making me better. 
So anyways. All those types of things were on my mind as I went to Devotional that evening and the speaker, Carl B Cook of the Presidency of the 70, invited all his 18 grandchildren to come on the stage. He said something along the lines of "All these missionaries you see have been preparing their whole lives to go on missions" and then asked all of us to stand and sing Called To Serve to his grandchildren. Usually I see these types of things as really cheesy and almost like, manipulative, but for some reason the whole thing just struck my heart in a very weird way and all the sudden I remembered who I want to be and I WEPT the whole way through singing it. I was trying so hard to articulate what the heck I was feeling in my journal that I didn't listen to a word of Devotional after that- except for when I looked up and Elder Cook was waving this giant white flag and saying "Surrender to God's Will! Surrender to God's Will!". 
It's still very rough but this is kind of where I've ended up in the pondering of that experience: Everything Christ gives us is an opportunity to turn outward and feel concern for others but very often I turn it around and make it about me: how I'm feeling and all the weaknesses I struggle with. But Christ is able to perfect us only when we get over ourselves and do our best to use our gifts to glorify him and bring others to him, and also to help others to see and use the gifts they have to glorify God and serve others. Hermana Tolman just needs to pray more often and be more believing in the grace and loving character of God. I'm pretty sure that still only halfway makes sense but I'm working on it...  
In other news, Influenza is rampant here at the MTC so they've put into effect a no-contact policy which means I don't need to be self conscious of my clammy hands for a while! woot woot. Also I got to be a HOST for all the new missionaries on Wednesday. What a wild ride. It was pouring rain and there were lots of little plot twists to keep it interesting. The first Sister I hosted was from Australia going to Italy and super bubbly and ready to go and then the second sister I hosted was from here going to Australia and she was bawling and hugged her family for probably 10 minutes. Anyways. A lot happened but I don't have the time to type any of it up. Except that after hosting, my companion and I couldn't find each other for a solid half hour and it was very unsettling and disorienting. 

Other misc things:

-One of the Elders in my district laughed so hard at dinner that he shot chocolate milk out of his nose and my companion thought it was blood and screamed. it was a LOT of chocolate milk. We're all trying to be mature and composed missionaries but sometimes it doesn't go well.

-Hna Rollins and I got locked out of our room after we showered and had to use the red emergency phone in our building to call the front desk so they could come let us back in.

There's this sister missionary in a picture outside our zone room that everyone in my district thinks looks like me and every time we walk past it they say "oh look its Hermana Tolman" and so I spent all this time one morning straightening my hair so I could take a picture next to it but then I forgot and took a shower after exercise time so the picture isn't as good as it could've been but its ok and and you get the idea.

MTC top floor looking down

I found another second cousin! Dallin Hodgdon, called to NYC Portuguese speaking.

I have a habit of almost walking out of the residence halls in my shower shoes and pants in the mornings.. good thing I have a trusty companion who catches me before I dishonor the nametag I wear 

Week 3

The name of the Provo MTC Cafeteria has been had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues. To give you an idea about the kinds of things that go on in there, last Sunday our branch made a goal to completely empty the entire 2-ft-tall, 1-ft-deep container of Reeses puffs cereal in one sitting as a "unifying activity" and we DID it. Over 100 bowls of cereal. I chose to Reesist full participation and only ate one bowl because I didn't want to DiE and it wouldn't HeLp Me LiVe My MiSsIoNaRy PuRpOsE but I'm really glad I was snooty cause everyone ending up feeling sick all day and their mouths got all cut up from eating so much cereal. 

In other news, Hermana Rollins and I got assigned as the new Sister Training Leaders, which means we get a fun little flip phone that we always pretend to be talking on (the only place it can call is the front office, haha).

Hna Rollins in her thrifty outfit talking on our flip phone (not staged at all)

Tuesday and Wednesday were ROUGH STUFF. One of the Elders in our District went home and then the old district all left for the field, and then the other companionship of Hermanas in our district got stricken with illness and were in bed all day and then another Elder in our district hurt his back and so like nobody was in class and everyone was just super down all day. 

In the evening we had a devotional where Elder D. Todd Christofferson came and spoke. It was very packed full of doctrine and very good. My favorite thing he said was "The fear of man is washed away in the reverence of God". Also I can't remember if I've mentioned this yet but I sing in the MTC choir and its sooooo fun. The director is super entertaining and teaches us by telling us about the history of the songs we sing and church history and stories from his mission and I just love it. Also singing with like 700-800 missionaries is SOMETHIN ELSE. For the devotional on Tuesday we sang Joseph Smiths First Prayer and the line where God says "Joseph, This is My Beloved. Hear Him!" was completely a capella and I was overcome with the spirit testifying of the Restoration for those few seconds and then I went back to feeling kind of crappy from the whole mood of the day. 

But Wednesday was WORSE. Tuesday kind of established this habit of being grumpy and negative and my companion and I were just so irritable with each other. Also this might be kind of TMI but I've had some ecxema and when I take Benadryl it helps a ton, so anyways I took it on Wednesday morning but I forgot that it makes me SLEEPY so that added to the difficulty of Wednesday. Anyways we were just swimming in unmet goals and I wanted to bang my head against a wall all day it was awful. But at the end of exercise time on Wednesday I came down to the mats to stretch and there was this Elder laying super stiff, arms at his sides, face down on the mat ASLEEP and I had a hearty laugh cause it described the way I was feeling so well. At the end of the night the ol' encouraging line from Anne of Green Gables "Tomorrow is a new day without any mistakes in it" really resonated with me. 

And things did get better on Thursday. Whenever we need a little break from studying we go find a piano and sing for a few minutes. It helps us get our attitudes back on our feet. OH, but. Thursday night we went to a meeting where the Branch Presidency met the New District that arrived on Wednesday and we (Me and Hna. Rollins and our Zone Leaders) had to leave early because we had a TRC (role-play lesson) at 7:15 that we couldn't miss. We were waiting for a good, appropriate moment to step out but the Branch President was talking all the way up until 7:12 and then he was not pleased when we left. And then we had to RUN all the way across campus to our TRC appointment to teach about Faith and Repentance and when we got there we were super flustered and out of breath. All the things we'd prepared, especially how to communicate those things in Spanish, completely left my mind and I wanted to cry, but we pulled through and our teacher (who sat in on the lesson) said we nailed it so that made me feel a little better. And then we taught another lesson right after that and we asked her about why she was interested in the church / what she was hoping to get from our lessons and then she started talking about Family History and her grandpa and then all the sudden I wanted to cry for a totally different reason than in the first lesson because I was just so excited to teach her about temple work and all the things the gospel can offer her. But I was still just very dumbfounded and not speaking very well or very much and it was just a wild ride of a night. 

Speaking of Spanish, we had a short conversation in the elevator with one of the Spanish teachers and at the end he said "Where did you learn your Spanish? You speak very well" and it buttered up my ego very much. But the truth is I've actually been very frustrated with myself and Spanish this week. I've been super lazy and stubborn about speaking in Spanish as much as I can and I know I'm not doing myself any favors by speaking English a whole bunch. At the MTC they push that you should speak the language you're learning as much as you can and then if you ever really have to use English then you have to ask permission. So there's a joke within our district that when we get to the field we'll knock on people's doors and then when they open them we'll just say "?Me permite hablar ingles?" and then they'll just say "oh sure" and then we'll just get to talk to them in English. Its funny but we're all pained cause we know it can't be that way. Also yesterday Hna. Rollins got to take a fun little field trip to the BYU Police station to get her fingerprints done for her visa. It was weird to be in a car and see so many not-missionary people. I felt like an Amish girl seeing NYC for the first time. Just kidding, that's an exaggeration. Have a great week everyone. goodbye.