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.