Surprise!
My P-day while in the MTC is Friday. So expect an email around 12:30 or
1:00 next Friday as well. Holy moly it feels AMAZING here. I'm
kind of loving Utah summertime because it's like 75 and sunny, so you
can stay out pretty much all day. Well, the first day, everything was
pretty rushed at first until the host brought me to my classroom where I
met my companion! Her name is Sister Brimley, and she is awesome. We
get along super well, both in terms of personality and with teaching
together. But I'll get to the teaching in a minute. After we met our
district, which is a group of about 10 of us (Sister Brimley and I being
the only sisters, the rest Elders), we went to a big orientation
welcoming us to the MTC. I don't remember many specifics, except for one
funny thing that the presidents wife said when she was speaking to us
all. She was talking about how here at the MTC, we don't call the men
"guys", we call them "Elders". "Here, you are Elders. 'Guys' are the
ones back home dating your girlfriends." Oh man, the looks on
everyone's faces! So funny.
Well into the first day it was not a shock or
anything to be at the MTC, it kind of just felt like going to school
again. I was just ready to get to work. Sister Brimley and I met our
other roomates, a trio companionship, and we went to teach
investigators, first day! But luckily it was in a pretty large group.
There were about 30 missionaries and one investigator. We taught three
different investigators, and their situations and problems were so
different, you really had to adjust what you asked them and what you
said to them based on what they knew and what they needed. It was very
insightful and has probably been one of my favorite teaching experiences
so far. I talked to this one man who seemed resentful of God's
punishing judgement, and as I was assuring him that Heavenly Father is
here to love and comfort him and not judge him, it was like I wasn't
saying it. I've heard people talking about the spirit filling their
mouths, but I hadn't experienced it until then. My brain usually
doesn't connect to my mouth as eloquently as it did, then, so I know it
was the spirit taking over!
Well, the MTC is huge but I'm starting to find my way
around. Staying together with your companion was weird at first
because you can't even walk out of class to go to the bathroom without
them. But now it's like, if I turn around and my companion isn't there,
it's a bit of a mini panic. I've gotten so used to her being here now.
I'm finally introducing myself as "Sister Moreland" instead of "Sister
Court---er---Moreland." I saw Elder White at dinner yesterday! We
didn't have much time to chat, but we're going to try and get a picture
before we leave the MTC.
We are working on a few other "investigators" which
are our two teachers role-playing as investigators. But it feels a lot
more real than you'd think. They have us knock and go into a separate
room with them and everything. Sister Brimley and I are starting to get
the hang of planning and studying with those two specific investigators
in mind, trying to meet their needs and show them, with love, all that
the gospel can do for them in their lives. It's role-playing, but we
take it very seriously, and the teachers include real things about the
"investigator", or themselves, that help us to help them.
We met our branch president last night. He's quite
the military man, so the Elders were scared to death of him, haha. But
he's very genuine and really wants the best for his missionaries. So
guess what? Sister Brimley and I are now Zone Sister Training Leaders!
Okay. Now I'm stressed. But it's a lot like the beginning of a new
school year, where the amount of work and stuff to do can be
overwhelming, but you get the hang of it and then it gets smoother.
Our classroom is on the 5th floor so we have to go up 10 flights of
stairs every day and OH MY LANTA either the air is crazy thin up here or
I am just ridiculously out of shape. I swear it gets harder every day
to walk up those stairs. Also, from 6:00 am to 6:30 am here, they have a
morning aerobics class especially for the sisters. We did yoga Thursday
morning and it was awesome. Felt a bit more like home, doing yoga. The
orange sticker you see on my nametag in the picture was to mark us as
first-day new missionaries. So everyone would see our sticker and be
like "welcome to the mtc!" which was nice at first but then made you
feel like such a newbie. Taking it off was like becoming an adult, haha.
It also is kind of awesome and fun to be able to call people "Elder" and
"Sister" so we all just say hi to every group we see "hi elders, hi
sisters!" or "Thank you, Elder" or "Excuse me, sister" and attach the
title to everything just because it reminds us that we are missionaries
now. It's kind of fun to be in the cafeteria and just shout, "Elder!"
and like 20 elders turn around.
Well, I'll keep you posted! I love this gospel and am working hard to learn all that I can to help bring others to Christ!
With love,
Sister Moreland
