Friday, August 29, 2014

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

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