Leaving the MTC for Ohio!

Hey everyone, 

I leave TOMORROW for Ohio and I'm thrilled. We have to report to the travel office at 3:30 am and I don't know if we'll really sleep tonight.. Since tomorrow would be our P-day but we're in transit, we're using our time to prepare for departure for doing laundry and e-mailing. To be honest, I have LOVED the MTC!!! I really can't say anything negative about it, which surprised me. We have done a LOT of role-playing though, which most of the time drove us crazy. It is good practice for teaching though, even though we absolutely dread it. 

 Sorry to hear it's so warm there though.... I should be flying into lovely 45-ish degree weather tomorrow at 4:30pm.  I also got a package from Sister Petersen (the OTHER Sis. Petersen) and Sister Shoemaker today. That was awesome. And thank you to the Waldens for sending me some yummy treats too! :)


So Elder Holland came for Sunday Devotional!!! Actually, it was his son that spoke, who's the UVU president, but Elder Holland introduced his son as the speaker. He speaks here in 2 months, so life just isn't fair all the time. Still, it was pretty legit. My district sang in the MTC choir that night, and "Praise to the Man" was the finishing song. I actually got my face up on the big screen in the auditorium/gym (the devotionals are all recorded/taped) a couple of times, which was awesome! There were a few sisters later that night and the next morning who said to me, "I saw you on the big screen last night!!! And I love your shirt!" Haha. So basically, I was famous in the MTC for like 10 seconds. 

We had our last classes today and taught our last MTC lesson. Our "investigator" Jordanna is getting baptized! And we brought another "investigator" to baptism as well! When we had such success with Jordanna, I felt SO happy, so I can't wait to help REAL people now! Earlier this week I was a little nervous to go out into the field, but now I feel great about it, it's DEFINITELY time to get the heck out of this place! Our teachers here are really amazing though, and are so spiritually inspired in how they help us! In the first picture I attached, it's of the girls in my district with two of our teachers, Sister Westover and Sister Knudsen. All six of us did polka dot day :)

Last Thursday, we did "in-field orientation" which was an all-day ordeal for people departing the next week. We all met together, then did lots of breakout sessions. Most of the things I learned were already things I knew, except for how to fill out the missionary planner and doing the numbers. But guess who showed up and was my teacher for the last breakout session? Elder/J Tyler Christensen from "The District" videos!! The blonde guy who served in San Diego! He was pretty cool, and because The District is our training videos, he's kind of a celebrity around here. 

I got all the packages you sent me, so thank you!  With Valentine's Day, a lot of us got packages, and so we had a ton of food on our hands. Sister Hendrickson in my district gets packages everyday because she's from Provo, but the bulk of it is food! She even had Krispy Kremes delivered to the front desk the other day! She was like, 'Stop sending me food!!!!!" Haha.

Since P-Day last week, it got a lot harder to focus on things. My district would be full of energy one day, completely wiped out the next, and then just not able to focus during the next class. Bless our teachers for putting up with us. I really can't comprehend how people stay here for 9 or 12 weeks. That just sounds awful, to be honest. The past couple days I also started seeing the age and maturity gap emerge between me (and the sisters in the other district in our zone who are 20-23), and the 18 year old elders. Oh my gosh. That must have been pretty strong revelation for the prophet and apostles to feel that sending out 18 year old boys would be a good idea.

My district has gotten pretty close though, and we joke that we're going to have trainers in the mission field who whip us into shape. But then everyone's like, "except for Sister Petersen, she's always on top of everything already!" I do what I can :)

I'm tired a lot here, but it's good. I just often fall asleep during class and study time! Some of the elders told me it makes their day when they see me passed out at my desk. But don't worry, I don't sleep TOO much during the day (but we took a power nap on Sunday afternoon and loved it), and I've been getting better with that. I'm also totally healthy. I've seen blessings pour on down since I arrived here. 

Here's some pictures: