Hey family! (and everyone else who sees this e-mail)
I FINALLY MADE IT TO P-DAY!!! It's been the longest week of my life. BUT, I love it here. Not enough that I want to stay longer than two weeks, but my time here has been great. Sorry Mom, but after you said goodbye to me, I just had to turn around and not look back at all. Instantly, once I went into campus, I had a big grin on my face and it was an incredible feeling when my name badge was put on. On your first day here, you have an orange dot on your nametag so everyone knows you're new... who knows how many people yelled out to me, "WELCOME TO THE MTC!!" After dinner, I was like, this is DEFINITELY coming off RIGHT NOW, haha.
I was led by a sister going to Rome, Italy to my residence hall where I dropped everything and then went to my classroom. My district/class consists of 8 people, 4 sister and 4 elders, and we are all going to Columbus. My companion is Sister Mathis from Reno, Nevada, who is a sophomore at BYU-Idaho. By the way Taylor, she really loves it and other people here talk about BYU-I a lot too. What's crazy is that we're both redheads, and it blows people away when they see us walking around together. What's REALLY weird is that we both have two siblings, a brother and sister, both named Taylor and Hayley!! When I found that out, I was like, who are you?!?!?!
I share a room with the three other sisters in my district, Sister Mathis, Sister Hendrickson, and Sister Mecham. We've all gotten along really well and we just travel as a pack of four all day, every day. It's fun.
Our teachers here are AMAZING. We spend around 9 hours a day in the same small classroom, either studying, receiving class instruction, teaching, or doing role-play... oh my gosh so much role play. I've also never spent so much time in my life just reading the scriptures. But what we learn is really powerful, and we try to break things up and keep it interesting, especially since half of us start losing focus and falling asleep. I was out for part of the lesson yesterday, and jolted awake when Sister Mathis dropped her pen on the floor!
On our first full day here, I had set the alarm for me and the three sisters I share a room with. Apparently, it was set to California time, so we woke up an hour late, but didn't realize it until we went to breakfast and the place was almost empty! So we missed an hour of study time, and the beginning of a workshop, but in the end it was okay because we really didn't miss that much. It was pretty funny though for a first-day-at-the-MTC story.
The food here isn't too bad, pretty good for the most part actually (same as BYU food), but I haven't gone all crazy and have stuck to the healthier meals. Even still, after some meals we don't feel too great... not sure what those cafeteria people are doing back there! I haven't seen Megan there yet, but I think she worked a lunch shift today, which is unfortunate because it's our P-day and you can't go into the cafeteria if you're not in missionary clothes, so we grabbed a sack lunch instead on the other side of the building. She'll have to find me on Saturday or during another time.
Sister Mathis and I are teaching two "investigators" here, Jordanna and Jamie. We're doing well with Jordanna and are leading here to baptism. Our teacher, who plays Jordanna, said we were powerful teachers. If you really try to invite the Spirit into a lesson, it will come and the investigators will respond to it. With Jamie, it was someone else that we taught in the TRC (Teaching Resource Center) and her family was half-atheist, so for the first lesson, Sister Mathis and I were all over the place while she asked us super hard questions. That day I finally got a little stressed out here. We researched the questions though and talked with our teachers that night to know what to do the next day when we taught again, and it went soooo much better the second time.
On the second day we were here, Sister Mathis and I got called to be Sister Training Leaders, so tonight after a new district comes in, we have to go teach them some stuff regarding the MTC. Last night, we had a sister arrive from New Zealand (and she's going to CA, San Fernando!), Sister Smalley, so we picked her up and brought her with us to dinner, MTC choir, and devotional. There's people here from all over the world, it's pretty cool.
Our branch presidency met with us the second night we were here, and we all explained why we were on a mission. It was a powerful and spiritual experience for all of us to bear testimony of that, and I know I'm supposed to be here. I won't lie though, the first night I laid in bed and thought, "is this my life now??!!? This mission is going to last forever!!" But that feeling has gone away, and I've only been stressed or discouraged for a few moments since I've been here, not very much. I'm also SO grateful to be going English-speaking, because I'm only here for two weeks and the learning/training process is so much easier. Everyone that's here for an eternity learning a language is super jealous of us.
I fly to Ohio a week from today, and first we fly into Atlanta. We report to the travel office at 3:30 in the morning.... and then arrive in Ohio at 4:30 eastern time. Long day. We saw some sisters today who were going to fly into Atlanta today as well, but they had their flight canceled because of more ice storms there! They said that the storms were supposed to clear up this weekend though, so hopefully we won't face any set-backs.
There's a rumor that Elder Holland may be here for Sunday devotional, I hope and pray it's true because that would make my MTC experience!! The other devotionals here have been pretty good, and the last Sunday one was by a managing director for the missionary department so that was cool. The Spirit is just so strong here all the time, they say it's like being in the temple, except you can raise your voices more and let's be honest, this place is a lot uglier than the temple, haha.
To everyone reading this e-mail, I would LOVE to hear from you! And seriously, I will do whatever I can to write you back!
Sister Whitney Petersen
OHIO COLUMBUS MISSION
19 Clairedan Drive
Powell, OH 43065-8064
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