Dear Family,
It's been great here at the MTC. I didn't have a companion for the first few days because she was coming from Australia, but she's here now! Her name is Sister Felila; she's Tongan, and is the sweetest girl you could ever meet. My roommates say I'm picking up her accent a little, but it probably won't last long since she's going to the Anaheim, CA mission.
While I was breathlessly awaiting her arrival, I was in a tri-ship with Sister Swenson, from Idaho, and Sister Donaldson, from Riverton, UT. They are going to the Baltimore, Maryland mission. fabulous, naturally, but since they were assigned to a different room, I'm very grateful to have my companinon with me now.
Sister Felilia and I have a Thai tri-ship as our roommates. They are Sister Maxwell, Sister Yinn, and Sister Tona. They are all leaving in 8 days, so they're very excited, but have also been very helpful to us sicne they've already been here for 11 weeks and know the ropes so well. Sister Tona is our Coordinating Sister ("female zone leader"), and she's been such a blessing to me. She's great at giving advice, which it seems I need every night I return from class.
Class is usually enjoyable. Our district's Elders are all wonderful. They do a very good job of making sure us sisters are taken care of. For instance, yesterday Sister Swenson was sick, and when they asked if she needed anything and she jokingly said "Pills!" they jumped right up to go fetch her some. I also mentioned one evening after dinner that I was craving chocolate and when we came together for evening classes, one of the Elders, Elder Vonk, shared some of his chocolate chip cookies he'd received from home that day. (They were so delicious, all of us sisters are trying to talk him into getting the girl that sent them to him to share the recipie with us!)
I'm glad to hear that we made it to the Sweet 16! I heard that we won our first game from one of our teachers, but I didn't know when the second game was scheduled for, so I didn't know when to ask about it! I hope we win this one!
I would describe the MTC as part chaos, part spiritually, and part reality check. I've realized my greatest weakness in teaching is knowing the actual scripture references of the scriptures that I'm quoting to my investigators.
Mom asked what I typically do, so let's see how much of that I can get out in 17 minutes..
I usually wake up around six and shower, then get ready for some personal/district/general study at 7am. Then we have breakfast as a district, followed by class time. Class might be taught by Brother Cope or Sister Stroud, or it might be set apart as Personal Study time or Companionship Study time. Or our district might get distracted, and just talk...though we are getting better at talking about spiritual things when we get off topic...as opposed to the other day when one of the Elders said he preferred Twilght over Harry Potter and he needed to be chastened...
Lunch is scheduled for us at 12:30. Then it's back to the classroom. Dinner is at 6:30...then it's back to the classroom.
Some days we have "special" activities: tonight is the devotional, and tomorrow we're having "purpose practice" where we teach other missionaries from the other classrooms on our block. One of the other classrooms has elders that are going to Everett also, so it's good to be getting to know them a bit.
Oh...and gym is thrown in there somewhere every day. The other sisters and I are getting better at using that time well...though we still dedicate a lot of our gym time to chatting and breathing exercises.
We tell ourselves it's important for our *mental* health.
Sunday was exciting...for relief society all of the sisters at the MTC meet together. This week we had Sister Stephenson of the RS general board come to speak to us about faith, and then a Sister and Elder sang a BEAUTIFUL arrangement of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Greef." Sacrament meeting is with our zone/branch. Sister Tano played a musical number on her violin. For Sunday school, we met with our district in...the classroom!...but one of our branch presidency took over the whole time. He's kind of long winded (and by kind of, he can take 30 minutes to tell a story that can be told in 10 words...) and he wanted to tell the Elders a story about the importance of having the White Handbook on hand in case they're ever called to dedicate a grave site...
He's an interesting fellow.
Oh...before I run out of time I should mention that I can't upload photos to the email, so I'll have to develop them and send them to you the old-fashioned way. It'll be interesting to have to figure that out...hopefully it's less confusing than a pay phone ;)
But, of course, this is all stuff I know after the fact. They do a good job here of not instructing us about what we should or should not be doing...and then berating us when we do something wrong or are in the wrong place at the wrong time. They're also pretty notorious for inefficiency (no one warned me to be preapared for THAT challenge!). Like we'll have a lesson on how important planning is and then they'll eat into our planning time bearing testimony of said planning we're SUPPOSED and WANTING to be doing. I'm trying to look on the bright side though. At least they care...?
Anyways, time's almost up, and I'm on a DELL that's already crashed once while I'm on here...so better hit send before it happens again! (Knock on wood...)
Love you and miss you all!
--Sister Heather Holdsworth
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