April 18, 2012

Family!!

I hope you are all doing well! I love hearing from you!

On Sunday M. Russell Ballard came for the devotional. Usually members of the 12 don't come on Sunday’s so it was pretty cool. He so far we have had an apostle every week we have been here. Alright maybe general conference doesn't count but I think it does. David Archuleta sang at the fireside, and it was awesome!! He sang the Spirit of God. Sundays here are always great, this week was the last week of the older districts being here, so we didn't have to speak, but now they are gone there are only 14 in our zone. Next Sunday I will be singing and the likelyhood of having to pray or speak is pretty high. We will only be small for this week though because next week we will be getting 24 new missionaries into our zone. I remember thinking that the older districts knew so much, and now we are going to be the older district...I don't know that much. Oh well, it should be interesting.

Mondays are usually long, but this Monday was great! One of our teachers, Cectpa Jones, has been taking each of us to plan, study, and teach together to prepare for a lesson. It was great! 1. She knows Russian, 2. She has been a missionary. Basically she was the senior companion and we prepared a lesson. Here all of our study is separated so it is hard to have them all focused in the same direction. Monday was awesome until we were going to bed. The sisters that live in our residence had to finish packing and getting ready so they could leave the next day at 5. They didn't finish until like midnight so our light was on, aka, I didn't sleep. And then at 1:30 in the morning the fire alarm went off. It was the angriest noise I have ever heard. We went out to the parking lot and then they said we could go into the gym. We got back into our residence at 2:00 and then slept until 4:00 when the other sisters got up to get ready to leave. Somehow none of us had an alarm set for 6:30 so we all woke up at 6:45. It was a crazy night. We found out the next day that some wiring in the heat register just spazzed out, but they got it all fixed. Tuesday was a rough day. We were all really tired.

On Tuesdays we have workshops. Really they are just like a teacher led discussion, and then you get to practice teaching other missionaries about a topic. Last week it was the sacrament and this week was the atonement. Anywho, workshops are awesome! And then we have another devotional on Tuesday evenings. This week Larry Gibbons of the 70 came. He spoke about the role members should play in missionary work and how to work with them. It was really interesting. I loved it.

Today in the temple we did some sealings. One of the couples in there was really great. I don't have enough time to tell you all their stories but they have just had some awesome experiences in the temple. Basically they bore testimony that being a missionary is going to allow these people to do their own work rather than wait to have someone do it for them. That doesn't sound as cool as they said it but...oh well.

Thursday through Saturday through Saturday are pretty boring...we just go to class and attempt to shove a lot of Russian in our heads. Last week I told you about one of our investigators kicking us out? Well, now he is getting baptized next month. We had some awesome lessons with him this week. While it is simulated teaching our investigators is probably the most worthwhile part of our day. Some of the time I dread it because I want to really share something with them but I don't know how. It is frustrating.

Hmm...what else...the MTC is really pretty in the spring. They have loads of tulips and poppy's. And it is nice that it hasn't been that hot. The AC at the MTC is subpar, so on warm days it gets pretty toasty in our classrooms.

Well, I don't think I have anything else to tell you. I love all of you!

Love,

Liz