Week 3 - “I’ve Got This”

So much to tell, so little time!

I know this will be a shock to all who read this, but I kind of like sports?? Our hour of workout time has been a fantastic part of every single day. We play a lot of knockout, volleyball, and four-square, and it's the most fun I've ever had playing any kind of sport. When one of them gets too competitive, I just move to a different one. Honestly, I wanna play volleyball all the time, but I feel like the people there expect me to be good at it... so I go play knockout with our entire district. It is SO fun. I'm gonna be a sportsmaster by the time I get home. (Frisbee is next on the list out here. Elder Jensen knows everything ever about Ultimate Frisbee - I think its his calling in life. But we cant play Ultimate because its too competitive.)

I'm memorizing longer french passages now - I have the first vision, the missionary purpose, and a baptismal invitation all loaded into my brain. It takes me a little while to say them, but every day is a little bit better than the last. I know the Lord wants me to learn french, because otherwise I would've lost motivation a longggg time ago. I'm so grateful to be doing what he wants me to be doing.

We got snow this week! Sœur Hamilton is from Australia and has never seen snow before, so her jaw just dropped and she was all “it’s CHRISTMAS”. We all took cute pictures of ourselves to send home, so....

 There’s still some ice in front of a few of the buildings, just because it never gets warm enough for it to melt. 

We taught our first Sunday lesson this past week, during Sunday School. It was super awesome because we were teaching to real people, whose real needs we really knew and could really teach for. Do you understand what I'm saying? This roleplaying stuff is fun and all, but I LOVE teaching to people who really will be receptive to the things we're saying. The Spirit was so strong as we taught about faith and the gift of tongues, and afterward everyone told us how much they appreciated the lesson. Our district is literally the best.

WE FOUND THE CAT! Soeur Sanderson loves cats just as much as I do, and so she picked it up and... Well, you can see how that went.

Basically, the cat knows where to get attention, goes there every day, but "doesn't want to be touched or held". Either way, he's beautiful. We're not sure if his name is actually Frank - his collar is pink and has the name Harris on it, but we've also heard Lucy, Elder Meow Meow, and Socks. So, your guess is as good as mine.

We have an area outside our classroom that has a mural of palm trees and a beach scene that looks like it's from Hawaii. It's absolutely beautiful, and it has windows all around that look out on the mountains - but we were looking at the mural, and then some of the Elders pulled out Google Maps and started zooming in on the satellite pictures of Tahiti. We all were looking at it together, and as we looked at the different places we'd heard of and remembered all the stories we'd been told, the Spirit came into the room and testified (at least to me) that we'd all been called there by God, and that we have a purpose to fulfill. The Spirit was so sweet as we felt it testify that we had a mission to fulfill, and this preparation and training was all for a cause. None of us can wait to get out there! (Our teachers will tell stories about Tahiti sometimes, and the room gets so silent and attentive when they tell us about different people they taught and places they lived and challenges they overcame. We're like little kids during storytime. It's the best, and I'll remember it for a long time.)

Sunday night, the Lux Singers came and sang for our devotional, and I got a little homesick for Chamber Choir again. Sending my love out to the best choir in the world - the Lux singers were good, but not as good as Bentonville.

We've also started assigning everyone in our district to different characters from the Office. Let me know if you're interested, and I'll send you the official list when we finish it. For a point of reference, we've known who Michael Scott was from the very beginning.

We had our first TRC lesson this week (I'm not sure what that stands for, but for those of you who don't know, it means that we go in to a building with a bunch of office cubicles dressed up like little houses, and talk to past missionaries who are fluent in the language, and teach them a lesson.) THIS was an adventure in the least. I had determined before that I wasn't going to fear about the lesson, because I would be wasting my time. I put my trust in the Spirit... And the first one went okay! I had all these thoughts about what I wanted to say, and could translate them pretty easily... And then I got it in my head that I was doing so good, and I went into the second lesson thinking, "I've got this."

After that, I said maybe four comprehensive sentences in French.

Do you kind of get what I'm saying? As soon as I took the glory for learning French and being able to speak, as soon as I stopped leaning on God for the language and His Spirit, I lost the opportunity to use it. So, I've learned that the line between leaning upon the Holy Ghost and leaning upon your own understand is very thin. It's good to know where that line is for me, though.

The good news is, we didn't get discouraged for our failures. We spoke a lot of great french, for about forty minutes straight! That's something to be proud of. This is us right after finishing our appointments :)

We sang in choir on Tuesday, and it was a medley of a bunch of missionary songs, so some people thought something was up... And then, when we sat down for the actual devotional, they announced that Elder Gary E. Stevenson was coming in to speak to us. We sang in a missionary broadcast that went to EVERY MTC IN THE WORLD. That's just a little bit cool. And then, hearing Elder Stevenson speak in person... The Spirit was just so strong. Plus, there's another broadcast next week, and we have to be in choir early. So even more special things are definitely in store. The holidays at the MTC are so worth it. 

Soeur Thomas is one of our teachers, and we just found out that she edited part of our big book of french grammar! Of course, now that we know she's basically famous, we had her sign all of our books en francais. Among other forms of congratulation, we gave her a standing ovation, everybody took pictures as she signed their books, and we started her fanclub. (If you read that too seriously, put a little sarcasm in your head and read it again. She was so embarrassed, it was so fun. We love her so much.)

I love the MTC! There’s so much amazing stuff to be excited for, and I’m learning so much!!! 

Sœur Sperry