Last week at the MTC

Another excellent week at the MTC (although the food has continued on the downhill slope). Last Tuesday at the devotional Hna Christensen said the prayer, so we sat up on the stand. An Emeritus 70 spoke, elder Workman, and he talked about how we can increase our faith, knowledge, spirit, and power through obedience. he said that by being a missionary and having extra rules to follow we have the opportunity for a greater increase in faith because everytime we are obedient, we have faith in waiting for the blessing. It was a cool talk.

Maggie sent me some muddy buddies this week!! So delicious. : ) They sustained me throughout the week.

We had a final dress fitting on Wed. the dresses are still huge and heavy, but oh well. hopefully they make people laugh so that some good comes of them.

this past week Hno Pope wanted us to each teach at the TEC at least 15 times. This meant about 3 appointments a day. We did it and we learned a lot from all the practice. We taught one teacher the first lesson and then asked him to pray at the end. At first he said he wouldn't, but we kept at it and finally he did. After the lesson he told us that he hardly ever prays at the end, but we did a good job at being persistent, so taht was cool.

Hno Ah Sue spent almost a whole class this week talking about ANIMO!!!!! aka excitement. Basically he told us that it is super important to be excited so that other people will be excited about what you want to teach.

In the TRC this week we taught a "recent convert" which was cool. The man was super funny and had tons of questions about the plan of salvation which we were able to answer for him. it helped me realize how much we've learned since being here. haha

On Saturday it was our last class with the whole district so in Hno Ah Sue's class we had a picnic, which was super fun, and then he showed us pics from his mission and told us a bunch of stories. Turns out that he was in Davita Washington's district (she was in one of the pictures).

both Hno Pope and Hno Ah Sue gave us tons of final parting advice on Saturday, which was way helpful. Somehow we ended up with the best district and the best teachers. Awesome blossom.

Sunday was an excellent day. First off...every week every missionary in our branch is supposed to prepare a talk and then the branch presidency calls up two random people to speak. It's always and elder and a sister though (which makes for unfair odds with the sisters), but naturally this week I was called up to speak. I had figured it would be me since we are leaving next week so it was either Hna C or me most likely. I spoke on baptism (oh and the talks are in spanish...haha), but it seemed to go well. i talked about Emily's baptism and what a great example she was to me. ; )

In Relief Society i saw Sister Jorgenson, which was surprising and fun. Her girls said they had fun at girls' camp.

Oh, and then after RS they made a special announcement -- mom you will think this is ironic -- skirts now only have to cover your knees when fitting, because it is "nearly impossible to find mid-calf-length-skirts, and we don't have to wear nylons. Geez. This would have been helpful info 3 months ago. haha. oh well.

That night after the fireside we all went back to our classroom and sang "Hasta Ver" (until we meet again) as loud as we could. It was our last night as a district because Elder Rowan left at 8:30 for honduras. elder daines left the next morning for North Carolina and the rest of our elders will be gone tomorrow, except elder corbit who leaves for spain on friday. it's sad to have our mtc experience coming to an end because we really have had So much fun together and learned so much. But each of them will be such great missionaries wherever they go. Plus we already planned a district reunion for 2012. haha.

Today has been an excellent pday so far. the Provo temple is finally open again so we got to go. It was fun because our whole district (or what was left of it) was there at the same time and Hno pope was there too. Good times.

well, that's about it for this week. good news though, since our schedule switches for the VC training, we have another p-day on Friday, so look for an email then. : )

I love you all!!!

love,

Hna livingston

another week at the MTC

HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY MEGAN!!!!! I hope it was great. The party sounded really fun!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, this was a father funny week.

First off, last wed. Hno Pope decided it would be a good idea for us to go on "splits" but naturally this meant that Hna C and I each had to teach with an elder (in the same room...no worries...haha). I taught with Elder Daines, who is the most long winded of the elders in my district. Just before teaching he had asked what we should say about the Fall of adam and eve, and I reminded him we were teaching the first lesson so we didn't need to even mention it. I thought we were on the same page, but we started teaching and established how God loves us and whatnot and then Elder Daines went straight into talking about the fall. haha. It was rather funny to me. Luckily we managed to somehow bring it back around to the atonement and restoration, but it was still funny. Afterwards he was like, I'm sooo sorry! I forgot. hahaha.

In Rachel Boody's package to me last week was a bag of peachie-o's. Awesome right? So I ate them and then threw the bag away. no big deal. Wrong. Elder Rowan found the bag in the trash (who knows how) and had an actual fit over his not having gotten to eat any of them. It culminated in Elder Armstrong slow-motion throwing a chair around the room while Elder Rowan told me how unacceptable and selfish that was of me. It was pretty funny. (because these sorts of things happen quite a bit -- slow motion tantrums over pointless things...very funny).

One day during class Hno Pope spent an hour telling us about how he killed a bear. You may be wondering how this came up. Easy. We now have a question box and any question is acceptable. So since we knew that Hno Pope loved to hunt, Hna C and I asked if he had any deer head hanging in his house. This led to him saying that he had the skull of a bear hanging in his room because he killed a bear the other day. Naturally we needed a further explanation because he said it like it was no big deal. It was a pretty funny story that involved him eating porcupine and killing a bear in alaska (the bear they named Norm because he said the stormed it like Normandy). It was pretty funny. This story will come back into play later in the week.

That evening Hna C got a package from her mom with TACO BELL in it. Yes. It was a great night. Everyone was going crazy in the cafeteria.

On a more spiritual note, this week we learned a lot about the spirit and how seeking it does not mean just praying for it, but we have to really be willing to change our plans on account of the spirit. It was cool to realize that and see how applicable that is.

Oh, random thing, but I ran into my pal Stephanie Lacey one day. I was walking back from the RC and there we was walking across teh sidewalk on her way to volunteer at the TRC. So random, but way fun to see her. She has a mission call to Ukraine (the mission that split off of greg's)

We had a bunch of subs this week beacuse Hno Ah Sue was on a cruise with his fam. Hno Dallon was one of them. He is super enthusiastic about life and spent his high school years on the debate team. He gave a very passionate lesson about how to work with members. Some of his points were incredibly valid. He said taht the best way to do missionary work as a member is not to preach teh gospel, but just to be people's genuine friends and answer their questions as they arise and then when they start asking lots of questions, refer them to the full time missionaries who will teach them. He also talked a lot about how to effectively work with the bishop and ward. It was way helpful info.

We had a good talk in Relief Society this week about going forwards with faith like the pioneers. We need to set our broom aside and walk out the door into the unknown knowing that God has a plan for us and will help us along the way.

Now for the super funny stuff. So Monday, in addition to being Megan's birthday, it was Hno Pope's birthday. We found this out through a secret source and then made some big plans. Hna C and I decided we should make a pinata in the shape of a deer because hno pope loves to hunt so much. We put this plan into action sunday night after the fireside was over. Unfortunately we did not have flour to paper mache a pinata, so we made it out of paper and taped it together. Hna C had tons of candy, so we put it in a bag and wrapped paper around it and I drew a face on it. Hna C whipped out some wicked antlers out of cardboard and paper, which we attached. Then we decided to take it one step further and make a body out of a box she had. We got totally out of hand and decided to pop popcorn and put it inside the box with twinkies and nuts and all the random food we didn't want. Then we made a tail and put a target on the front.

We weren't sure how Hno pope would take this because he is so strictly business all the time. But He came into class and just laughed. he thought it was sooooo funny. Then after taking some pictures with it (which I will send next week) he pulled out a knife (apparently he carries one on him) and cut open the box. We warned him not to smash it because of teh popcorn, haha. Then he cut open the head too (explaining how he would do it if it were a real deer....he really likes hunting). Then he put the head on as if it were a mask. So funny. Basically it was a good time.

So that's my week in a nutshell.

Mom - that's way funny that you saw a bear. I want to hear more details about camp!!!!!

Dad - congrats on being released. Let me know what you get called to next.

Greg - you should write me sometime.

Megan - happy bday again! Your party sounded so fun! I wish i had been there! And the concert sounded way fun too~

Matthew - thanks for the email! Have fun at EFY!!!!!

Emily - I love you! I hope you are having a super fun summer!!!!!

love,

Hna Livingston

hola familia!

So this week was pretty excellent, although the food has somehow taken a turn for the worse. I'm not too surprised about that though. Eating the same grossness over the period of 8 weeks can get old. Oh well, I will survive.

On Tuesday we had a sweet devotional. The man, I don't remember his name and I don't have my journal with me, spoke about how the Book of Mormon is a miracle and how it is the most powerful tool in conversion. It was a neat talk.

This week both of our teachers talked a ton about faith and especially about praying with faith. This is something I figure everyone can always work on, so it was nice to hear a bunch about it. Mostly we read a bunch of talks by Elder Bednar because that seems to be one of his favorite topics to speak on. We also went outside and discussed faith while eating popcorn and rice crispy treats. life is pretty good. haha

Something exciting this week was that I got 6 packages!!! WHAT? yeah, I'm super popular apparently. I got some delicious cinnamon rolls from the Terrys, which was super nice of them. Then later I got a package from rachel boody!! That was awesome. And then yesterday i got 4 package slips. 3 for things from mom and one from anna goode who sent me cookies!!! YAY. it was an excellent week. Mom - thanks so much for all the wonderful stuff! The clothes are perfect! And that new skirt I just love!!!! Thank you thank you!!!!!! And the journal is perfect too, and just in time. I have about 5 pages left in the other one.

Something kind of funny happened during one of Hno Pope's class. For the first time maybe ever we got him side tracked. He started talking about how he used to be super strict, and we were all thinking , USED to be strict? haha. He's really into rules and setting really extreme goals. Anyways, so he said that he used to not give his class breaks (like for bathroom and water...ridiculous? yes). When they would ask he would say something to the extent of "what, you are tired of learning about the GOSPEL? Need I remind you that Paul says we are soldiers. Literally." it was pretty funny. I'm glad he's had some time to calm down since the mission before I encountered him. haha. Also, he is currently reading hunger games, so sometimes we talk about that in class.

So in my personal study I have been focusing on the atonement lately. I most recently was reading in Hebrews 9 and 10, which pretty much blew my mind. It's pretty cool stuff. I would recommend it. Not that I understand it all still, but I can tell it's cool. haha

Hno Pope, in his typical goal loving way, taught us a new way to set goals. VMAS - vision, metas, acciones especifica, siguente -- or, vision, goals, specific actions, and follow up. Basically having a big vision and then supporting it with smaller goals and actions that will help you achieve it and making yourself responsible to several people, including the lord. cool stuff.

This week in the TRC hna c and I taught a funny old man. two elders went in first to talk to him, but then we ended up having to switch and we taught him, but the elders had talked to him about eternal families, so we had to dig ourselves out of that hole in spanish. haha, we usually don't bring that up until a little later when they have a good understanding that the gospel was restored. but it worked out in the end. He was super concerned about the resurrection and how that was possible if our bodies became part of the trees and vegetables after they were burried. We basically just told him not to worry about the how and just to pray to know if it would happen. It was a good experience though.

One day hna c's mom sent her a huge fruit salad, so we had a picnic during MDT with our whole district. That was super fun. Except it started half raining so we had to move to sit on the ground under a pavilion because the mtc forgot to put ANY of the tables outside under a pavilion. haha.

On Sunday we had the coolest fireside ever. Jenny Oaks Baker came...aka it was awesome. Oh, also her dad (elder oaks) dropped by to watch her so that was cool. He sat in the audience like 10 feet from me. no big deal. haha. It was way good though, she spoke a bit and then played a bunch of songs throughout it. AMAZING. the best was at the end she played i know that my redeemer lives, and somehow played the whole song on 2 strings. pretty sweet.

Also, we saw part three of the district 2, that missionary Preach My Gospel movie they filmed in San Diego. It was a pretty big deal. hahaha. clearly my priorities have changed since being here. hahaha. Different things become super exciting.

That's pretty much been my week.

Thanks again for the great packages!!!!!! I felt so loved. And mom, I love the family history book you sent. I read the one about Grandma great's grandma or something and how she converted. Way cool! And I loved reading about dad's dad. Thank you!!!!!

Also, has greg already sent my bedding? If not, I want to send him my raincoat and he can ship it out with the bedding, just because it's way bulky and it would be easier to pack without it. if he's already sent them, no big deal. but i still need GREG'S ADDRESS. I think i've asked him for it about 6 times now, so maybe someone else could dear elder it to me? Thanks.

I'm glad matthew didn't get hurt at scout camp. Poor sam. I hope that everyone continues to have a fun summer!!!!!!!

I miss you all!!!!!

love you!!!!!!!!!!!

love,

Hna Livingston

fourth of July in the MTC

Ok, so this week had some rather funny things happen in it. First of all, it was the fourth of July, which actually was exactly like any other day, except it was a fast sunday, which makes it a little worse. haha. I tend to struggle a bit with fast sundays here because you have no option other than fasting a full 24 hours, which is a bit difficult, especially since we take a walk up to the temple in the afternoon and it's always super hot and I want to faint. Other than that, it was good though.

The third of july though, wow. That was an experience. We had a special fireside that night about the restoration of the gospel. This was no normal fireside. It involved several senior missionaires dressed up as various historic figures filmed in front of green screens. Aka I saw Paul, Martin Luther, ben franklin, george washington and thomas jefferson. not to mention that after all of that they had several missionaries dressed as joseph smith and other people, but unfortunately i think they were chosen at random without consideration of their skills or experience in acting. Let's just say the elder who played joseph smith could not have been more expressionless. It was still a cool fireside though because it showed how the restoration was in the process clear back in the start of the apostasy. It all culminated with the MTC president, President Smith (a rather stern looking man) dressed as Moroni exhorting us to be better missionaries. it was good, but also the funniest thing i'd ever seen, because he was dressed in essentially a white toga.

After that we got to watch the fireworks from the stadium of fire, which was way fun. Our district is super funny and I'll have to try to get some of the photos from that night from elder Rowan.

We had two funny experiences with speaking spanish this week. 1. Hna C y yo were teaching in the TEC (where you teach teachers who pretend to be investigators) and she was trying to say that the gospel is very simple, or "el evangelio es muy sencillo", but she actually said "el evancelio is muy sucio" or the gospel is very dirty. hahahahaa it was super funny. Especially since the man we were teaching was a sub and didn't actually speak spanish so we had to translate for each other. it was pretty great. Then later in the TRC Elder Rowan was trying to say that God speaks to prophets face to face, but he said "vaca a vaca" or cow to cow. Also very funny.

Last Tuesday Sis. Dalton spoke at the devotional. She did a great job. She talked about virtue of course and how through having faith and virtue we can have confidence because the holy ghost will always be with us to guide us. She also related some things to running and she said "never make the decision to quit while you are running up the hill." having run up many hills, i find this to be a very insightful statement that can easily be applied to life. Just thought it was worth repeating.

Today i finished reading the gospels, so that's exciting. I started with Luke, then read John, matthew, and Mark, so i finished Mark today. I woud highly recommend reading them if you want to know more about Christ. Good suggestion dad. : )

sometime during the week (everything blurrs together) Hna C, yo, Elder self y duncan were chilling in the classroom aka studying, when someone came on the intercom asking for elder corbit. elder corbit is going to spain and waiting on his visa so we thought this meant he had his visa, so we spent about 45 minutes searching the whole mtc for him and elder rowan. It turns out they were just chilling in a different classroom and we somehow missed them. But eventually they came back to class and we told him he needed to go to the travel office, and the we were all going to go with him cause we were soooo excited. We all go there and it turns out they were just calling him in to let him know he still didn't have a visa. hahaha. we were all way disappointed so the ladies working there gave us each an otter pop. hahahaha. it was pretty funny, but also worked out well for everyone except elder corbit, though he did stillg et an otter pop.

This week Anna Goode sent me some delicious concoction similar to a dream bar at potbelly's. i recommend someone contacting her and getting the recipe. they were a great hit in the mtc.

oh, also this week, we got a new teacher because hno vance abandoned us. his name is Hno Ah Suh. He's polynesian, so that's cool. He's kind of funny, but mostly serious, but we still have a good time in his class.

Well, that's most of what I can remember about this week. It's always hard to remember anything that happens here because every day feels like a year, so yeah, I usually can't even remember what i ate for breakfast by lunchtime.

mom- good luck with getting everything ready for camp! i'm sure it will be awesome this year!!!

dad- congrats on rocking the BoM - everyone else should try to read as fast as him.

greg- you should write me sometime so i know you are still alive

megan- thanks for the invite to your bday party, unfortunately i have to RSVP no because the MTC won't let me leave. haha. It sounds like it will be way fun. What movie is that that you are going to see?

mateo- write me sometime and tell me about YC/scout camp/high adventure

emilita- you are the cutest! thank you for your cards!!! i love them!!!!!! and keep taking good care of joey for me! maybe can you send me a pic of you and him?

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!

love,
hna Livingston

latest e-mail, plus photos!!!

Querido Familia,

Hooray! It appears the enter button is working this time! Ok, so this was an excellent week here at the mtc. They were having a conference for all new mission presidents, which all of the 12 apostles attended at various points throughout the week. I didn't get to see the prophet though, but we saw a bunch of other people. First things first though, the pioneer dress fitting. OMT. So Hna C and I go to the fitting, we had to leave class early to go and all the elders thought it was pretty funny and wanted to come see. haha. So we got there and they had three dresses for each of us, well really one shirt blouse combo and 2 dresses. They are legit. It was quite horrifying. I wish I had a picture. The slip alone was more than I had imagined. I had pictured some elastic waisted skirts, but no, how wrong I was. So my two dresses both have super puffy sleeves and are really tight and high waisted and then poof out like crazy. I feel like I look pregnant in them. The skirt shirt combo isn't much better. It has puffy sleeves and the skirt is poofy too, and for some reason my shirt hardly fit at all. I swear they gave me someone else's because the dresses fit fine, so hopefully they can fix that. But they are going to be way hot to wear because they are long sleeved and so much fabric. It should be a funny sight. And mom, to answer your question yes, Hna C and I are going to the exact same mission.

So my district was selected to be trained by some of the new mission presidents. We did not know what this entailed before we got there. We arrived at the designated time and were shepherded to sit in these chairs that were lined up in the hallway. They had specific chairs for us to sit in and we sat their waiting for like 20 minutes. Then this man came and showed us a map of some tables and where we needed to walk to and sit. That was all the info we had. We were slightly anxious as to what was going on. Eventually we went into the room, bringing our chairs, and followed our map to sit at the proper table. It turns out that all we had to do was listen to a mission president and his wife while they trained us on how to commit people to baptism. Oh, but it was all in spanish. haha. It went well though. I could understand everything and generally respond, so that was cool. Afterwards we told people that we got to each teach one of the 12 apostles. That was kind of funny, but not true. haha.

Oh, I saw Elder Terry this week! You can tell his family that he looks like a missionary and seems to be doing fine.

This week we got an additional companion, her name is Hna Winfield and she is going to the NY, NY south mission. She got moved up from beginner and has been here 2 weeks now. She is a solo sister. She's cool, so it's fun to have another companion.

Something rather triste (sad) occured this week, Hno Vance, one of our teachers told us that he would be leaving early to a different job because his time at the MTC was almost up (you can only teach here 3 years). He told us this on friday and it turned out that monday was his last day. So on friday after he told us we just all went outside and ate cake, which hna C's mom had sent her, and he told us stories from his mission, most of which were funny. It was a good time.

On friday there was a special devotional (they are usually just tuesdays and sundays), and we had heard through the grape vine aka hno Pope that Elder Oaks was speaking. Luckily one of our elders was singing in the special choir for it so his companion saved us all excellent seats. It was a really great talk about what makes our church the only true and living church on the earth. He said that other churches have truth in them too, but ours is distinguished by 3 points, a fulness of doctrine, the pristhood, and a unique testimony of jesus Christ. He expounded on this, and it was a really great talk. There were 8 of the 12 apostles there, includeing Elder holland, bendar, nelson and christopherson. Only Elder Oaks spoke, but it was cool to see them all up on the stand.

On saturday the TRC was closed (where we teach fake volunteer investigators) because of the conference, so we just taught another set of missionaries. But we included a challenge to live the word of wisdom, which we had never done before, and it went reasonably well.

On sunday we had a combined sacrament meeting with about a fourth of the mtc because of the conference. It was cool to see about 20 elders breaking the bread and then so many of them passing it. It was a good meeting. They talked a lot about developing charity as a missionary for your investigators, your companion, and God.

Releif Society was amazing this week. Sister Susan Jones spoke. I think she is on the board for the YW right now. But she did a great job. She talked about how to become a zion misisonary - through unity with your companion. It was really good. At the end she said that each of us will weep at the end of our missions, but will it be because it's over or because you missed it. It was something good to think about, just how we always need to give our all because there may be someone out there who will only hear and accept the gospel if I personally am working my hardest. It just put things into perspective nicely.

Elder Corbit was released as our district leader because we are halfway through and Elder Daines is the new one. It's cool that I'm about halfway done with the MTC. We're all getting a little tired of it and are ready to just get out and do it.

On Sunday night at the fireside the head of missionary department spoke, and he tlaked about how they are about to launch the new mormon.org website in which members can upload a profile of their story. We saw some examples of profiles and video clips that they are going to be putting on it and it sounds kind of cool. Also, to help make us better teachers they have just finished filming The District 2, and we watched the first 2 episodes that night. It's cool because this one was filmed in San Diego, so it shows me and Hna C's mission. Way cool. Emily might remember watching The District 1 with me, we were watching it the sunday before I left, where the missionaries helped a couple get married and baptized and another family get baptized and stuff. Maybe she remembers it.

Yesterday Hna C and I taught in Spanish at the TEC and it went pretty well, sot that was exciting.

Basicaly things are going well here, but I won't mind when I leave the MTC. haha. It will be sad to leave our district though, it was sad enought to have Hno vance leave, so I can only imagine that that last day will be a little sad. Especially since Hna C and I will have an extra week after the elders leave.

It sounds like you all had a great week. Dad and Emily, it sounded like a fun time at BG. I'm impressed that emily did the lochness monster by herslef! way to go!!!! That's too band the big bad wolf is gone thought. Megan, I hope your nannying went well. Mom I want to see pics of you as emma.

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

love,

Hna Livingston