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
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