Booyah!

Seriously the most intense 30 minutes of my life is beginning now! Go! Ok so week two ish. Well techinically today is the beginning of our 3 week of time in the MTC. Everything in the MTC is weird, good weird.

So

Tuesday: I got double the packages- one from Court BS and one fromt he front desk which came via Dad. Sorry about the demerit on your church record, eek. She told me about BSU winning, excellent- so i wore my bsu shirt to gym and then about Mack's homecoming. Said it was outstanding and then of course the rest of you (mom and dad) told me more deets about it. Shout out to Mack- excellent talk from what I heard. And crazy that his mission president was Dad's teacher in Jeru, that is a stellar man for sure. That night we had a devotional by a member of the 2nd quorum of the 70 Lowell Snow. He spoke on choice and how we in every choice should ultimately choose God or something that moves us closer to him. Afterwards he asked us to all meet in our individual districts where we each shared why we chose to serve a mission. It was a very cool experience because we all have such different "conversion" stories that bring together different pieces of truth about the gospel to create a powerful force of truth- God's Royal Army, if you will.

Wed: Ok this was my first kind of difficult day in the MTC. Just feeling overwhelmed and bah! inadequate but that is ok because I know I have been called and the Lord already knows I can do this so I just need to believe in myself more and have faith in this plan for me. I can handle that, because ultimately he knows me oh so well. Don't worry too much mom it wasn't super bad just a meh sort of day. But that was quickly turned around by several of the other sisters who I live with, they are so awesome ans so encouraging. Especially when it comes to the Chinese. Again, mom, don't freak it was all good.

Thurs: Not much thursday just preparing for our lesson in the Teaching Expereince (where we teach a fake/real investigator). My comp and I planned our lesson which was an interesting experience for both of us because we appraoched it completely different but in the end we figured it out and we able to practice once our twice that night. Oh and shout out to Ryan... I played volleyball for gym. There was a lot of she-thinking going on :)

Friday: Much more practice for the TE. That night we were pretty nervous about the next morning when we would be teaching. We practiced a lot but it is still pretty scary to think about teaching. We had to contact in Chinese for the first 5 mintues and then teach a 30 minute lesson-lesson 1 from PMG. Well sort of- you see here we focus on teaching people rather than lessons. Because really it is all about the people and not shoving the gospel down their throat. And really really it is the spirit that is the teacher. WE have watched a few clips of this missionary show "the district" and there is this one segment where they interviewed converts and investigators and asked them about missionaries and they ALL said that it wasn't the lessons they were taught but the spirit that the missionaries brought to them that really converted them.

Satruday: WE TAUGHT!!! And it went OH SO WELL! Seriously Clark! Oh my! The spirit was absolutely there and we got to teach two ladies who were legitly (not a word) chinese. Luckily we were teaching in English but still it was cool. One was from mainland and one was from Taichong! So cool. They were members but they still had concerns that we (i think) were able to address. Very cool. Sister VS and I were comfortable teaching together and my comp- wow she rocked it by creating an analogy about the atonement and someone paying for us when we don't have enought money in line at the gorcery store. Ya know what I am talking about? Well it was perfect because one of the ladies we were teaching worked at Wal-mart so it was perfect for her. It was cool and inspired. And man to testify to someone that they are a child of God. IT's a very cool experience, one I hope to have more of. That night we watched a talk that Elder Bednar gave at the MTC a year or so ago about recogninzing the spirit. He said the question he gets most often is "how do I know what I am feeling is the spirit and not just my own feelings or me answering my question?" His answer- quit worrying about it, quit analyzing it, all good thoughts and feelings come from the holy ghost so just act. move forward with faith and confidence and act. Also- the gym is closed for some reason so we are having a horse shoe tournament as a district, ha!

And of course SUNDAY!!! The best day ever in the MTC. Highlights included Sister Elaine Dalton speaking to the relief society. the main point of her talk was that we, as sister missionaries, are fulfilling our young women theme. She had us all stand up and recite the theme, very powerful in a room of sister missionaries- who happen to be the bomb dot com. sorry! She also told us to do three things that apparently they are telling all youth to do 100% 1. pray every night and every morning, 2. read the scriptures every day and 3. smile, because the gospel is happy. it is a happy thing. I got to see Kristen Shelley again, she makes me cry. She feels like my mom when I hug her. ANDDD Mere, uh, surprised me at the temple. Let me set the record straight I did not plan it nor did she. She just showed up so I didn't break any rules but WHOA it was good to see her. And just to hug someone I love! eek it was nice. nice stuff.

Monday morn: this morning really. we got to go to the temple finally! Felt like a deep, much needed, breath of fresh air. I will definitely look forward to that every week. The Provo temple is so gorgeous inside, I just like it.

Ok so that's about it. I love you all and pray for you every night. AND I know that your prayers- well I can feel them, often. I love that. Sorry about the pictures, I still haven't gotten them back from being printed so I will send those via snail asap.

love bekah