Last week in MTC

Hola! 

It's funny, because I know so many ways to say hello and goodbye now but my favorite is still hola. Funny how that works. 

I have to say, studying the scriptures here in the MTC is amazing. I have had the best personal study times of my life here! I've started over in the Book of Mormon and I'm seeingb things through a whole different light. Nephi's voice is so apparent in his writing. And it's so obvious how much teh Lord loves Lamen and Lemuel. He gives them so many chances to change and repent. The Lord never gives up on them, not ever. It's so reassuring to me and such a clear example of how the Lord loves all his children unconditionally. He still loves all of us, no matter what decisions or mistakes we make. He made be sad or dissapointed, but his love never ends. I can't even comprehend how much the Lord loves us, but I did get a little peek at it through my study. I feel His love all the time here, especially when singing hymns. I don't tear up very often here, but when I do it's usually during a song. I love the Lord so much. 

This week has been super busy, especially Wednesday! On Wed we hosted the incoming missionaries, helped with example teaching and talked with the newest district! We were hardly ever in class all day. Hosting was so much fun. I spent a few hours outside helping sisters find their residence hall, gather theri books and then taking them to thier classroom. There weren't enough hosting sisters so every time i came back to the curb there was another sister getting out of the car. I hosted like 6 sisters, which doesn't sound like a lot, but the elders all hosted like 2. The poor elders were so bored, almost none of them did much hosting. They spent most of their time helping sisters move the suitcases. I realiezed that i am a super light packer! Those sisters suitcases were all so heavy, most of them exactly 50 lbs each. So i was basically pulling my weight when I pulled both suitcases. (thankfully that wasn't for very long. But there is one point where the hosts pull the suitcases around the side of the building while the new missionary's go inside to get thier tags, etc.) It was s onice to be outisde! I was very tired by the time I was done though, we all collapsed in the classroom afterwards. 

The first night the new missionary's get into groups of about 50 and practice teaching an actyor predenting to be an investigator. To start things off a set of missionary's come in and start the lesson and help the newbies get a feel for what to ttalk about w/ the investiator. We were nominated by one of our teachers for our good teaching skills (what a compliment!) to do this. We were nervous, but our training helps us calm down a bit. We didn't even really teach, it was just getting to know the person and what their needs were. The coolest part though was that there was this elder we'd met last week in TRC in our group. He has only been a member for a year and we taught him last week as part of TRC. He's from Peru and we keep running into him everywhere! I dno't know his last name since we met him in TRC, but he's the coolest elder. You can tell he's got such a strong testimony. He was trying to hard to help the investigator, getting up there and reading scriptrues with him, even the more difficult one. 

Elder Merkley has a friend he met in Germany in the new district (both military kids). All our districts seem like they're full of super strong missionary's, we're so lucky to know so many cool people!

Dad, you'll love this. For our Sunday devotional Vai Sikahema spoke to us (USed to be a BYU football player and NFL). He told us to not take any notes and talked to us about his mission experience. He was trying to show us how natural it is and that missionary work doesn't need to be forced. As is often said, "just open your mouth". He had everyone laughing and pumped for missionary work. HE's a great speaker, he had one of his converts there with him, they're best friends and just went to visit the town in South Dakota where every thing happened a couple weeks ago. 

Cool random fact: Hermano Ball (a teacher)'s dad worked for Dreamworks for about 15 years! We talked art in our teacher/student interview pretty much the whole time. It was soooooooooooooo coool. That's my dream job, right there. 

After the Sunday devotional by Richard J Maynes we were walking back to our class to discuss it and share what we learned. It was just us sisters and somehow we ended up talking about pencil skirts and what it would be like to wear one without a slit. Almost in unison, we put our knees together and tried walking up the stairs like we were in too tight of  a skirt (of course, none of us were wearing skirts like this.) It was cracking us up, we looked like drunk penguins. Then Sister Adair suggested we try doing the same thing but with our knees locked. We had to swing our legs to go up the stairs. I was laughing so hard I had to stop walking and bend over so I wouldn't lose my balance and fall back down the stairs. Such a simple thing, but it was hilarious! Just as we climbed up the rest of the stairs we ran into a Branch president and his wife. Of course, they'd heard the whole thing. They were very amused. We felt mildly awkward. Fun stuff. 

So I have a challenge for everyone. It's really simple. You should listen to music and the spoken word on Sunday's when getting ready or look them up later in the day. They'd be so easy to find on the BYU tv website I'm sure. We sisters are lucky enough to listen to them before relief society every sunday. It's one of my favorite parts of sunday! The MOTAB sings a wider range of songs that are still totally spiritual but not necessarily from the hymn book. Last weeks was awesome, it has some soul choir songs.

Another thing everyone should do is read "Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ" By Gene R. Cook in Oct 1982. We read this in class together and I LOVED it. It taught me so much about faith. I wish I could share everything I learned but some things need to be learned on our own. I've definately learned that. No matter how many times someone tells you, it never sinks in until we understand and figure things out for ourselves. Especially in the gospel. But it was very thought provoking and deserves to be read slowly and discussed.

I love you all! I love hearing from you! I only have one more week in the MTC, crazy hu? Though if they think we'll get our visa's they'll hold us an extra week instead of shipping us out for reassignments. Though they told us that our district's  names have been put up for reassignment. I'll know by the next p-day where i'm going. 

Stay strong! Ponder the scriptures prayerfully. I promise you'll learn something if you start your scripture study asking for help to learn and be spiritually guided. It makes all the difference. I love this gospel, it's such an amazing thing. It brings out the best in people and really pushes us. This gospel is one of constantly pushing up hill to new and better things. It's always a struggle, but it's always more than worth it, especially since we have the Savior helping us every step of the way. I have felt his help and guidance every day since being a missionary. I know he loves me. I love him. I know Jesus Christ lives. He overcame death, he was the only one who could. He went lower than any of us ever could and then lower still, just so he could say "I understand. I know. Let me help you. Let me carry you." All we need to do is desire to believe and act on that belief consistently and dilligently and soon, that dust mote of a desire for faith will begin to grow. I'm praying for you. 

Loves!

Hermana Woolley