MTC Week Two

I've been through a lot in the past week. I met up with two new TRC (teaching resource center) investigators: one is named Mariah, who is super friendly with me and Elder Kahle. We've taught her about the plan of salvation and how it helps your family live together forever. The other TRC investigator is named Jaclyn, but she likes to be called Jaxsie (Jaxie? Jacsie?). She is shy, but she wants to be a crime investigator like in the T.V. show 'Bones'. She always seems to have her face in some technology while we're there, so it's hard to get our messages across to her at times. However, the great thing about her is that she read the Book of Mormon when we asked her to, and she seems to really be loving it!  We've taught her about the Plan of Salvation also, and we taught her how to pray. Next time we meet, I'm going to ask her if she would like to say the closing prayer, which I think would be a great learning experience for her.

Anyway, about me...

I'm having a great time in the MTC! I'm getting along with my district and it's great to see all the new missionaries come in every Wednesday. At night, everyone tells them to shake their sheets out for spiders and that there's a dance on Saturday. I'm sure there are other pranks that I'm not aware of, too. 

During exercise time I usually play spike ball or Kan-jam out in the field. No, I haven't played four-square. I'm supposed to take my glasses off for exercise time, so I feel sort of blind during it. We always run back to the residence quickly so that we can catch a shower before other people fill them up. That's all I do for exercise time here.

I've met a lot of teachers here as well as missionaries. Some of these include: Brother Kitchens, Sister Ditto, Sister Geis, Brother Dishman, and Brother Lyon. They're all excellent teachers (Brother Kitchens is in a wheelchair and hasn't told us why yet, and nobody has the guts to ask him) and they have taught me so much about talking with various kinds of people.

There is a TON of study time in our schedule. We get around five-ish hours of study time in total, and that's just companion study. There's also personal study and district study, all of which are great ways to share scriptures or other ideas with other people.

I got to hear Dallin H. Oaks talk about the Preach My Gospel! It was pretty cool. For the most part, he was quoting things from the scriptures and from the PMG. He quoted a lot of things from PMG chapter 5, which was pretty interesting. He also talked about how a lot of us don't seem to realize how big of a deal Resurrection is. It was pretty cool.

We turned this Spongebob toy into a little basketball and made a hoop out of duct tape in the residence. It's pretty fun.

I got the new bag, and it's awesome!!

  The district saying goodbye to Brother Dishman. (Left to Right) me, Elder Moulton, Elder Kahle, Elder Robison (in the back), Elder Anderson (sitting magically in the air), Elder Hodges (below), Elder Swapp, Brother Dishman, Elder Reed, Sister Caceres, Sister West, Sister Sattler, Sister Constantine, and Sister Coley.

 Our district on paper by Sister West.

Elder Kahle being the guard in a cool piece of art.

red sun (from all the fires around)

I found Cameron Miller (Elder Miller, now) while I was in the MTC! He's doing a service mission and has already been there for about 9 months. I look weird too. 

EXTRAS:

I'm little sick, so I don't feel like having too many sweets and junk food. I think pretty much everyone is sick. It's just a cough and a sore throat.

I asked him what he did today: 

It was mostly just laying around in the residence and talking. We did laundry and ate food and stuff. Later today I get to talk with my 2nd TRC investigator. Then I go to class and that's pretty much it for my P-days here in the MTC. I'm sure that the P-days out in the mission field are going to be a lot more work than what goes on here, but I'm going to enjoy myself as much as possible while I'm still here these next few days. I leave this Monday at 4:20am and I need to figure out how to pack my clothing and stuff properly. It's definitely going to take some time.