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| Many hours in class but learning so much! |
First day was weird and confusing! So many things. After the first day I thought, "Hmm. Don't think I like this place." So I came up with my new mission motto: "If you don't like it, love it. It's not about you anyways." So I love getting up at 6:30am, and I love cafeteria food. Haha for reals tho, I like it here a lot now! Meeting lotsa cool people.
There was an Elder who looked WAYYYY familiar so I finally asked him "Okay, are you from the northwest or did you go to BYU-Hawaii?" and he was like "BOTH!" haha his name is Jonah Henderson and he's from Battleground, WA and I remember him from college. Also I randomly found this girl Marissa Jay that I went to EFY with FIVE years ago! She works in one of the offices here. Crazy!
I am on the west campus of the MTC. Basically, the way smaller version of the MTC where they send everyone speaking Spanish. My district is super fantastic though! We have some pretty funny Elders. Two sets of Elders and then my two companions and I make up our district. All the Elders are going to Argentina and 3 of the 4 will be in my mission. But I have yet to meet an Hermana going to my mission. So strange! I am sure they exist, though.
There's another Hermana Nielsen here. Quite strange but funny. She always says "Hola Hermana Nielsen!" and I say "Hola Hermana Nielsen!"
We got to teach our first investigator IN SPANISH on our like 3rd day, I think. The investigators in the MTC are teachers here that play investigators, so it's not 'real'. But we're still supposed to treat it like it's real. His name is Doroteo and we're teaching our last lesson to him today. The Elders in our district have been struggling to teach him but I think we've been doing a really good job! He asked us yesterday if he could be baptized, and when we gave him a date, he asked if it could be sooner. Soooo pretty cool and stuff.
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| Our teacher using hashtags. :) |
Also we were doing a 'getting-to-know-you' exercise with the class next to us, and my companions and I were talking to an Elder Petersen. He said he was from Rigby, ID so I asked him if he knew the Hales. Turns out Mike and Noelle were his mission prep teachers before they moved! Small world. He remembered Noelle being very animated all the time and I told him she's always been like that. haha. :)
Our district was having a really hard time focusing over the last week. It's hard because we just sit in a class studying for reeeeeaaally long periods of time. But I think we've gotten better! Especially now that we're teaching people.
On Sunday we went to choir practice and it was packed. L. Tom Perry was the devotional speaker on Tuesday! We practiced on Sunday and then went up super early on Tuesday to the main campus. It was wayyyy crowded and confusing and everyone kept telling us to go in 5 million different directions. haha. But we finally got seats and practiced our song and then we had the devotional! We sang "Redeemer of Israel" which is already an awesome song. Then Elder Perry and his wife spoke. Elder Perry is so energetic and intense! It was fantastic though. He also talked about the typhoon in the Philippines and said that every single missionary was accounted for, and shared some miracles that happened involving that.
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| At the Provo Temple with my two companions. |
Sunday night we watched a devotional Elder Bednar gave at the MTC a couple years ago and it was pretty much the most inspiratonal thing EVER. I'd been studying what it means to be truly converted and he basically gave me the answer because he said having a testimony is knowing something is true, but being converted is acting in accordance to what you know. He said having a testimony is NOT ENOUGH! Which blew my mind because we always talk about how important it is to have a testimony. But it's not enough!
I ran into Serena Loveland here, too. She's in the advanced class so she's only here for 2 weeks. Best of luck to her in Mexico!
So much craziness I can't even type all my words! There's a trio of Elders in the class down the hall and they're pretty much the most hilarious guys ever. Also, there's this super awesome Elder that looks exactly like my baby brother Lance from the future. Life is great!
LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL BYYYYYYE!
~Hermana Kayla Terry Nielsen
~Hermana Kayla Terry Nielsen
