Hola mis families y amigos!!!!
Haha...not sure if I said that right, but hey! You've gotta make mistakes in order to learn, right?!
OK - oh my GOOD HEAVENS I LOVE THE MTC!!!!!! This is an incredible place and the spirit is so strong here. So, Dad - I don't know if you remember how your first day was, but this is what I thought at the end of the day, "WHAT just happened!?" Soooooo much goes on in the first day and in the first week, that your brain is just trying to keep up with it all haha! But, it is so great! When you keep busy, you don't have time to think about yourself and how hard it can get sometimes :)
So my first day, I got out of the car as Mal and Cliss dropped me off, an Elder helped me carry my luggage, he took me to a room where they pinned our name tags on us (and yes Tiff did get to pin my tag on me and I cried...they were joyful tears, don't worry - but I was just so excited for her to get married that Saturday and wanted to be there with her...
Anyway - forgive the grammatically incorrect everything here, I don't have much time so I'm just rushing through trying to write as much as I can ;)
But, anyway - super cool! I got my tag, they took me to another room to get my Spanish scriptures and materials, then took me to a bus that would take me to west campus (wyview and raintree apartments that they made into another MTC campus for all the Spanish Sisters). All the Elders and Sisters were cheering for us as we got there. This cute Sister Missionary found me, Sister Nelson, and took me to my apartment to drop off my stuff and then took me to my classroom where I met me companera, Hermana Masters, and my teacher Brother Clarke! I love my companera! She's from Sacramento California and she's really fun and awesome! Slowly everyone starts coming in who is in our district. I LOVE our district. It is the 2nd ever ALL sister district in our branch. So, that day we just talk in Spanish all afternoon, had a few orientations to get us acquainted with everything and then went home. My brain was seriously everywhere that night, but I was so excited. I've been really surprised actually at how calm I've been. Everyone says the first week, till Sunday, is the hardest to get through, but I was totally fine. If anything, I've laughed so much at how much I have to learn! I know it has been Heavenly Father helping me to just move forward.
The 2nd day I was called to be the district leader over our district of 7 girls. At first when they extended the call, I was kinda nervous...wondering how on earth I'm going to be able to do it all while also learning Spanish. But it was amazing. The moment I got the call...I had 2 seconds of worry and then the Spirit immediately comforted me and I was fine. And then the Branch Presidency assured me that this would be a blessing to me and that I would receive more blessings because of my willingness to serve. I can use all the blessings I can get to learn Spanish, so it is a blessing!!!
Anyway - wow, so much to say and so little time. Devinito, that is one thing you'll notice when you get here - you HAVE to use your time wisely. There is so much to do and you feel like you don't have time to do it all, but it is so wonderful! You get into a routine with time, so just remember that, and be patient with yourself. I am SOOO excited for you to come here Devin!
And Aubree and Maloree - if you have any thoughts at all about serving a mission, just do it!! It will be a tremendous blessing to you in your life and you will feel the Lord blessing you and helping you move forward.
There was a point on Sunday where I was starting to feel overwhelmed, wondering how on earth I was going to learn all this! By our 3rd day, they had given us an investigator that we had to teach in Spanish, and they said that we would continue to teach her in Spanish everyday for the next few weeks. Talk about crazy! How on earth are you supposed to teach an entire lesson about the Gospel in a totally different language to someone who probably won't understand you at all even if you try. So we've had four lessons now. Today we'll have our fifth. I know that Heavenly Father has blessed us to learn so much. By our 4th lesson, both Hermana Masters and I felt like we were finally connecting with her. It was amazing. I have to keep reminding myself that 6 days ago, I didn't know as much Spanish as I do now. If you see your progress by how much you've learned up to this point, rather than how much you still have to learn and how far you have to go, you are happier - and that allows you to recognize the blessings that come more easily.
Anyway - about Sunday. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed wondering how I would learn everything. And during our Relief Society meeting on Sunday, the wives of the MTC Presidency spoke to us. One of them told us a story of when she and her husband were serving as the mission presidents in Slovakia. This was a long time ago during a communist period for their country, when they were working with the Slovakian government to officially allow the church in Slovakia (so that the church would be officially recognized as a church there). In order to establish a church there, the government required that the missionaries receive 20,000 signatures of Slovaks including their contact information. The mission presidency, along with other missionaries began attempting to collect signatures from the Slovaks. They started to realize how impossible of a task this would because the Slovaks are very private and were extremely reluctant to give out their contact information and signatures during this communist era. Within one week, these missionaries were only able to gather 10 signatures. The mission president and his wife fasted every other Sunday for weeks, hoping and praying that they would be able to collect the signatures. They decided to have missionaries travel to other parts of Slovakia to try and gather signatures there. One Elder, who had been there one week after coming from the MTC, was helping them. He was so discouraged because all that he knew how to say in the language was, "I know that God lives." This one Elder, with the simple testimony that he could share, was able to gather over 20 pages of signatures, just by bearing this simple testimony. To make a long story short, after much fasting and prayer and faith, these missionaries gathered over 26,000 signatures from the Slovakian people in a short period of 4 days. WOW! I heard this story and was blown away. The Lord provides a way for His work to move forward on the earth. This was made manifest to me during this story. I felt an overwhelming and powerful feeling come over me after hearing this after I had been feeling discouraged. The Lord provided a way for the church to be established in the country of Slovakia during that time - so he can certainly provide a way for me and all of the missionaries here to learn the language that we are learning, so that we can help move His work forward on the earth. My heart was touched and comforted to feel of God's love for me and to have been reminded that this is the Lord's work moving forward. What a cool opportunity to be apart of this!
Another thing I've been thinking about is...I am SOOO privileged to be here. Not everyone in the world has the opportunity to be trained to be a missionary! Not that this makes me better than anyone else, but I am so grateful for the opportunity to learn how to be a greater missionary for life. What a blessing and what an opportunity.
Oh and I've seen Aubrianna Windsor, Natalie Stewart and Devin's friend...I can't remember his last name now, but he's in my zone. I think his name is Elder Ferr....not sure :)
Anyway - this is the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that Jesus Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of the world. I feel honored and privileged to be a missionary to help others in the world receive God's restored Gospel and come to understand that the Gospel and Christ's Atonement changes their hearts and heals their souls. I wish I could write way more, but I'm out of time!
I'm glad to hear that Kinsey's surgery went well! Tell her and Kari and their family hello from me and that I'm thinking about them and wishing Kinsey well :)
Tell Aubree and Dad I will write them again next time! And I'm sure Aubree did an amazing job making a blog :) I wouldn't doubt that at all! I love you Aubree and I miss you too! Keep moving forward - I know that when we trust the Lord, and let go of our worries and fears, the Lord provides a way for us to accomplish what we need to. We have every reason to be happy! When we let ourselves be happier, we can more easily recognize the blessings that come so often. I love the Gospel and I love all of you so much! Thank you for your emails, keep them coming! And thank you for your prayers and thoughts. I love you! Te amo!!
Hermana Ashlee Carroll
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