The Empty Sea

Hello Everyone!

We've made it to Provo safely and have official embarked on a truly wonderful journey. Thank you so much for any letters or messages you may have sent me, getting mail in the MTC is honestly the greatest thing that can ever happen to you. 

Someone wrote me this Monday that your first week at the MTC is like "you just got your drivers license and now they're like 'Welcome to NASCAR!" And it's hard to explain, but that is exactly what it's like!

You learn so much in such a short period of time you can hardly believe it's possible. I will tell you all honestly, Korean is not easy hahaha. But it is, seriously, the coolest language. Once you learn how to read it everything starts to make a lot more sense. It's especially cool because since we can't speak very much Korean, we have to speak very simply and when we teach we have to teach very simply. You learn quickly what is important and how to get your message across without any extra fluff. I think it's a really big blessing to have the chance to learn that skill. 

It's only been just over a week since I arrived here, but I already know that Sundays are the best. For one thing, you get ice cream at lunch and dinner. And for another, you are constantly having super awesome speakers come in and talk to you (usually around 3 or 4). This past sunday, they MTC presidency held a devotional- and I got to speak at it! It wasn't for long, only a couple minutes. But basically, they asked every person who had been baptized in the last 2 years to come forward and speak about conversion. There were about 10 of us and every person who spoke was so powerful. It made me so happy to have to opportunity both to speak and to her what others had to say. Everyone here is so awesome. 

On Tuesday nights, we also have devotionals. This time we just had one person speak, but that one person was Russel M. Nelson (I highly encourage you to look him up if you do not know who he is :) ) For this devotional I got to sing in the choir! It was super cool because this weeks devotional was broeadcasted to every MTC in the entire world. And, apparently, my face was on the screen hahaha. I wouldn't know because we were told not to look there while we were singing but a ton of missionaries came up to me after to tell me that they saw my face. So, look out I could be famous by now. Just kidding. But not really. 

When you're in the MTC, much like when you are out in the mission field, you have a companion that is basically your missionary partner. You get to be with them all the time and teach all your lessons with them. My companion's name is Sister Warren. She's from Roy, Utah and she really likes to sing (she's super good at it too). You are also a part of a district while you are on your mission. A district is just a group of missionaries that you go to class with while in the MTC and you do most of your activities with them too. My district is an all girl district which is super rare, but so awesome! There are six of us, Sister Jones (Bountiful, Utah) Sister Bejarano (Salt Lake City, Utah) Sister Warren (Roy, Utah) Sister Saranquin (Phillippines) sister DeLa Pena (Phillippines) and myself. I love all of this girls so much. They rock. I especially lvoe that we have two sister from the Phillippines that speak english that are going to Korean, that's just nuts! As an all girl district, we have another rare circumstance when it comes to District Leadership. Usually there will be one Elder from each district that is called the District Leader (they get the mail, make sure all the missonaries are okay health wise and spiritually, as well as lead meetings and report to the branch presidency). Well, since we don't have any Elders to do this, they called me to do it! So for the next little bit while we are at the MTC I get the chance to really get to know all the Sisters in my district as well as the other leaders and the branch presidency, which is just so cool. I love it.

I'm so excited for everything I still have yet to the learn, about the Korean language and people as well as about myself as we continue through the MTC and then to Korea. Again, thank you so much for all the love you send me. I love all of you more than I can explain! Talk to you next week!