Week 1: The Pink Donut Incident

(Is this considered week 1?? idk)

Goooooood morning everyone!!!

What a beautiful day it is. Even though it is soooo cold outside. I keep getting more and more excited to go to California, because it just keeps getting colder here every day! It has been such a great week!

I just have to start off with how much I LOOOOVE MY DISTRICT!!! Seriously, it is amazing how well we all get along. There is never a dull day with this district. Everyone is hilarious, and funny things are happening constantly. I love it. Eight out of the ten of us are going to Redlands, but the other two sisters are going to Tallahassee, Florida! It is going to be so sad to leave them. I don't want to think about it.

Basically all we do at the MTC is FEAST. Both physically and spiritually haha.

The food options here are endless. It's amazing. I have started doing portion control because there are just SO MANY OPTIONS. So of course I have to try them all. The good thing is, I'm eating a lot of healthy food, but its still a LOT of food. For example, for breakfast they have a couple of set meals that you can choose from, like bacon and eggs or something, but then you can also get fruit, oatmeal, bagels, endless chocolate milk, cereal fer DAYS, donuts, and then they always have random food items out and I'm like, well yeah I mean I guess I have to try it if its there... hahaha. So much food.

A day in the life at the MTC:

Wake up at 6:30, get ready

Class

Breakfast

Class

Lunch

Exercise

Exercise recovery time

Class

Dinner

Class

TRC (Teaching Resource Center, AKA teaching investigators)

At 9:30 we get ready for bed, and that last hour just FLIES by.

As you can see, we are in class like 85% of the time. There is literally around 8-10 hours of class time every day (which is why we grow so close to our district, because we also eat meals with them and play volleyball, so we are around each other like 14 hours a day). And it goes by so fast! My teachers are AMAZING, so I'm never bored and I'm always learning. I love it. There are times when we don't have a teacher though and we have to work as a district to stay on task and use our time wisely.

Oh also, we play sand volleyball with my district LIT-rally (<-- british accent) EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. And it is SO MUCH FUNNN. It is so nice to get outside and just play. And my district is hilarious so half the time I'm just laughing. I love laughing, and there is no shortage of that here! AMAZING!

Speaking of accents, my love for doing accents has definitely come out so now I speak in an Australian accent like 50% of the time.

On a spiritual note, I feel like my teaching is improving every day! It's definitely not easy, and I am trying to get the lessons down whenever I get the chance because I want to be prepared. But it is also all about having the spirit with you, and inviting it when you teach. Because the spirit is the real teacher! Sister Gunter and I have two investigators in the TRC right now, Heidi and Natasha. Yesterday we taught Natasha for the third time, and WE COMMITTED HER TO BAPTISM!!! It was so amazing. The spirit was so strong in the lesson and afterwards we were just on cloud nine. I was so full of the spirit, it was such an amazing feeling. By the way I loooove Sister Gunter! She is so cute. She gets nervous sometimes before we teach lessons, but I admire her courage and her ability to invite the spirit when she testifies. It is so fun to see her learn and grow. We taught an agnostic/atheist "investigator" (our teacher) named Aaron earlier this week and it was ROUGH. He was not being receptive and Sister Gunter and I sort of went into panic mode haha. It was good though to experience that, because I'm sure there will be a lot more of that in the mission field. The second lesson with him was muuuch better.

OKAY, NOW FOR THE PINK DONUT INCIDENT.

This is seriously so funny, we were all dying. So, wednesday was just a rough day for our district, especially Elder Eccles. He is the "funny one" in our district, always making jokes and stuff. He's hilarious. So, on wednesday morning, there were donuts with BRIGHT PINK frosting on them at breakfast. Right after breakfast we all had TRC appointments to go teach our investigators. Elder Eccles and his companion had a TOUGH investigator and were really nervous for their next lesson. So they went in to teach (we heard this story afterwards) and Elder Eccles looks down and has PINK DONUT FROSTING alllllll over the front of his pants. Like, right where you would neeever want pink frosting to be, if you know what I mean. Haha. He had SAT on a donut at breakfast!!! The investigator started laughing at him and it ended up being a really great icebreaker for them. It was soooo funny. Then, later at dinner, Elder Pearson got gravy on his nice white shirt, I dropped steak on my dress, Sister Houston got some food on her skirt, and SIster Sjoblom spilled her root beer float ALLLL over the table. The course of events was just HILARIOUS. I mean seriously, I was laughing so hard. That day was so funny. We laugh about it every day.

Also, my district always jokes about page 54 of the missionary handbook. They're always talking about and making up all these "rules" on that page, it is so funny. That page is completely blank.

Another funny thing, apparently Elder McDaniel dropped his room key in the toilet WHILE it was flushing, but he still reached in and grabbed it just in time. While it was flushing. We were all laughing so hard when he told us this story.

Oh, Sister Gunter and I are teaching relief society on sunday!! Sister Gunter is kinda nervous, but I am so excited. Teaching the relief society seems like a breeeeeze after teaching all these investigators and hoping they understand.

Also, its so weird that I am like 3 and 4 years older than all the members of my district. I admire them all so much, because I don't think I could have done this at their age!

I have a sore throat today.

Ummmm lets see what else should I incluuuude.... I think that's all. I would do day by day recaps but I feel like most days are similar and I just want to include the highlights. This week went by faaast. Much faster than my first few days here.

I love it so much here. Every day I thank my Heavenly Father for the opportunity that I have to be at the MTC. This is such an amazing place! The spirit is so strong and I am learning SO much! Earlier this week there was a devotional where Elder Lynn G Robbins of the seventy spoke. He talked about how we have our daily planners and To Do lists, but do we have a TO BE list? So I made a goal to write down every day what I want to be, and what I am going to do to become that. I encourage you all to do the same! Think of who you want to become, and make goals of how you can achieve that. I am so grateful for my Savior who makes it possible for me to change and to grow and become a better person. I know this gospel is true!!!

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!

Love, Sister Brown

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo