MTC Celebrity

April 29, 2009

Familia,

This is my second to last email to you from the MTC! Excited? Yes. Nervous? Yes. Wish I knew more Spanish? Yes. We are crossing our fingers that our flight plans come tomorrow. The Elders thought they saw on the computer that me and Hermana Atkin's flight leaves Monday morning at like 6 am. Then we will have a lay over somewhere. Hopefully it will be for a few hours so we can have plenty of time to talk.

Scuba sounded kind of stressful over the weekend. I am actually not too jealous that I wasn't there. Was the water warm? Jonathan I am so sorry that you didn't make it down. It makes me so sad when I get all ready to go and then can't make it down.

Matthew great job on your tennis match against Orem! It sounds like you and Justin are having a successful season. Jonathan can you tell that you have improved from the beginning of the season? How bad would you beat me if we were to play today? I am sad that I will probably lose all of the skill that I built up last summer. I am so excited for all of us to be home again and spend lots of time playing together. Mark Wilkinson left for Argentina this week. His class was around the corner from mine and I would see him everyday. I would give him updates on Provo tennis and he asked about where Ben was serving. He always said hello and I actually kind of miss seeing him.

On Saturday night we did a fun activity that Elder Kearsley came up with. He compiled a list of hard questions that investigators will ask and we had to respond to them. We went around the room and he individually asked us a question and we immediately had to respond with an initial answer, a personal experience, a scripture, and then finish with testimony. It was exciting and nerve racking. Everyone did a great job and after we shared other scriptures and ways to answer the question. It was an activity that I felt was really useful in preparing us for the mission field and I can't wait until we do it again this week.

On Sunday Brother Stephen B. Allen, the managing director over missionaries, spoke for the fireside. He was talking about things that the sons of Mosiah had to give up to serve their missions. He said that he wanted to hear from us what we gave up to come on missions. He told an Elder in the fourth row to stand up and then for the nine missionaries next to him to stand up. Well guess who was in that row? Yep, my companions and I. He asked all of us to come up on the stand and say our name, where we are from, where we are serving, and what we gave up to come on a mission. My first thoughts were seeing my brother graduate from high school and my other brother learn to drive. We could not repeat what others had said. And since another Elder said things about his family I could not share my original thoughts. So mine was that I gave up 18 months of watching sports and right now the NBA playoffs. So there you go I am an MTC celebrity now. We have met so many people from that experience.

I have to go. Love you. Bye,
Amy