MTC Photos

Here are some pictures sent from the MTC. Enjoy!

I am pointing at DC.

Sis. Jeppson (my companion). She is from Vegas. She is so nice and sweet.

Front, L to R: Sis. Kristine Owens (UT), Sis. Merilee Goates (Canyon, UT), Elder McGoffin (Texas), Elder Andrew Case (Sacramento, CA), Sis. Julia Jeppson (Las Vegas, NV), me.
Back, L to R: Elder Bergman (Kaysville, UT), Elder Matthew Hodgson (CA), Bro. Jeffery Widfeldt, Elder Shane Riggs (Arizona).

My Zone.

P-day

So I leave on Wednesday! I am so excited and nervous. My flight leaves at around 9am. This morning we went to the temple as a zone. It was so amazing. Life here is crazy. Sorry I do not have a lot of time. I miss Michigan so much but I am happy to be going to DC. I feel like I have been here forever. It is so crazy. I love you and the children. All of our "investigators" Keon, Joe, and Kexin have been baptized! They said that we were really good. I don't know if that's true- I will find out soon enough. I miss you.

I am writing too fast and haven't collected my thoughts. Thank you so much! My roommates and I loved the donuts and I love the snacks.

Quick Update

It has been quite a learning experience here in the MTC. I have really learned so much about myself and the people here. My district, zone, and teachers are so amazing. Two districts in our zone, and another one that have the same gym time as me, are leaving tomorrow. They are going to Toronto Canada, Washington state, Saint Louis Missouri, and Houston Texas. It is so sad to say goodbye to them but I am glad that they get to go and serve. Tomorrow we get 2 Cebauno Districts who will be in my zone (16 missionaries- but only one sister). It is so exciting. This past week we got another district of 9 elders in our zone. They are so funny. I am learning a lot about teaching with the Spirit. I had a mini breakdown the other day because I just could not find the words to say to an investigator. I was too busy thinking about what to say to listen to the Spirit; however, my teacher (Brother Widtfeldt) really helped. He is so awesome. After that the day went good. We did the temple walk yesterday and took tons of pictures since everyone that we met our first week is leaving.

Oh today we went to the temple and I did Inititories for the dead. The temple is so big on the inside. Anyway it was great. We went as a zone and we took the new elders and it was great to talk to them afterwards.

First Impressions of the MTC

I am here in the MTC. Unfortunately I just found out from the Bishop that we can only email family so I cannot email my branch but I will send letters! The MTC is awesome. I really love it here. I just got back from the Provo Temple. I did endowments for a woman from the Netherlands. The temple is beautiful on the inside.

My first five days with Kaili as a missionary was great. She really was my companion (although we did not sleep in the same room). She was a trooper getting up at 6:30am with me and going to bed at 10:30pm. I went shopping and got some cute skirts. They also took me to really nice restaurants and them Kaili drove me to the Manti temple and we did baptisms for the dead! They live about 2 1/2 hours from that temple so that was really nice of her. The temple is out in the middle of nowhere but it really does look amazing both on the outside and the inside. It sits on this hill and just looks amazing.

I went into the MTC on Wednesday and from the beginning there was no relaxing. I got my badge and then it was off to meet my companion and then off to start training. Sister Julia Jeppsen is from Las Vegas Nevada (Henderson area) and she is amazing. There really is this amazing Spirit that she has. Since being here we have already taught two investigators (our teachers but they really do play the role). It was amazing. We get to teach other investigators on Tuesday (three investigators who will be ours for the duration of our training in the MTC). They are not LDS but they are actors. Some people have ended up really getting baptized afterwards (this is the pilot program that I wrote you about). We are they very first ones to do this since they have changed it.

The food here is awesome. Our district is awesome. Our zone is awesome. Our Branch (which is our zone and the Branch Presidency is awesome). I just love it here. I have such wonderful roommates.  oloveyou.

Rushed but Significant Post

It is pretty late here at BYU-Idaho but my mind is wandering and thinking about everything that is currently going on in my life. I am, of course, preparing to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and all the while preparing for finals. How the time passed so quickly. I seriously have two more weeks and then school is over. How crazy is that?

I have been having a really tough time here (with some sprinkles of loveliness). I think that it has something to do with that sneaky devil but I cannot help the way that I feel. Sometimes I feel so insignificant here on this big campus. This past weekend, to get my mind off of everything, I went to Utah and hung out with my old roommate Kaili. She is awesome I just adore her family. They are so nice to me. However, upon arriving home and getting back into the routine, I attended my American Foundations class. Well, it hasn't changed. I have always felt so weird in this class. I kind of feel like he spends the entire class period describing how much he dislikes the government. Well today he broached the subject of the poor. A student made an insensitive comment and the teacher responded in a way that made me a little upset (okay a lot). I talked to my family, calmed down, went to the gym, and sent an email explaining a little about how I felt. Well, he instead made it seem like I was "overreacting." Good job, now I am even more upset because I felt like he didn't even care. He went on to throw doctrine at me and made me feel even more small. I replied, in an okay I didn't mean to offend you way and I feel like it went nowhere. I read my scriptures and came to the conclusion that my life and experiences are a little abnormal by LDS standards and because of this my viewpoints are different. Maybe he has never met a Diamond before and just does not know how to respond, so he gets defensive. I don't know. At this point all I can do is take a breather and try to not choose to be offended (that is a saying that I am getting tired of- I know that it is a choice to get offended but you know what I have feelings and sometimes those feelings get hurt by what you CHOOSE to say).

Thinking

Today I spoke in sacrament on how the gospel changed my life. I will not go into the detail that I did in my talk but if you know me you know that I am different person than I was back then. In just 3 years I have done a complete 360. I am so very grateful for the missionaries who brought me the gospel and my branch for taking care of me. I know that I would not be here without them.

I am grateful for Joseph Smith for acting on his desires and praying to Heavenly Father. I am grateful for the Atonement and Jesus Christ. None of this could have happened without Him.

Understanding, Change, and School

I stepped back and let Heavenly Father help guide me. I decided that I did not want to have this anger inside of me (it just blocked out the Spirit and I lost focus on my mission). I understand that people are ignorant- they have not been around people of different ethnicity. I cannot get angry at them for something that they do not realize is wrong. Our mindsets are different- I have struggled through life thinking that I cannot accomplish anything because of my skin color- while they have struggled with other things (I do not know what but we all have trials). It makes sense that I will be extremely sensitive to their remarks and they will be oblivious to how their comments can hurt me.

After my blow-up against Brigham Young University-Idaho and my roommates, I was able to get involved with school organizations. I talked to the Dean of Students about my concerns (and hate of the school); however, he helped me to see things in a different light. He says that since I wish that these students can see things through my eyes, why don’t I help them? He got me in contact with the Student Association. They have an African Heritage Association, that needs a President and they are in the process of interviewing candidates, and if I want to I can be on the board and help get things up and running. Although, I do not know a lot about my actual African heritage, it will be nice to learn and also help the students to see people of color as more good-for-nothing prisoners, drug addicts/ dealers, and prostitutes. Not only am I now getting involved in the African Heritage Association but I am also on the Student Involvement Representatives, today is my first day (so I will let you know what my actual job is). I was told that we go to apartments and tell them about the different associations and activities available on campus. It will help me to get to know other people.

After meeting with the Dean, I was able to speak to both of my teachers about my feelings. They understood how I felt and apologize for the actions of the students. They reiterated that these students are mostly from all-Caucasian neighborhoods and probably have never seen any other kind of ethnicity. I agreed and thanked them for talking to me. I was never angry at the teachers, just the ignorant students.

I then was able to meet President Clark (the president of the university). That was intimidating but awesome. He was so very nice and kind. He talked to me about his son-in-law who is Hispanic/ Mexican. He gave me great advice for how to deal with the students and roommates. He told me that the best thing is to let them know how I feel in class (“I do not agree with that and this is why…” or “I am a minority and this is some of the experiences that I have that are not what the media portrays us to be.”). He told me to never be afraid to stand up against their opinions or if I do agree but I do not agree with the “why it is the way it is” let them know (“Although Detroit may have a lot of bad officials I believe that it has to do with … and not with their skin color.). He then told me to do service for my roommates instead of being angry with how they treated me. He said that more than likely they were having a bad day and I just happened to get caught in the cross fire. I took the trash out and wrote them a note saying that I loved them (Sunday they apologized for what they said and they, indeed, were having a hard time). He is such a smart man.

On Sunday I also went to the Dean of Students home for dinner. He has two teenaged daughters and a four year old son. We had rice, meatballs, orange pudding, and pina colata cake. It was awesome. Then we played Just Dance on the Wii Kinect. It was awesome and it was good to get away from the apartment too.

Monday was a normal school day. But we had Family Home Evening (FHE) at Brother Mooso’s amazing home. It is so big and so beautiful. Our apartment had the lesson (McKenzie talked about how we should really know who Jesus Christ is and find a way to bear our testimony about him). We had yummy tacos. After that we played “Murder in the Dark.” I got killed three times! It was so much fun (3 killers and 18 people -including brother Mooso and 17 students). As we left to go home the boys, in their car, played Chinese Fire drill at every red light. I have never seen it before so I freaked out and my roommates laughed their heads off at me. It was so much fun.

I got my (almost) one month report card. I have a 87% (B+) in Psychology, 97% (A+) in Human Resource Management, 100% (A+) in Mission Preparation, 98% (A+) in Computer Basics, and 100% (A+) in American Foundations! I totally bombed my very first test in Psychology which coincided with the day that I got my mission call so I was not really in the right mind-set to take the test. Since then I have received an A on all of my Psychology tests and I am slowly but surely bringing up my grade.

As you can see, I am doing much better both in and out of school. Life is great! I cannot wait to go on my mission. I have $1000 saved for my mission necessities. I cannot wait to get there and let those people know just how much Heavenly Father loves them and can change their lives (just like he has done for me).