Momma!! Guess what, it's p-day. It's every Friday, so expect emails then. :)
Umm...I have 30 minutes, so I'm gonna go fast.
First of all, I forgot a lots of stuff (...the list ...) Okay, that's it for now. :)
Important change to my MTC stay. I'm actually staying 4 weeks, so I'm leaving June 16.
The best way to write me is actually dearelder.com, it should be free to the MTC. They print your emails so I get them the next day. Even though I can't write you back that day, I get you note fast and I can spend my 30 mintues writing you instead of reading your email, which is not here today...Mom.... :(
Well, MTC is actually quite great. The food is American mostly, but you know how I actually like American food, so it's all good. They have lots of things to choose from. I really like the orange passionfruit juice :) I think I'm fatter now, some of the shirts feel tight already. The dinner is really early so you have to eat a lot to not get hungry at night. But it's okay, we sneak out apples and bananas. Really, we are quite full all day. MTC has the randomist things happen. Yesterday we saw a group of newly arrived Samoans do a hakka dance. :) It's cool. Something really funny on the first day. Us new missionaries kept forgetting we are now Sisters/Elders. When we introduce ourselves, many people said their first name, then realized that they weren't supposed to. I did that when i just got of the car, but tried to not do it again. people are really friendly, we have an orange dot on our tag saying we are new, so a lot of peopel say welcome as we walk by.
Everyday except p-day has lots of meetings and classes. There are 4 sisters going to my mission in my class, one of them speak Mandarin, another speaks Cantonese. The one who speaks Mandarin, Sister Lao, is my companion. she is from Macao. We get along quite well. She is the nice, reserved kind of person, but fun still. She went to BYU-provo too. There is a sister here sent out from Beijing, Sister Li.
What surprised me a lot these few days is how much they emphasize love in missionary work. You cannot approach people without getting them to trust you first, to like you. They have to see that you are sincere. Yesterday we had people and my purpose workshop. It teaches you about how to approach people and why we are here. That whole experience was great. It was really spiritual because you learn to know your investigators and love them before you teach, which is really different. Our first day we had three fake-pretend investigators so we can see how teaching should work. All of them started knowing about the investigators' backgrounds. What really stood out in that meeting is that everything was just plain until someone bore their testimony, then you could really feel there is something different. Anyway, I guess I knew I should know people's backgrounds before I teach them, and bear my testimony, but I just didn't expect it to make such a difference. It's great.
I'm doing pretty good. They planned my four weeks out already, so i know what I'm doing every single day. It's a busy schedule, and I have yet to get used to getting up at 630am, but it's all good. I'm content. I can feel myself growing spiritually, getting to know more and feel more everyday. Everything makes me appreciate what you do as a ward missionary, Mom. I guess everything came to you naturally, but I have to work at it :)
Okay, time is almost up. I love you, Mom. Take care of yourself. Write me. Say hi to grandparents. Be happy. Don't forget to ask for help when you need it, which you probably do because I can't explain soem of the things here.
Love ya!
Ashling, umm...I meant Sister Stout
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