Monday, July 28, 2014

Lady Marmalade--aka Last Week of MTC...[July 28, 2014]

Whenever anyone says sister (kinda happens a lot) I now get Lady Marmalade stuck in my head...it's a problem.
                I didn't have a p-day last week, so hopefully I have time to write everything up. So two Wednesday's ago, while in the MTC, right after our p-day we gave another lesson to Scott and it went fabulous. We were unified and I felt the spirit really strong. I felt we finally made progress and then as in all things when you overcome something, God decides to switch things up a bit. 
A sister in the other companionship in our room and zone and also going to Kansas finally decided to go home. She was homesick and barely ate anything and finally talked to a counselor. Therefore our trio was broken up and the Branch president said he was prompted to put me with Sister Eyre. So I changed teachers and both investigators and districts. There was six elders in the new district all going to Chicago.    
Let’s talk about the elders first. They were pretty soft spoken when I first met them, but I realized they all had an interesting sense of humor. For instance, when we were walking back from visiting the temple one of them turned around and stated to me, "If you loved us you'd give us your pantyhose!"     They previously had been asking me for a pair for some stupid slingshot/starburst contraption they wanted to create. No need to worry though, my pantyhose are still for the sole purpose of concealing my zombie pale legs.
The district leader also had us sing "Did you think to Pray" every day for class until we begged him not to. My last district sang it once right before I switched and the Branch president was there and we accidentally sang it to "Come to Zion"...awkward.
 But going back to the Elders, when we all shook hands during our good-byes one of the elders shook my hand and then clasped his other hand to the back of mine and held as I slid mine out and he triumphantly stated to the others, I held her hand!    
 They did have awesome district meetings though. I realized that the MTC is the closest building to a temple that I've ever been in. I think (okay this might sound corny) but the temple is a place where you can feel the presence of the Holy Ghost, but also you can tell that people on the other side are there. I've been told over and over again that angels will surround us while on our missions, and I think that is so true, so when you get all these missionaries together, you have all these angels watching over us. One of the elders gave his testimony and it was just. so. good. I've never been in a meeting that I felt the spirit so strongly as I had at that time with my district.    
Now to Sister Eyre. She's 19 and from Utah and did dance and cheerleading in high school. If she was 5 inches taller she could definitely qualify for the Miss America pageant. After first reading her name tag, I became immensely jealous of her. We made a good team though, and we finally got her investigator to commit to baptism by the end!     
 I want to talk about this awesome thing called the TRC (teaching resource center) for a bit. They changed it recently where instead of volunteers they hire people to act as investigators. Some investigators just walk around campus and you can talk to them whenever and make appointments for return visits. It's pretty cool; like if you have time for that, which I don't know who does. They also have a set time that you go and teach someone in a small room. We had a girl that we knew was a member, because a boy in our class knew her, but she was pretty cool. A couple elders in our district had this big black guy who was not a member and just got referred by someone to work there, because all he has to do is sit and listen to people and he gets paid for that. The elders actually got him to accept baptism and one of them gave him their quad, because they had an extra one, and the guy wanted to use his topical guide...pretty cool.    
 I've said investigator so much these past couple of weeks, I'm forgetting that it's also a profession.    
 It was so cute! A couple of little kids were in the MTC and when I passed them they waved and I was surprised, because I had never met them...but then I remembered I was wearing a nametag, pretty cool.    
 I knew going in that I would recognize some people that work at the MTC, but it definitely was ridiculous how many people I ran into. It was a daily occurrence of running into old ward members and friends. One counselor inour Branch Presidency was Ray Smith, which wouldn't ring any bells unless you study music at BYU. He's the Sax Professor and a Jazz God.  Just a really cool guy that I've often made awkward conversation with on the elevator at the HFAC.    I also ran into the contrebassoon player who I often sat next to in Phil. There's a slight chance I might've had a bit of a crush on him, but he didn't even recognize me when I saw him here...even though I totally talked with him before. Oh yeah, I knew there was a reason I was going on a mission....
    I was able to borrow a cello from the MTC and play for church. The accompanist put his best effort in, but it was a bit rough. We still managed to get the other burly counselor to cry, so I'd say that was a success.  That's it for the MTC, I'll write another post about what's been happening here in Kansas.

Love,
 Sister Seymour











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