No one actually died....

The MTC is a crazy place. People here like to equate this experience to trying to drink water from a firehose. Y'all have asked what the MTC is like for me and that's a pretty accurate description. There's so much information that I'm constantly trying to soak it all in that it's impossible. I'm constantly busy which is a huge blessing because it means that I have no time to be homesick or to worry about what's actually going to happen in the mission field. I have to get up at 6:30 in the morning and I kind of hate it. After breakfast, we spend three hours in the classroom absorbing all that we can.  My favorite part of class time is role playing our way through lessons which are super hard, but we definitely learn a lot. We then break for lunch and have a free period usually spent planning lessons and writing talks and maybe doodling on the white board. Then we exercise (ha I actually just goof off playing some game involving a basketball that I usually lose) before showers, dinner, and heading back to the classroom for the last three hours of the day. Then it's bedtime and 8 hours later I do the whole thing all over again. 

  

I LOVE MY DISTRICT. SO. MUCH.  There are four of us sisters (two of us going to Gilbert, AZ and two going to Long Beach, California), and four elders (two headed to Gilbert and two headed to Long Beach). My companion is a whiz directionally which is great because it means I'm never lost. (If I was on my own I would always be lost. ) Our teachers are incredible, and we spend our days sharing, laughing, growing, learning, and sometimes just surviving. Speaking of surviving, I heard the phrase "just make it to Sunday, and you'll be able to make it all the way" about a thousand times upon my arrival, and now it makes sense. We had gone on a walk to the temple grounds on Sunday as a zone, and our branch president had us standing in a circle singing hymns.  After we'd finished singing one of our sisters fainted from exhaustion/sleep deprivation. So that's what I mean by no one actually died.  There was just a vaguely concerning moment when "just live through Sunday" seemed like a sick joke. Just kidding, just kidding. It wasn't that bad. The sister received a priesthood blessing and rested the rest of the day. She's back to normal now. Sometimes it's hard for us to remember not to hug the elders because we're all such good friends but then other times we accidentally bump into each other, and it's painfully awkward. The other day one of the elders (who is six foot seven what the flip) and I bumped into to each other, and it took everything in me not to freak out and say “GAHH, please don't touch me."

 Let's talk about the weather. COLD. Sometimes. Mostly just DRY. So dry. Also, WE'RE CLOSER TO THE SUN HERE?????? I'm sunburned. It's sad.

The food here is fine. I usually HATE cafeteria food but half the time I'm so hungry, and I just don't have the energy to care. I've eaten a lot of donuts, and sometimes my companion forces me to eat vegetables (I wouldn't have been able to survive this week without my companion). Also one of our girls can make an absurdly accurate chicken noise, and now she's starting to look like an actual chicken... That's weird. 

I don't have much time left because figuring out computers is hard and I'm a slow typist, so let's get down to the important bit shall we?

This is hard. Really hard. It's frustrating; it's exhausting, it's hard. Sometimes it's hard to sleep, hard to eat, hard to grasp or understand all the knowledge being thrown my way. Some moments make it really easy to wonder why I'm still here but I know why I'm here. If you read my farewell talk, then you already know that I spent a lot of time struggling with the decision to serve a mission. And you'll know about the important realization that I had when it suddenly clicked that whatever I faced in life I didn't want to do it without God by my side. Why I stay here when things get hard is pretty simple. I am not the only hardship facing individual. I am not the only struggling soul, the only heart broken wanderer, the only confused mind. I am not. Other people are struggling, and they are doing so without the knowledge of our Savior. Without the hope that His gospel brings.  

The last thing before I go, there's this website called "Dear Elder" where you can type up letters to missionaries in the MTC and the people in charge of it will print them out and deliver them to us for free. Y'all should take advantage of that because you love me.

Love you guys!