Additional Info

Hi, this is Elora's Mom. I mentioned to her that there were several items in her family emails that she should add to her blog. She agreed and asked me to post them for her, so here they are:

From Week 1:

My companions name is Sister McDonald and she is pretty amazing. She's my complete opposite, to the point where she wanted to take 5 minutes prior to computer time in order to make an outline of her email to her family. I just write. We are both slightly OCD but in totally different ways and hopefully we don't start to drive each other crazy because of it too soon. I already feel like I know so much more than I knew last week. I walked into class on the first day and was greeted by two teachers who refused to speak in English. I'm now to the point where I can understand nearly everything there are saying. The craziest part of Tagalog is the over-abundance of letters. For example- Hi is kamusta, Savior is tagapagligtos, and the word for faith (which I'm really good at forgetting) is 15 letters long. Every sentence is one long tongue twister.

Another exciting, and complicated, part of being at the MTC is the roommates. Each bedroom has 3 sets of bunks beds, 3 desks, and 6 tiny closets. We store anything we don't need on top of the closets. Right now (and probably for a while according to the older girls) we have 2 empty beds, so there are only 4 of us. The room still feels crowded though. It only matters in the morning and night, we aren't really supposed to be in there the rest of the day, but there are still a lot of people in a room maybe twice the size of the room in my old apartment.

From Week 2:

I've had to learn very quickly how to get over being shy and my dislike of asking questions. The first few times we had a practice teaching session, I was almost to scared to function. Now- at least I say something. It doesn't always have to do with what the lesson seems to be about. Yesterday I even asked a question that seemed to have nothing to do with what we were teaching. I'm really glad I did because the person I was practicing with later told me that I asked exactly the right question to make him feel like I actually cared about him. I feel like I'm really far behind in this aspect of missionary work. All the other people in my district can sit down and talk to anyone about anything. I, on the other hand, can't even think of what to say when the "investigator" asks me a direct question. Starting the conversation is even harder.

Fortunately, there have been several things that have helped me a great deal. One of those things is the sisters in my zone. They are always willing to listen to me and many of the ones who have been here longer have advice on how they dealt with similar problems. My teachers are also really great. One of them loves to say "We cannot measure what is most important, so we try to make most important what we can measure." This reminds me that I need to focus on the things that are more difficult to measure and remember that they are more important. I can't let myself think that what I can measure is more important than internal things like how hard I'm trying and reliance on the Lord.

I really love being here. I'm learning so much about myself and about the Gospel. It's not easy, but I have a feeling it wasn't meant to be. I put my trust in God, ask him to help in the areas I'm no good at, and then I try my hardest to do my best.

From Week 3:

I'm getting better at socializing with people, the weather is getting colder, and people in the zone today are leaving (along with getting a new district in our zone so we won't be the new-be's anymore) We are also getting more sisters in our room- this means there will be 6 people in a room only a little bigger than my bedroom back home. These sisters won't be in our zone, we've speculated that they will be english speaking missionaries. But I'm still a little apprehensive about how cramped the room will feel.

A note of disappointment- the MTC normally has pizza every Friday night, which has been a nice carry over from home. This week- with no warning at all- they had teriyaki stix instead, it was incredibly disappointing.

This weeks devotional was given by Elder Bednar. This makes 4 apostles speaking at a devotional in a row. Our branch president said that one normally only comes every other month. It's been really neat. My favorite part of his talk was when he stated "I know some of you are thinking 'I don't think I can do this'... or course you can't... alone" It really stuck out to me and has definitely been pushing me forward this week. I definitely don't think I can do this alone. Fortunately I don't have to.

From Week 4:

So, This week was Thanksgiving. As much as I love Thanksgiving with my family, I don't think I will ever have a thanksgiving quite like this one. It was way amazing!

Elder Holland came to speak and brought all his children and grandchildren with him. They were so cute. His grandkids even got up and sang a song. He spoke on gratitude, families, and the Savior. The devotional ended up going 30 minutes over the length it had been scheduled to be, which is pretty crazy when it was only meant to be an hour. That afternoon, the missionaries got to participate in a service project where we cut out the piece to make backpacks for needy children. The pieces will be shipped to wards that will construct them, fill them with school supplies, and send them back to the church for distribution. There are approximately 2000 missionaries at the MTC, we made over 33000 backpacks, including cutting out all the pieces, placing them in boxes of 25 and preparing the boxes for shipping. It was so cool!

I'm looking forward to a cold December with lotsa snow- I'm so glad next December will be warm!


From Week 5:
This week has been super fun, though for the most part, it hasn't been too different from any other week. The strangest thing is that the group of missionaries in our zone who came in right before us are leaving today. This means that I only have 3 weeks left at the MTC and that there will no longer be anyone here older than me to look up to. Kinda sad- but super exciting anyways. I'm kinda starting to stress a little because I still feel like I'm absolutely hopeless on the language, but my teachers tell me that I'm doing great and not to worry. That and everyone says it doesn't matter how well you think you know it in the MTC, you never know anything when you actually get to the field.

For the devotional last Tuesday, Julie B. Beck came to speak to us. The coolest thing about her talk was when she shared her experience when her parents were mission presidents of the only Brazil mission. In about 50 years this country has evolved from not having a single church building within it's borders, to having around 25 missions, isn't that insane! Thursday was interesting because it was the first time we taught volunteers in the TRC in Tagalog. It was definitely scary and the volunteer asked a lot of questions I was lacking the vocab to answer.

Yesterday, instead of having a regular fireside, we watched the Christmas devotional. It was really neat and I'm so excited for the Christmas season. If you didn't get a chance to see it, you should try to. The first presidency shared some beautiful stories of looking past the presents and decorations and really remembering what the Christmas season is about.

A quick word in Tagalog, just for fun. Alam ko po na sasagotin ng Diyos ang mga dasal natin. Mahal niya tayo and gusto niya para sa maging tayo masaya. Maganda po ba iyen?