The weeks are flying by now!

August 7, 2013

Okay, the weeks are flying by now! I don't have travel plans yet (Friday!), but I think I am at less than two weeks now. I'm so excited! But about the week.

The must have MTC photo in front of the map

I don't know if I've written about service yet, but if so, oh well, I'll just repeat it. Every Thursday morning the sisters in my district get to wake up earlier than normal to report to service. We have the wonderful opportunity to clean the rooms for early arrival/international missionaries. It is always amazing how much of a mess we humans can make in just one or two days in a place. It is also astounding how many things are left behind; we often wonder if these missionaries knew they would not be returning to their dorms. Last week we found a stash of treasure: someone left behind their napkin absolutely full of M&Ms and Reese's Pieces from the cafeteria ice cream bar. In the light of the little desk lamp it was literally glowing, like the leprechaun’s' gold at the end of the rainbow. Moral of the story: I love service, but I never want to be a maid. On Thursday I also looked like Peter Pan or Robin Hood. I started out the day wearing my green shirt and blue skirt, but then I got expo marker on my blue skirt which I had to immediately Tide-to-Go. However this meant I had wet spots on my skirt so I needed to change, but I wore my other blue skirt the day before, and I couldn't wear red because then I would be Christmas, so my only other option was green. With my brown belt to break up the color a bit, I was officially Robin Hood. The perils of only having four skirts. I have also since got over my inhibition of wearing the same skirt two days in a row, as you will soon see.

Friday was Mom's birthday - Happy Birthday Mom! Unfortunately I had no contact from her if there was to be any, because Dear Elder messed up and I received a letter addressed to me on the outside, but was addressed to my district leader on the inside. Who knows who got my letter. It was quite devastating. Friday we also had our third Skype TRC. We also have a fourth this Friday. This is actually unusual, as I think the groups before us only ever did one. So either we are just really good, or the system got messed up. In any case we teach over Skype and it is always rather stressful. In addition to Skype we taught Sergei, and I drew a beautiful picture illustrating prophets and scriptures in relation to construction work, and I think he may have finally paid attention. It was probably my epic stick figures.

On Saturday we practiced contacting, but both Sister Finlayson and I forgot pen and paper, so I "memorized" his phone number to contact him later. Except we forgot to ask him his name. Yes, we have some work to do.



Sunday was Fast Sunday. A no nap Fast Sunday, with lots and lots of extra time to study. It gives you a lot of time to actually think about what you're fasting for. Sunday was also purple day in my district, aka, we all wore purple. This was also why I ended up wearing the same skirt two days in a row, for my navy blue one was the only one that went with my purple shirt (which wasn't actually my shirt). I'm just getting all kinds of crazy in my clothes these days. Anyway, testimony meeting was wonderful, and I could actually understand most of what was being said. Later that day President Harrison spoke to us about ways of finding and contacting people in the field. I am sure I am going to have some wonderful stories in just a few weeks here. I speak like a three year old, but am sure going to try. Be excited. Devotional Sunday night was Jenny Oaks Baker, which was wonderful. I have so many of her songs on my mp3 player that I can't listen to here at the MTC, so it was nice to listen to them live. Plus I got a spiritual talk in between.

Monday was good. We tried something different in our lesson with Vadeem. Not sure if it worked. Oh well, the rest of Monday was great.

Tuesday. I can always tell it's Tuesday because I hit a brick wall at about 2:00pm, where my brain goes fuzzy and I am just exhausted. I powered through though and studied vocab. And then devotional is that night which is always great. At devotional Elder Jensen, a former member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, spoke about bettering our scripture study. There are definitely a lot of things I can work on, like being more discriminate in what I actually write. He also gave a great suggestion of getting a new copy of the Book of Mormon for each new calling, and marking it solely with that calling in mind. At the end of the day Tuesday I was super hungry and finally broke down and went to the vending machines. While there I embarked on the great responsibility of helping a sister from Germany pick which snack she wanted, as she had never had any of them. We finally decided on Cheetos. I'm not sure how much she liked them though, as she was trying to share them with everyone afterward. At least I saved her from the pop-tarts.

So that is all for this week. I am aware that much of my family is up at the Cabin, which I'm a little bit jealous about. Honestly, little things throughout this week have reminded me of it, like smells and such. It also doesn't help that I'm in Utah, and the mountains are constantly around me. But I absolutely know I am where I am supposed to be, and I would not trade it one bit.

Love you all!

Sister Tanner

My time is done for the week, unfortunately. I LOVE YOU!! Go collect a pretty rock from the cabin for me. LOVE YOU LOVE YOU LOVE YOU! And send my love to all the family at the cabin :D

 

Editor's note: Several family members are missing from the cabin this week for various reasons. Also missing is Cooper/Elder Siebers, Diana's cousin. I had told her to try and get a photo together and she had run into him a few times but did not have her camera with her. I received a letter this week that said on her P-day she ran into Cooper by the recently restocked free food cart. So his hands are full of Subway sandwiches and she is in P-day clothes but we got the photo and they leave the MTC on the same day. He is going to Brazil.