Week whateverweekitis

Hey everybody!

 

I got my reassignment and it's to St. George! Best part is, Sister Keenan is coming with me so I don't have to travel all by myself. I don't know if I could handle the hour long flight without my companion. :) I'm only half kidding. I've developed some impressive separation anxiety issues.

 

MIKE I REQUIRE MORE DETAILS! ALL OF THE DETAILS!

 

ALSO JAKE I FORGOT TO WRITE IN YOUR EMAIL THAT I REQUIRE MORE DETAILS FROM YOU AS WELL!

 

Let's seeeeee, I have a funny story for you. Sister Keenan was dying of the plague earlier this week (not the funny part), so instead of going to gym time we took a nap instead (I fully support my companions being sick so I can sleep instead of exercising). While she was sleeping she started doing that sick person snore where you knew her body was struggling to get oxygen through her giant mucous plug. THEN, as if that wasn't funny enough, she started crying like a dog. A weird sort of whining crying sound with a sprinkling of snoring. It was really hilarious. It might be one of those things where you had to be there, but rest assured that I find it hilarious. I was laughing as I was typing it and earned a "what a weirdo" look from the elder across the room. Success.

 

I discovered something terrible today. I had been wondering if I was starting to develop a tan line from my sister missionary shoes, but I figured it was just a line from having the strap press against my foot all day. Only today when I was on my way out of the temple, I noticed that the line was there. I hadn't been wearing my shoes for a good 2.3 hours. It's a tan line. It's begun. I don't even go in the sun ever. I've developed a horrible foot tanline from my one walk to the temple ONCE A WEEK! And I'm going to St. George. And then Brasil. I will send pictures when it has become sufficiently horrid.

 

Also, we had in-field orientation yesterday in a chapel down by the football stadium and while I was sitting outside during one of the breaks I watched as RACHEL, my ROOMMATE, drove right by. Broke my heart. Either it was her, or it was someone with the exact same bright yellow jeep, who looked enough like her to rip out my feelings. Awesome.

 

Just a reminder. Sunday I get to sing two songs for the prophet and his apostles. Just didn't want you to miss out on a wonderful opportunity to be incredibly jealous of my awesome life. That's all. :)

 

Sister Keenan and I have been making all sorts of friends all over the MTC. We have to make them all over because our own elders don't like us. :) We made friends with two of the missionaries who's mission is Mormon.org. They're assigned to be at the MTC the whole time, but they get to chat with people on mormon.org and skype and stuff and then hand them over to missionaries in their area when they're ready to be baptized. It's pretty sweet, because they talk to people all over the world. They were like "yeahhhh, I was talking to my investigator in Scotland today..." No big deal, Scotland. Also we made friends with the new mission president of  Bolivia and his wife. We met them in the MTC van on the way back from the dentist and sometimes we eat dinner with them. They like us. :) Also their daughter is here at the MTC too. Weird. That'd be weird. Then today we made another friend with the lady at the alterations place. She was like "Where are you going?" And Sister Keenan was like "I'm going to Santa Maria!" And the lady was like "MY SON IS IN SANTA MARIA! I've never met any missionary going there!" And Sister Keenan was like "Yeah, I'm the only sister in the whole MTC." I was sitting there thinking that hey, that was pretty cool, and then she asked where I was going. I was like "Sao Paulo East." And she was like "MY OTHER SON IS IN SAO PAULO EAST!" Seriously? Apparently she has twins. I'm one of maybe five sisters in the whole MTC going to Sao Paulo East, and she'd never met anyone going there either. What are the chances? Super weird.

 

So everyone in our district is going to Africa except Sister Keenan and I, and they were all like "Hahahaha we already have our travel plans, we've had them for a whole week longer than you, blah blah blah". (Except Elder Whitaker who hasn't heard anything and is apparently never leaving the MTC. Sad) Then we got our travel plans and we were like "Oh, we don't leave until Wednesday and y'all leave on Monday." And then we made the most important discovery. They leave two days before us and we still get to our missions before they do. I love irony. Hahahahahahahahahaha, you may get to leave first, but while you're sitting on an airplane for three days, I'll be waiting in the nice MTC and then enjoying a lovely 1h 2min flight to St. George. Ha.

 

I almost forgot. I had my very first embarassing moment at the MTC. Let me rephrase that. I've had plenty of embarassing moments, but this was the first one where I was actually embarassed. (I should have probably been embarassed for the others, but couldn't find the energy).  Soooo, the mtc food. It's lovely and full of air. You can eat a simple banana and in 15 minutes you've bloated up like a balloon. This isn't normally an issue since we've all mastered the skill of carefully letting out a day-long, silent stream of gas. However. On Wednesday, I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth and I met one of the new sisters. After I finished with my teeth I went into the stall right next to the one she had just gone into. I swear all I meant to do was pee, but I let out the LONGEST, loudest fart in the history of mankind. Then I sat there until she left the bathroom and I could crawl back to my room in shame. It was embarassing.

 

Another funny story involving Sister Keenan. It's only funny now because it's been 2 or 3 days. Keep in mind that Sister Keenan has been dying of the plauge this week.....so I was getting ready for bed at the sink next to Sister Keenan. They have these little shelves on the wall above the sink so you can set your toothbrush and stuff there. So I finished brushing my teeth, put the little plastic cap on the head of the toothbrush and put it on the shelf. Then I went to grab something (maybe my washcloth I don't remember) and knocked my toothbrush of the shelf. No big deal, right? Wrong. I managed to completely destroy all normal rules of physics, and instead of falling down, the way gravity should work, it managed to pop out of it's cap and fall right into Sister Keenan's sink. Now, she's dying of the mucous plague, brushing her teeth, and just ate a bunch of oreos. I stare and complete horror as my tooth brush lands right in the middle of her sink full of swirling globs of oreo mucous. To top it all of it was right when she was about to spit again. Gross. She finds it completely hilarious of course, and because I found a new toothbrush I can allow it to be mildly humorous.

 

I think that is all I had to say, and my time is rapidly running out. So, until next time (when I will be in St. George), Tchau!

 

PS Me leaving the MTC means you can't send me DearElders anymore, so it's all emails and hand written beauties. While I expect this will completely wipe out all mail I might receive, I will continue to cling to the hope that some of you love me. (Obviously that very pointed comment was not directed at you mom, so don't take offense. :))

Week 5?

I can't even remember if it's week 5 or not, but I think it is. Time has really flown by here. I get my reassignment next week! Ah! It's like getting a mission call all over again! Where is Sister Peart going to go? Who knows?

 

Also, I've realized that these blog emails I type make no sense. I think I just type whatever comes into my mind, and usually it's utter nonsense. The sleep deprivation is getting to me. This morning a bunch of sisters in our residence were getting ready (quite loudly) in the bathroom at 5 in the morning. I was filled with a very missinary inappropriate bloodthristy rage. This happens almost every day. I'm tired. :) On the plus side, we all look like we're suffering from severe narcolepsy. (Sorry, I can't spell that word. Although, since I've been learning portuguese, I can't spell anything in English) We've all developed the remarkably ability to fall asleep in the middle of anything. Every morning during personal scripture study I wake up sitting up in my desk drooling down onto my scriputres. The other day I was sitting next to Sister Baldwin during TALL time and she literally fell asleep in the middle of recording a sentence. The temple is hopeless. It's gotten to the point that I only wake Sister Keenan up if she starts snoring. :) A couple of weeks ago I was sitting in between her and Sister Thornton in the temple and it looked like they were both having epileptic fits. I bit through my lip trying not to bust up laughing. Every time I wake them up they're like "Thanks!" and promptly fall right back asleep. Hilarious.

 

Let's see. I sent some pictures to my mom, and I'm assuming she'll put them on the blog so let's get some discriptions of them:

1. They sell T-shirts in the bookstore for every country. Sister Keenan and I have the Brasil shirts, and the other sisters have the Mozambique shirts.

 

 

2. One day I looked up during class and realized that we were a rainbow! We did not plan it (except for Sister Keenan. Originally she was wearing white and was the cloud, but after lunch she changed into red). Pretty sweet. The order is: Sister Keenan, Sister Thornton, Sister Baldwin, Sister Merkely, and Me. :)

 

3. My p-day outfit has devolved into a horrid tourist monstrocity. Mission t-shirt, bright red jogging pants that I have not washed once, and my sister missionary shoes. It's lovely.

 

 

4. Sister Keenan and I in our mission t-shirts.

 

5. The one decent picture that we took. At least I think I included that one. If I didn't, rest assured that one does exist. :D

 

 

Let's seeeee, what elseeeee.  OH! The Church is having some big Worldwide Traning Meeting shindig on the 23rd. The prophet and apostles and all those important people are going to be there, including MYSELF! They're broadcasting it all over the world I believe and I will be there. In the choir. You could see me. They put together a choir of missionaries and members (I think the topic is member missionary work) and they're going to record it and sync it with video clips and other warm and fuzzy things and they're going to put it on the church website and I will forever be able to brag to my posterity that I'm in that video. That is all. I'm only a little bit a lot excited. :)

 

ALSO! I could remember if Merlissah reported this week or next and so I was keeping my eye out for her and when I finally gave up, GUESS WHO WALKED INTO THE CAFETERIA RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE! No, not Merlissah. BABY DEARDON! Elder Daniel Deardon walked right in the door. I had forgotten when he reported! Also, he confirmed my suspicion that Merlissah does not, in fact, report until next week. Good to know.

 

ALSO AGAIN! My companion auditioned to do a musical number in one of the deviontals and she MADE IT! :D It was so scary! All I had to do was sit in the room, and I was terrified. Sister Nally has perfect pitch and is really picky and intimidating, but she loved her! There's an acapella part in the song and Sister Nally said she never allows people to do acapella because she's afraid they'll screw it up, but she said she would let Sister Keenan do it! :D It was so great.

 

Hmmm. Also, I just ran into Sarah Chamberlain's brother just now. Weird. :)

Also congrats to Jake and Megan. :) :)

I'm certain that I'm forgetting something.......

 

But anywho. I'll remember next time, maybe.

 

Bye everybody!

 

P.S. Merlissah, you must see me before I depart. Or I will be quite put out.

Week 4

I can't believe it's week 4!  Ah!  Too weird!  Thanks for everybody who writes me letters and stuff, they're the best part of the day. :)  Also, big thanks to Sister Olsen for the package!  That was awesome!  You are the best. :)

 

So I had a request that I walk y'all through a day at the MTC.  I have pretty much the same schedule on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday and it is this:

 

6:00 Wake up and shower.

 

6:30 The time I'm actually supposed to wake up, but I have no desire to wait in a mile-long line for a shower.

 

7:15 Breakfast

 

7:45 Personal Study. Usually I read the Book of Mormon or some conference talks. It's often hard to stay awake, and I've managed to fall asleep while reading. Eyes open and everything. I feel like I'm falling and spaz out. Lovely time.

 

9:00 Class.  Usually Irma Pike teaches in the morning and she is the cutest little ray of sunshine. She is SO nice and she's just adorable. She usually teaches us about how to teach investigators and how to find answers to their (and our) questions. She tries to help us understand the doctrine more deeply so we can teach it effectively. Sometimes she teaches us a little bit of Portuguese too and makes us do activities like practicing starting conversations with people in Portuguese. We also have our mock appointments with our investigators during class. With Irma Pike they're usually only 15-20 minutes but they're great. She acts like an investigator she had on her mission, and she's a really good actress. She doesn't let you get away with crap.... For Sister Keenan and I, she's a 50 year old Catholic woman named Rosali. I love her.

 

12:00 Lunch.  Usually it's some form of salad (salad, wrap, etc) and some form of potato (curly fries, normal fries, steak fries, tater tots, etc) with water and chocolate chip cookies. The cafeteria is huge and has tons of food, but those are the things that I've found give you the least crippling amounts of gas. :)

 

12:45 TALL  Technology Assisted Language Learning.  When I manage to stay awake it's pretty cool. It is a computer program that helps you learn useful words and phrases and grammar lessons.  Since they expect us to pretty much teach ourselves the language, it's pretty helpful.  You can listen to natives say the words over and over and over and record yourself saying them over and over and over until they sound the same.

 

1:45 Class.  Usually Irmao Owens teaches in the afternoon.  It pretty much is the same as morning class, except we get 30 minutes to teach him as investigator.  For us he is Alex. Alex is loads better than Rafael, but when we started teaching him he didn't even believe in God.  The teachers don't cut you any slack and they act just like a really investigator would, so we've been working hard to get him to believe in God and Christ.  He agreed to be baptized in four weeks though, so we're trying to work with him and prepare him for that.

 

5:00 Dinner. Same as lunch. Except your not as hungry because literally all you've done since lunch is sit.  But it's the last time you get to eat until breakfast, so you usually stuff yourself and get really bad indigestion anyway.

 

5:45 Go to the classroom and pretend to study until Gym time.

 

6:10 GYM TIME!  I HATE WORKING OUT AND EVEN I LOVE GYM TIME!  WE GET TO NOT SIT! :DDD

 

7:40 Back in class.  Studying some more.  Learning some things.

 

9:00 Planning. With your companion write out your schedule for the next day.  Decide what you want to study during personal, companionship, and language study. Boring stuff.

 

9:25 MAIL TIME!  Mob the district leader for the mail and then run back to the residence halls. Best part of the day.

 

9:30 Get ready for bed.

 

10:00 Companionship study

 

10:15 Personal de-stress-and-look-back-over-the-day time.

 

10:30 Lights out.

 

Tuesdays are a little different because we don't have class until after lunch.  Before lunch we do service time and at night we have a devotional.

 

Sundays we have devotionals and meetings and stuff all day.  We have to write a talk in Portuguese every week because the conductor randomly selects a couple people to come up and speak. Boo.

 

Fridays are P-days.  We do our laundry, go to the temple, clean our room and write letters.  P-day ends at dinner and we have TRC then.  TRC you randomly get assigned a volunteer that you have to teach.  It's scary, because you have to talk to real people, but fun.

 

Sadly, I'm out of time.  But now you know.  That's my life.  :)

 

Tchau!

 

--Sister Peart