Just kidding. It's totally clickbait. I just really wanted that to be the subject line of my email.
Hello, everyone!! I miss you all so much!
I don't even know where to start! Okay. My companion's name is Sister Samsel. She's also going to Detroit. There are only two other sisters in our district, and they are going to Detroit as well. Their names are Sister Leavitt and Sister Hall. We're roomies and pretty much besties now. We have eight elders in our district, going to Washington, Pennsylvania, and Australia. I think the elders going to Australia are acutely aware that they have the coolest mission, but whatever.
I love my district a lot! So many spiritual giants in one room. But also everyone's SO fun and kind of ridiculous. At first the elders wouldn't really talk to us more than was necessary--our theory is that they were worried about coming across as flirting with the sisters. Luckily they're pretty much over that and we're all friends.
I'm learning SO much every day. Way way more than I thought I would. Specifically about the doctrine of Christ. Oh my gosh, I just love the Gospel so much and everyone needs to know about it!! Something we talk about a lot is that our purpose as missionaries is to INVITE and HELP, and that our purpose statement doesn't even say anything about teaching. So while teaching is important, the main thing is to figure out what the person needs to do to come into Christ, figure out what invitation will help them to do that, and THEN decide what we can teach to help them do whatever that thing is. I don't know that I'm explaining that very well, but it's so cool and I really love that what I'm here to do is help people make choices and steps to get to their Saviour.
Elders and Sisters are very different. Every night in the bathroom of my residence hall, one sister will start singing in the shower, which is whatever, fine, but then other sisters will join and pretty soon we've got like a whole choir of sisters harmonizing with each other from their shower stalls. It is really really pretty but also a little weird to be brushing your teeth with the shower choir going on, not gonna lie.
Meanwhile in the Elders' residence hall, they turned THEIR bathroom into a sauna by hanging sheets over the doors and turning on all of the showers. I think if the MTC had only sisters it would be super spiritual still but not as fun.
Today my Pday is getting cut a little short because we have a Christmas Eve devotional and a live nativity, I guess? I don't know what that's going to be like but I'm excited to find out. And then we're all excited for tomorrow because the only things we have all day are a devotional with a general authority and then we're watching It's a Wonderful Life!! And I get to call my family two days in a row, which is awesome.
I feel like every MTC email I've ever gotten has talked about the food, so I feel like I should let you know that they have food here. Now you know.
Today we all did our laundry, and lemme tell you, the MTC laundry room is where it's at. I didn't realise it was such a party. Someone brought a ukulele and there were dozens of missionaries just chilling and singing (we were totally singing Babylon music, dad). We had to hang out there for like two hours but it was honestly just really fun.
Oh!! On the very first day I got here I had to leave the MTC to go to the BYU health center! That was really weird and really cool, because I had been there before and walked by it so many times while I was at BYU. I had to go to the MTC clinic first, and they made me fill out this survey about tuberculosis to see if I needed an x-ray. I had literally none of the symptoms of tuberculosis, but they looked at it and said "hmm, yeah, you should probably get an x-ray". So I don't really know what that was about but the doctor counted my ribs for me so that was cool.
Yesterday we got to teach our first "investigator". Really she's just someone the MTC hired to pretend to be interested in the missionary discussions, but roleplay at the MTC and roleplay in Sunday school are completely different things. You have to actually pray for help and plan your lesson and follow the spirit. It was really scary at first, but we did it and we got her to commit to praying every day to know if God is there. It went really well and Sister Samsel and I just got so pumped to teach the next lesson!! I can't wait to actually go and do this for real....but I'm also grateful that we have the MTC to actually learn what we're doing before they let us loose in the world.
Oh! My zone leaders are both from England and one's even from Leeds! They're the only English people I've met since coming here and it made me really happy. They were excited, too, though a little disappointed to find out that I'm actually an American.
The sisters in my district and I sang "I heard the bells on Christmas Day" on Sunday and I'm going to be honest, we sounded awesome. To be fair, Sister Samsel is going into vocal perfomance and is one of the best Sopranos that I've ever met, so we kind of cheated.
Guys, I really love being a missionary. Every day I put on my name tag and I'm just SO excited. Parts of this week have been really hard but I've felt the Spirit so strongly every day and I just KNOW this is where I'm supposed to be. And, it is really hard, but it's also so so fun.
Alright, I think that's all for now. If you got to the end of this, you deserve a medal. I love you all so much! Also, thank you to everyone who gave me a card before I left. I haven't opened them yet--I'm saving them all for Christmas. I think you guys are so great! Love you!
--Mikayla
