Kissing is NOT allowed in the MTC??? (NOT CLICKBAIT)

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!

Something that I've heard a lot of returned missionaries say is that on their mission "the days felt like weeks and the weeks felt like days". So far on MY mission, the days feel like weeks and also the week feels like a week. But that's okay. It's been a really good week of weeks. 

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

Change Isn't Just In The Air....

..it's in us.

   (Before you freak out, this does NOT have ANYTHING to do with "The Talk". I promise. I'm not touching that subject with a ten foot pole.)

   Autumn is often referred to as "the season of change", but it doesn't seem fair to me that it would be the one season to gain that distinction. Each season has changes. The Earth is constantly changing, along with the world (as in the people and society), and us, individually.

   Over the last couple weeks, I've become a huge Agatha Christie fan. (More like an addict...I read one book, and then I couldn't stop.) Recently, I read a Miss Marple book called Nemesis, and there was something in it that made me very, very sad. (Um, aside from the murder part. Because that's obviously not good.)

   There was a young man in the book who had been bad news his whole life. He was given chance after chance after chance, and never seemed to change, and by his late teens, everyone had, more or less, washed their hands of him. Even people who he hadn't really met, and who should have been people to trust in his ability to change...well, they just didn't. No one believed that he could change, even when he himself had good intentions for the first time in his life, instead of others having good intentions for him. He couldn't change, everyone said. Not fundamentally.

  And the sad part is, that at the end of the book, everyone still believed that. 

  One of Satan's most effective, widely spread lies is that we do not have the ability to change. Sure, we can change our intentions and our attitudes for a little while--but we can't change. Not fundamentally.

  But guys, that is NOT TRUE. 

   To say that we can't change who we are for the better is to say that Heavenly Father's plan for us was doomed to fail. To say that we can't change and be the people God wants us to be is to say that Christ's sacrifice for us was pointless. To say that we can't change, fundamentally, is to say that there is no point in life at all.

  Of course, Heavenly Father's plan can't fail. Christ's sacrifice was not some futile effort on His part. And life is anything but pointless.

  Last year, I went through one of the hardest times of my life. For about six months, I consistently felt like I was a terrible person who couldn't get better and that there was no point in even trying. Every time I heard something that said that wasn't true, something inside of me went, "yeah, okay, that's true for most people. That's true in most cases. But not mine. I'm too far gone. I can't change." 

  Sometimes I still feel that way. But by now, I know what to do--I pray. And invariably, I remember that those words are lies. I can change. I can change just as much as you can change, and you can change just as much as Alma and his son changed, just as much as Saul changed on the road to Damascus, just as much as every one of those millions of people who are trying every day to improve and be better can change. Just as much as those people do and did change.

  It doesn't matter what circumstances you are in--it doesn't matter how far you feel you are gone. You can change. That's what life is all about, really, changing to become more like our Savior. And believe me when I say, it's possible. With His help, you. can. change. I'm not saying it's going to be easy--because it's not. It's going to be one of the hardest things you will ever do, and the process is gonna take your entire life. But with His help, you are up to the challenge.

  Please try not to forget that. And if you do (because I think we all do sometimes, no matter how hard we try), turn to the Savior. And He will help you remember just how special you are. I promise.

   So, it's not Autumn. But it is Spring. And as I see magnolia trees and daffodils bursting into bloom all around me, I can't help but smile. Heavenly Father loves me. Christ loves me. And I can change.

   And the same goes for you.

~Nickel