Week 4-Listen to the Spirit!

Hola! 
Can you guys believe i'v'e almost been here a month?? Crazy. People weren't kidding when they said the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days. Yet another great week at the MTC :)

Jan 20

We took a different approach to teaching trino this time. To teach the apostocy and the importance of prophets we got a candy stick (smarties) or what we like to call "bonbons". I made a fist representing god and had trino make a fist representing all of gods children and the candy stick represented the prophet. We told him to close his eyes and follow my fist with out him holding on to the stick/prophet. He obviously couldn't do it. So we told him to continue closing his eyes but hold onto the bottom of the candy and I would hold onto the top. He was able to follow my fist/God. We can recieve personal revelation but we need the prophef for revelation to the world. He really liked it.. i dunno maybe because he just got some candy out of it. We had tall and I asked one of the elders to hand me a sanitary wipe for my computer and he started to tease me so finally i ripped it out of his had and all the juice from the wipe squirted all over my face and in my eyes!! OUCH! I ran into all the chairs on my way to the bathroom. Kinda funny. Things like that happened all day it felt like.

Jan 21

We held a fake sacrament for trino. It was really fun! our DL was the bishop and we were ward members and a couple elders were themselves (missionaries). We had a testimony meeting and a couple talks. We wanted to make the meeting more realistic so we had a couple people be the really enthusiastic, welcoming kind of members, the rest pretty quiet and to themselves and one weird person.Oh and one that just got up to bare tesimony and just told about all their problems. hermana marcum did that. Oh man... So Elder kener.. the one that got the sanitizer in my eyes.. was picked to be the weird one. Bad Idea. Well first he was sitting in the back and pretended to cry like a baby and later justified it saying that there's ALWAYS a baby crying in the back. he sounded like a dying goat. He got up to bare his testimony and said that the bishop was our king and joseph smith wrote the book of mormon and through joseph smith we can return to live with god and that he's a goat milker and he loves his goats more than anything. He kept saying, "OHHH MI PADRE!, OHHH MI PADRE" we all had tears coming down our face from trying not to laugh.. The system is kinda jacked i think because he got called as our district leader the next day! haha.. no he's an awesome kid. He likes to have fun.

Jan 22

Sunday #4 Check!

Our sunday temple walk was closed because some elder slipped on the ice earlier that day. Lame. We all just sat out in the front of the mtc watching the cars go by through the gate! Trapped. So we walked around the mtc and went up to the room and took pictures and what not. It was funny because I havent even been here every long and we were all freaking out because we had like 45 min with nothing schelduled and didn't know what to do with ourselves. Sister Wixom the general primary president spoke to us for relief society. She begged us to tell all the children we come in contact with to tell them that they are a child of god and and god loves them because she isn't able to go and tell them herself. i suppose that is how christ feels about us! He's begging us to tell people that they are children of god because he can't do it himself.

Jan 23

Spanish is coming!

Jan 24

Elder Jose L alonso and his wife spoke to us at the devotional. It was so cool because his wife can't speak english but i understood everything she was saying in spanish! I loved it. After the devotional I talked about (to my district) how i liked how elder alonso said that we are the generation of missionaries that will do more than any generation of missionaries have done before. He said that because of this, we need to be the most obedient generation of missionaries. I taught that it reminded me of the scripture in d&c 82:3 that says with much given, much is required. I forgot the scripture while i was talking thought and I accedently quoted spiderman instead, "with great power comes great responsibility. Same diff!! .. shoot. Everyone had a good talk.

Jan 26

We taught at the trc today! I loved it. It was so amazing. We taught two volunteers who were acutally teachers here so it was a little inimidating. The first volunteer that came was a very nice guy but my spanish was terrible. I tried giving a spititual thought but I was just worried about which spanish word came next. it was so hard for some reason. I realized after that i had forgotten to pray before i started to teach. For the next volunteer I swolled my frustration and turned to the lord and prayed. i taught the same thought to a different volunteer and i testify that prayer works. The words flowed out of my mouth without even hardly thinking about it. I was able to look into his eyes and testify to him of what i know to be true. Afterwords we were given a sheet of paper with some feedback on it. he wrote comments on our evealuation and he wrote that he "would ventrue to say that it was the most spiritual experience he has ever had in the trc with the missionaries:" he said he felt the spirit so strong and learned so much and our spanish was very good. Without prayer we can't have the spirit, without the spirit, we can do nothing! Simple as that people. During our work shop a similar experience happeded. We got to know someone in 5 min and then had to seek revelation for them on our own. I said a prayer and randomly flipped open my scriptures and in a sense, put the spirit to the test. It worked! not supprised to the slightest. After talking to someone who I didn't know at all for 5 min, i was able to find something that they needed to hear right off the bat, no hesitations. So cool! Something funny that happed today is we were in tall and elder kener tried to scare me (shocker) I turned quick and accidently hit him where it counts. Oops. Bless his heart.. shouldn't have tried to scare me! Don't mess. Now everyone says, "be nice or i'll pull a cottrell on you". Awesome.

Jan 27

just got back from the temple! Guess what?? it is the mtc's 50 anniversary so the whole 1st presidency is coming to speak to us on tuesday!!!!! How awesome is that? I can't wait. I get to sing in the choir too! I will have to let everyone know how it goes! Oh and does anyone remember anna makay? she was the student body president when i was senior class vice president. She's my new roommate! We just got two new sisters in our room! So excited to have her. She's going to Paris, France. :)

Thanks for all your letters, love and support! Hold to the rod! Seek for the eternal :)

Who ya gonna call? Ghost busters!

The night before Sister Paine left we had a party with the Martinellies that mom sent!

My First pull up ever!

Ghost Buster Vac's?

Happy birthday Gabe!! I am sending out something, so look for it camayamaya!

Jan 12

P-day was pretty good last week. We did a session in the temple and usually we eat in the cafeteria there but we decided to just go on back home. We got a sausage muffin out of the vending machine. Sketch? Probably. It was actually not bad though. My quality of taste is probably declining at this point though. We wrote letters all afternoon and did our laudary. Good times! :) We were super hyper all night we were saying our companionship prayer and I started busting up laughing and we couldn't' stop. Good thing heavenly father has a good sense of humor.

Jan 13

Ups and downs! I spoke too soon when I said I was impressed that I wasn't getting too frustrated with myself more with spanish. I held it together but it was pretty frustrating. We had an interview/study session with hermano hellewell- a tutor guy. and I couldn't understand anything and larson knew everything. My head wasn't in the game. Hermana Larson and I made a new invention. We both have recieved packages with things that needed to be refrigerated. So what did we do? We got a bunch of grocery bags and made our own fridge by hanging everything out the window. Can you say ECO-friendly? You're welcome world. It's pretty awesome. This way I can have all the slimfast I want :) Our new investigator is named, trino. He seems super bored when we teach him.. kinda frusrtrating. I'm still making enemies in four square.

Jan 14.

I was sooooo tired! Everything is building up and I was just so exhausted. So in gym I decided to wake up and play four square in the "advanced players" square. I got a little cocky because I made it into the kings square my first try. It's whatevs. Hermana Larson and I made a goal to have EXACT obedience for this week. It's hard! Not that we don't do what we are supposed to.. but it's harder than I thought.

Jan 15

Sunday #3, check! This past week I think I have finally come to terms that this is my life now and i'm pretty excited about it. I like sundays because I actually have time to curl my hair! Funny how the smallest things make you happy! We met with a member of the branch presidency and he had us teach him a suprise lesson in spanish! Nervous. After our lession he said that we were speaking like we had been here 4 weeks instead of 2. That made us feel good :) Every sunday they have cereal for breakfast so they don't have to have many people work. Makes sense. I taught our district about dispensations and the apostacy. I talked about how lucky we are to live in this despensation and with the all the apostacies- we have the gospel! Out of all the zillions of people that don't have a clue about the church, I do! He picked me. I explained that I have no idea what amazing thing I did in heaven to deserve this, but i'm one lucky girl to not only have the gospel, but i get to share it with others. There will never be an aposticy again and the work WILL go on forever! Sacrament was good. Hermana Ferguson randomly got picked on to speak, she was freaking out, but she did good. Makes me nervous! Music and the spoken word was good, did you guys watch it? It was a special on MLK day. We had Jana Staples talk for relief society. she's also from the general relief socitety board. She talked about how to get the spirit, use it and keep it. The devotional was stephan B. allan. He's the managing director for the missionary department and he does all the lds commercials and stuff. We watched a lot of the commercials he had produced. ya know the commercials that say stuff like.. "family.. isn't it about.. time?? " Hermana paine said something that really stuck out to me! she said, "I know that this church is true, even more than a logical standpoint" Joseph smith wouldn't have gone through all that he went through if it wasn't true! We had our temple walk and took lots of pictures as always. We watched a talk by elder holland called missions are forever, given in april 2006. By far the best talk i've ever heard. Read it!

Jan 16

I never thought I would have the capacity to get ready- showered, make-up, hair, tights and everything in 30 min! Amazing. We taught our investegator, alex and It was the coolest experience. Definately an out of body one. We were talking about the book of mormon and I never thoguht I could say so many spanish sentences on my own.. well obviously I wasn't on my own and i wasn't the one forming the sentences. I noticed the more loved the investigator the more words came. so awesome. Hermana larson has been having back problems this week so she slept while I studied in the room. It's amazing what you can do when you don't have 19 year olds talking all the time! For service we put up the flags in front of the mtc! Cold! but fun. Definitely should have packed more than one coat. We go into the bathrooms just to stand under the hand dryers. We got done early so the matenence people were soooooooooooooo kind to let us clean toliets for the remainder of the time. They have vaccuums that look like ghost buster machines- of course we had to take pictures.. duh. We did a role play where I had to translate everything someone was saying.. stressful.. but helpful.

Jan 17

This was Hma Paines last day before she left and went to the peru mtc. New missionaries came into our zone so it's been fun showing them all the ins and outs of the mtc. we just act like we know everything even though we don't. I am in the choir now! So we went to practice, "jesus once of humble birth" for the devotional. Elder kevin r duncun from the seventy spoke and his wife bore her testimony. It was really good. they both talked about how much a person changes when they go on missions. I wish i had more time to tell you about it. it was so good. throughout the whole thing i had wished i had heard it the first week of my mission. Quick story- after the devotional our district has a testimony meeting about what we learned. I had so much to say but this is what came out. As i said before, it was hma paines last day. We had a conversation a few days before and we were talking about how much we were all going to miss her. Being the "spicy" chick that she is, she said, "how can you guys say that you're going to miss me.. you don't even know me!" I explained that it took us all off gaurd because we do love her so much! I explained that we don't have to know someone to love them.. just like our investigators and the people that we will teach and serve! Everyone was crying for some reason. Even the branch president got teary eyed and he's a pretty sturn guy to say the least. It was pretty cool. We will miss hermana paine!

Jan 18

First day as a trio companionship! I've been kinda worried about this because hma larson gets suppppppppppppppper annoyed with hma m.... it'll be ok though! I'm, good at calming things down.. i think. It was a really good day! No more time!

Love you all! Hope you guys had a fabulous week!

Love, Hermana Cottrell

MTC- Jan 14,2012

Out in the real world!

Most of my district-
Mallard, Erikson,Satchewell (DL), Larson, anderson, Maxwell & Kener

Hermana Paine & my new Jacket.

TADA

Where we spend 95% of the time!

Connor Wanner! (my GA brother)

WEek 2- much better...

Note to self- never type out of my journal again! Sorry people. By the time I was going to tell all of you the good stuff, my time ran out! Didn't mean to scare everyone! This week has been so incredibly wonderful! I've only cried tears of happiness and from the spirit. Thank you soooo sooo much for your letters! They mean soooo much to me and i love you guys so much. Thank you for the packages too mom! They were much needed. I will be writing a lot of letters today, so look for them within a couple days.

jan 6

2 months from this day was when I leave the MTC! Hilarious. We had 8 hours of class. It was good stuff. Hermana larson and i are becoming such good friends. The other hermans companionship has really been struggling though. i've had many pep talks with both girls. One almost went home even. They seem to be getting along fine now though. We try and stay out of it. We love both girls. One is going to Ogden, UT- (hermana Marcum) it covers Kaysville too so look for her! hermana Paine is going to Peru on Wednesday. So we will be a threesome companionship starting next week. One of our teachers is hermano Janis- he's pretty cool. He's fresh off the mish, he's got a good heart. Embarrassing story- I walked around for a good 5 min with my skirt tucked into my tights. Awesome. Good thing a girl teacher was kind enough to inform me of that one. Lets be honest, it was bound to happen. The poor elders will be repenting for weeks, i'm sure.

I seriously couldn't be happier! Like mon and dad said, after the trial of your faith, comes blessings! Score.

Jan 7

hardcore parcore! Hermana Larson and I do this all day to and from class. Yes, in skirts. We both like the office. We had 12 hours of strudy time/class. It wasn't bad though. Hermano Sanchez (formally Jose, our investigator) became our teacher. We had some good laughs about some spanish lines people accedently said. Someone called him Jesus instead of Jose and said that Adam and Eve had aids of something. Oops. I said some funny stuff too.

We've been doing a lot of roleplaying lately. I love it. It reminds me why I wanted to do this. We memorize so much everyday! Larson is good at memorizing so she helps me out. Everyone read Alma 26 ok? Best chapeter ever. Seriously, there's like a wall that was taken down ever since I started reading the book of mormon in the Mtc, I understand soooo much if feels like. Our district is becoming so close! It's like I have a bunch of little brothers now. I tell them everything. They are so good to us. They take my tray, open doors and even stand up when we walk in the class. The other hermana companionship had some major drama this week. The other night I heard hermana Marcum quietly crying in her bed in the bunk above me. I had a prompting to write her a letter- i was super tired but the thought kept coming "any good thought is coming fromt he lord" I wrote it and awkwardly slid the note on her bed with my flashlight attched to it so she could read it. The tears stopped. In the morning she just hugged me forever and said thank you. She's a sweetheart.

Everyday I do 50-100 sit ups, 25 pushups and run a few laps and then I can play all the 4 square I want! Best sport ever.

Jan 8

Sunday #2, Check! Man, awesome day! The sisters get to watch music and the spoken word every Sunday while the elders have meetings. Score. I wish I could write everything i've learned but there is just too much! Sister Doxy from the general relief society board spoke for relief socitey. So powerful! She got emotional when she said, I can feel your sacrifices. I had an epiphany while teaching my district about the Atonement. I was teaching about how the atonement wasn't to condem us, but because he loves us (John 3:17). All of the sudden I changed topics. in D&C 19:19 it says that even though Christ asked God if he could take away the bitter cup and it caused even him, a god to tremble, he partook and finished his preparation unto the children of men . Christ finished the mission God asked Him to do. So will I. My patriarcle blessing says to let Christs calling sink deeply into my heart to help me make my decisions. There ya go. I've never had a stronger testimony of teaching through the spirit. I think my district needed to hear that too. Sacrament was good. Everyone prepares a talk in spanish and the bishop randomly calls 2 people to speak. Luckily it wasn't me. We went on our Sunday temple walk where an elder felt so inclined to start throwing snowballs. Yes, he hit me in the face with one. Don't worry, he got his. Plus, lets just say he's my slave for the rest of eternity. Thought of the day, "I don't really like that person... I need to get to know them better."

Jan 9

We woke up extra early to do aerobics on Monday. After that we went to gym and breakfast.. good stuff. I'm creating enemies in 4 square. Bring it. We even have bets going. For service we mopped all the bathroom floors. Lets just say we showered right after. I read about the story of Korihor in Alma. I've never laughed out loud at a story in the book of mormon before, but i did. When he was struck dumb and the chief judge wrote down, "ummmm... do you believe in god now?" We got a new investigatyor, Alex. He just agreed to meet with the missionaries to impress his girlfriend. Dang.. i'm sure i'll have real investigators like that. We only take in with us a small flashcard for our lessons now. We're trying to use all of our spanish we can. Even though we struggle through, we learn so much and most importantly we learn to rely on the spirit to help us remember our spanish and to say what he needs to hear. Pretty cool feeling. Can't believe I've only been here a little over 2 weeks and I'm teaching lessons in spanish with hardly any notes!

Jan 10

I think I've decided a theme for my mission "Seek for the Eternal" Elder Worthlin said that in his talk come what may and love it. Elder Russel M Nelson came and spoke at the devotional! It was sooo cool. I swear he looked at me like ten times. It was so different than any other time i had been in a room with an apostle. I looked at it with a different perspective. He is an apostle just like in the scriptures! The spirit was so strong. He gave a really intense, deep doctrine talk about the scattering of israel. Even though I didn't understand most of it, I felt the spirit. Hermano Hallstead said that the best missionary he knew spoke the worst spanish. He said that the missionary baptized someone that said, " I don't know hardly anything that he taught me, but I know what I felt and I know that it's true. That's all you need to know! Recognize the spirit because he has his own language that we all understand! Elder Nelson said that because we are on missions, we are fullfilling so many specific prophacies. Cool to think about. He said to "endure to the End-dowments from the temple. We go through the temple once for ourselves and the rest of our lives we go for other people. Something to ponder on!

Jan 11

I fasted for Grandpa John and the fam! Know that you're in my prayers! Love you all. New missionaries came. I feel so old here even though I haven't been here very long. We passed out flyers of uplifting quotes, that was fun. Hermano Janis said in our interview that we are ahead of a lot of people and he's really impressed. That felt good. Laci! I discovered hermana Newton! She's in my zone, going to az but not the visitors center. She's super cute and nice.

Jan 12

We just got back from the temple! It was really good. I can't wait to write everyone letters back! Everyone has helped me so much! Thank you thank you thank you! It's been such a good week and the days are picking up and starting to go by faster. You guys are in my prayers! Hold to the rod! :) I'm so grateful to be here. I've already learned a lifetime of lessons in the 2 short weeks i've been here.

Love you,

Hermana Cottrell

Sara's 1st photos- Jan. 6, 2012

Temple walk w/ Hermana Larson, my companion. She's going to my same mission.

Elder Satchwell- District leader
Elder Erickson

My Mission President

Me, Hermana Ferguson, forgot her name, Larson, Paine, and Marcum.

Zone leaders that just left- Elder Wood is on the right, from my old ward.

1st night, no make up.

first day

My roomies-

pointing to our missions
Marcum- Ogden
Paine- Peru

Elder Patrick Starrs
My Ballroom Partner @UVU

Me and Elder Spencer VanLueween from my ward. We went out the same day!

Snail Mail Letter Jan. 6, 2012

Mama Y Brumton,
Hi! So I know the email I sent probably freaked everyone out. The more I thought about it, the more I was worried. I laughed at my prayer I said before I ate lunch today, "Please help mom & dad not to freak out & worry about me because of my email". Sorry- I probably should rethink typing what I write in my journal. Plus by the time I wanted to write all the good stuff my time was up! It's all good;-). Of course my first week is going to be hard but I'm sure I'll get use to it & start to love every second;-). Thank you for your love & support! It helps me so much & it's so motivating to get letters. I need them. It helps me a lot at night.
Hows the Spanish coming? You're probably super busy as always. How are grandpa and grandma feeling? Did everyone get over their colds? Hope so. They have hand sanitizer everywhere here, you'll be happy to know! I have a little bit of a cold thought. I think there's just toooo many kids here. Was it you or dad that wanted to hear what my schedule was? I'll just tell you both:
6:30 ish- wake up- although we usually go workout before that. 7am breakfast, 7:30-8:30 is personal study, class from 8:30-11:30. Lunch @ 11:30, Gym is 12:30, "Tall" from 2:15-3:15, Language study 3:15-4:15, dinner @ 4:30, personal study time @ 5:15-6:45, devotional @ 7-8, district devotional 8-9, ;lan @ 9-9:30, companionship prayer, lights out at 10:30. That's our tuesdays. It's a little different each day but not by much. The only difference is that we have 6 hours of class instead of 3. But really it's way more because personal study and companionship time and district stuff is all in the same room. Oh and language study is too. Talk about T.B.! I told you a little bit about gym but I think you'd appreciate this story- So we were playing 4 square yesterday and an elder got me out. The next time I got back in I spiked the ball as hard as I could & got him out without even thinking I said, " Hey! You had that comin' buddy'. I felt bad and said I was kidding after (but I wasn't really). He was a good sport. Even though my email doesn't sound like it, I really do like it here...most of the time;-) It's just hard- but something that I learned this week is that you have to sacrifice things to make it worth it ;-). It's all good. Write me lots though & pray for me k? For now at least! It'll get better ;-) A blanket would be nice but it's ok if not! Also, I've been wanting a hoodie or sweatshirt (that I already have at home- don't buy anything) at night. I could easily survive without it though. Thanks for all your love & support! This still feels like EFY or something & I'm about to go home. Weird feeling. The only place we can go is the temple when we have time. The language is coming along, we're teaching our 5th lesson tonight- in Spanish- really cool!
Love you guys so much! So sosososo so so MUCH! Love, Hermana Cottrell
Ps- Laci said her and the girls are coming. cool. kiss'em for me;-)
Que tenga una buena semana

Jan. 6 2012- A little bit homesick?

Buenas Dias Familia!

So i'm going to start copying Sam and write some of the things I write in my journal so I can remeber everything. Time is somewhat picking up, so that's good. I have some pictures i'm sending out today, so look for those.

Dec 31, 2011

Feliz anos nueva! Hope everyone had a good new year. I was in bed by 10:30. But i woke up to a new year so that's good. I struggled knowing it was a holiday, but what can ya do? It was a fun day because I got to write home and that helped me a lot. I've tried to look for charity opportunities to be happier here. I try and put notes on peoples doors at night that just say "you are loved" or give them candy or something. That helps me not focus on myself as much. I also write in my journal things that I am grateful for and that helps too. I'm starting to understand a lot of spanish! It's coming a long and it's cool to notice the Lords hand in helping me learn so quick.

Jan 1

Happy new year 2012. It'll be a great year. We had my first mission conference today. there was some really good talks about being happy and the difference between having self centered or misplaced faith instead of chist centered faith. They called up random people to bare their testimonies infront of all 2000 of us. yikes. good thing that wasn't me. I also learned today that gratitude is the quickest way to happines. Before the firesides start they have hymns that we sing. Everyone cheers really loud when it's a popular song. Only in the MTC would that ever happen. After the fireside we got to watch a movie- the joseph smith movie. I ran into Conner ogden when we had our temple walk earlier today. that was cool! I felt bad though because he said he missed his family when he saw me. I was glad i got to see him before he left the MTC. It was weird not calling him conner wanner and not hugging him. I{ve been having a hard time here and i finally cried it out today. It feels so much better. There is a sister' hermana ferguson and she{s over the sisters in our zone and she said its ok to cry and we need to sometimes. Ive just been trying to suck it up but she{s totally right. come what may and love it.

Jan 2

Everytime i lay down in my bed i have the mind set that i can{t do this. Today I woke up not feeling well. I didn{t get much sleep at all because i was congested all  night and my stomach was hurting way bad. No bueno. Hermana larson and i stayed in our dorm and slept for a couple hours. I felt bad. I felt like i should have just gotten over it. My body is getting sick of the food already' so much prossesed food. Uh oh.

Jan 3

During the day I have been totally fine as always but nights are terrible. I learned a lot though during class and at my first tuesday night devotional. Like in class i learned that heavenly father has been preparing his children for eons. That being said, we are no better than they are and we need to give them more credit this is why need can be so bold with our investigatiors. I am working on memorizing our purpose and dc 4 in spanish. we gave our 3rd lesson to jose and i think it went pretty well we attempted to talk about the bom and told him to read it. we talked about joseph smith too. we used a lot of spanglish to try and get our point across but it{s ok apparently the investegator is actually going to be our teacher later on so he really does understand us we found that our a while ago. another teacher spilled the beans. I am comprehending the book of mormon so much more than i every have. It{s so applicable to me now. I love it. It{s not just a task anymore. it{s relaxing and a really good read. We printed out pictures today. it took an hour and a half cuz the machines are retarded. but... they{re comin! We have a program named Tall. Its a computer program that you sit there and work on pronunciation and record yourself and stuff it{s cool. After the fireside i learned that we all want patience but we all want it now! so true. the biggest thing that stuck out to me the most was he said, let your mission bless your future family. we all came back to our classroom after and bore testimony of what we learned. i mentioned that and cried through the whold thing. the branch presidents wife came and talked to me after and said that missions and marriage are two very good things and you need to make a decision. i thought i had! I{ve been struggling a lot though and i just had a breakdown.. again. good thing it{s just girls and little 19 year olds. Sister fergason is in the same boat as i am and she gave me some pointers on how to cope this this. Letters help me so much. You{d think they make me sad but seriously.. letters and christ are the only things making me stay out here.

Jan 4

tomorrow is p day i cant wait. we are going to the temple weve taught jose 5 times now. i can{t believe it. We had role plays today which was nice to mix it up... NO time to write.. it was a good day. In gym my new favorite thing is four square. i get too competitive though

Jan 5

Just got back from the temple... i need all your prayers please. The thing that i felt like heavenly father was telling me is that celestial families are the most important thing right now.. i{m so confused. please send letters.. I will write hand written letters so you can here the rest of all that is going on. Don{t worry though. I will be fine. and i{m so blessed and grateful to be here

love  you all!!!!

Love, Hermona Cottrell 

Sara vs. MTC Dec. 28,2011

Letter Jan. 2, 2012

Hola familia!

 Welll here I am! Its been really good so far. It feels like ive been here for a year. But it{s been good. My companion is Hermona Larson. Shes really similar to me. I really like her and we get along really well. Shes from Houston, TX. She{s really outgoing and bubbly and positive. I will try and sent a picture. Ive run into a lot of people I know like Mike Larson and people I went to high schoool and was really good friends with like sydney taylor and ali harris, they{ve helped me out a lot.. oh, and the vanlewen kid.. i dont{ know how to spell his last name. I{ve already learned how to pray, bare tesimony and we even taught a fake investegator twice already! The first time was pretty painful to say the least. But today went a lot better. Im starting to get the hang of things. Days are really long! Getting up early doesnt bug me though. We have class for like six to 8 hours a day and if we aren{t in class we are in meetings or something. It was kinda weird the first day i got here subconsciously i felt like I was just visiting for the day and I would be going home after. Ill get use to it. Day two was a lot harder. Days kinda mix together though. Heavenly Father has definitely put the right people in my path that i can relate to and learn from. I was interviewed by the president of the MTC yeterday and he made me senior companion. Kinda cool i guess. A lot of people said that if I can make it through till sunday ill be fine. Its crazy how much you learn here in such a short amout of time. Spanish is coming along! Although I have soooooooo much to learn! We had our first gym time yesterday. We worked out really hard and felt like it was precious time. Weve been eating really healthy too. Hermona Larson and i really dont want to gain weight so we only eat like salads and wraps usually and no deserts or sugar except sundays. Its good too because we eat really early at like 430 for dinner and then nothing else. So were doin pretty good there. We even get up extra early and work out before we have to get up. They sometimes have aerobic classes for the sisters in the morning too so that{s kinda cool. Everyone is so spiritually prepared and ready here. I learn a lot from them. I have a really good district! Everyone is starting to come out of there shell a little bit so it makes it more fun. Hermona Larson and I really try and push each other which is good because we work really hard. Everyone in my dorm, 5 girls, are really nice and positive too so that helps. I don{t have any problems with them at all. Im grateful to be here. The bathrooms are....humbling. ha, they{re fine. We don{t spend much time in our rooms, just sleep.. so it doesnt really matter that they{re really small. No music until i get out in the feild. I was kinda bummed about that. My pday is on thursdays so i{ll usually get to email and send letters on thursdays but they let us email today. That{s when we will go to the temple early in the mornings too. They let me write you guys yesterday and tell you about my immunization card.. did you get that mom. I think i left it! after all that. Well i don{t really know what else to say other than i{m doing well and its a cool place. i can feel angels protecting us so dont worry about it. Thank you for the letter mom and dad and kelcie and cory! it helps sooooooooooo much... you don{t even know. We can only write letters on thrusday though so don{t get mad if i don{t respond quickly. While we were teaching our so called investegator, even though we didn{t know what we were saying, we felt the spirit and that was really cool. Just a confirmation that I{m out here for the right reasons. We even asked him if he wanted to take the steps towards baptism...i think... and he said si!... it felt really good. the spirit is really strong. Cory, i don{t know if you{ve gotten my letter yet, but please thank your parents for the package! that was so sweet of them and i was able to share with everyone! I am working on a letter to them but please thank them for me! I love and miss you all! i seriously can{t believe i{ve only been here for less than 72 hours. Crazy. I never thought my brain could hold so much. Hope all is well with everyone! Write to me, be safe and hold to the rod!

Love,

Hermona Cottrell