WElcome home Stink

Hello!

 

This week has been slower than the first week I got to the MTC... Well.. not really, but pretty close! It's been a good one though.

 

Friday we had what is called "in-field orientation" it lasted from 8:15 am to 9:45 pm. They had a bunch of slides and talked to us pretty much the entire time. It was fine though, good info for the field. We got our travel plans too! So exciting. We leave tuesday morning at 5 am and our flight leaves around 8:30 i believe. So look for a call between 6:30 and 7:30 i would imagine. I'll say, good morning!!!! :) You can go back to bed after :) I'm excited to call and see how everything is going with sam being home and everything. Please take pictures and send them to me. Especially with the family and cory and kelcie when they come tonight!

 

Saturday we had our last classes with all of our district there. I never imagined that it would be so hard to say goodbye to our district! We really became a family and we were all best friends. I'm sure that's how my whole mission will be like. Meeting people you love and then saying goodbye. I guess that's how all of life is though, right? That's why heaven will be so great, i'm sure :) I had a friend that was leaving for the LA VC the day sam was coming home, so I copied the advice sam gave me that the sisters had written for me at the LA VC and gave it to her. She loved it. I'm sure she will see a lot of the sisters that wrote on the paper, kinda cool.

We had a really good testimony meeting with our district, everyone was crying... pretty dramatic. But it was really good.

 

Sunday in sacrament meeting I knew I was going to get called up to give a talk in spanish and guess what? I did! I actually wan't nervous at all thoguh. It was on obedience and I just told an experience and bore my testimony and my 5 min was up! So there ya go, not so bad after all. During the sacrament a poor elder fell of the stage while giving the bread to the elders passing the sacrement. Bless his heart. We went to the departure devotional with our district and elder erickson in our district got called to bare his testimony in front of everyone. Scccary. He did good though. Sunday night we all sang "god be with you till we meet again" and cried and said our goodbyes.

 

Monday we did service in the morning and cleaned the showers. I swear you could make 50 wigs from all the hair we pulled out of the drains... probably wont miss that when I leave on tuesday. We taught our last lessons to our teachers. It was kinda funny because hmo sanchez was playing an investigator names Juaquin. He is a hard investigator and loves his bible and not excited about the church. It has taken him a lot to progress, but this time we went in there and he was all teary eyed and and excited for some reason. During our lesson, he was not just crying, but like hysterically crying.. we didn't know what to do except take advantage of it.. "will you pray every day juaquin?" yes yes yes, i'll pray! "will you read the book of mormon every day?" yes, of course i will. "will you be baptized in 3 weeks?" yes i will, yes yes. haha awesome! Later we found out that he was happy and sad that it was our last lesson teaching him. He could see how much the gift of tongues has blessed us but he was sad to leave. We decided to cheer him up by putting a woopie-cushion on his chair when he walked back in the classroom. It was pretty funny/immature.

 

Tuesday was two months in the mtc! We woke up bright and early to drop Hma marcum off at the bus. Hma Larson wasn't too sad, but I will miss her! We got packed (mostly) because I wanted to send things home with sam the next day so my suitcase wouldn't be over 50 lbs. What a blessing! On my very last tuesday night devotional we had Elder Holland come!!!! It was soooo awesome! We had been packing all day so we hadn't even heard of any apostles coming that night. Such a good devotional for my last one! I wrote about 5 pages of notes. Everything he said was so inspired! Something I loved that he said was that we are Gods investigators. Everytime we want someone to pray harder or to read more or to study more, God wants US to do that. Something cool that he said too was that chapter one of the book of mormon is exactly the story of Joseph Smith and it tells all the investigators what we believe.. in the very first chapters. We believe in prophets, prayers, visions, records, the spirit, dreams and most importantly, revelation! Everyone read 1st nephi 1 and think of joseph smiths life, it's soooo cool! I literally saw light around Elder Holland. I know he is a prophet of God. He pounded the pulpit and said "we expect so much of all of you, and we don't apologize!" He said that we don't have the right to compromise this work and everyone thinks missionaries are perfect, so don't let them down! It was good to hear. He also expressed his love for us. We all needed to hear it. It was awesome.

 

Wednesday! Such a good day!!! Long one too. We almost missed our bus to SLC because we got the times mixed up.. but after not being in a car since december.. we weren't going to miss that bus!!! So we made it and left for salt lake. I was all excited to be in a car until i got super car sick! I guess not being in a car for that long will do that to ya. We were only there for a couple hours and we had sisters take us around and kind of just get a feel of what we will be doing at a visitor center. It was really good. We drove back and it was almost time for sam to come! It was soooooooo awesome seeing him! He looked so good. I got to talk to one of my best friends! It was such a blessing. It was so fun talking to him in spanish too! Mom and dad recorded it. I loved that mom and dad ran in the mtc even though they weren't supposed to! I just laughed and hugged them. Somehow i didn't think it was that weird! I thought it would be kind of sad, but i was just happy!! It was the best feeling ever! I'm glad he is home safe and doing well! I'm excited to hear about his homecoming and everything. I am so proud of him and he is such a good example to me for my mission and in life in general! Love him! Thanks for the package too mom and dad!! Everything was just what i needed!!!!!!!! thank you thank you thank you!!

 

Thursday

Long day!! we got new sisters last night so we made their beds and got them candy and showed them around and made them feel welcome. We had our first TRC with volunteers for VC training. It's weird having a district with just sisters. We get a lot more done though, i wont lie. Our trc experience went really well.. but.. it was in english. Monday is in spanish. Yikes.

 

This is my last p-day here so next time you hear from me i'll be in sunny AZ!!! Can't wait! love you all. Hope everything is going well for everyone!

 

Seek for the eternal :)

 

Love, Hma Cottrell