MTC Week 5

Kumusta Pamilya!

 

Guess who has travel plans.....THIS SISTER!!!!!!!!!!! I seriously can't believe that I leave in a week and 2 1/2 days! Ahhh!! So we will leave July 1st around noon from Salt Lake, fly to Portland Oregon and have a 4 hour layover there, then off to TOKYO then after a super long flight (I think like 14 hours or something, yipee...), we will get to Manila, and then I assume we will take a bus or something to San Pablo. Craziness. Just pure craziness. I am SO excited though!!!! We will be split up from our district :( but Sister Wilkes and I and Sister Smart will all go with a group of other San Pablo missionaries, and then we meet back up with anther district in Tokyo. So at least we won't have to be alone.

 

So besides getting our legit flight plans, this week has been phenomenal. I absolutely love the MTC! Last Saturday night, we had TRC where you go and talk to a volunteer in Tagalog about things like prayer and church and the scriptures. Our first TRC was a couple weeks ago and it was terrible. The people could not understand us at all and it was just super awkward. After class, our teacher asked what was wrong and we both just started bawling cause we were really frustrated. So last week, we took a lot more time to prepare so that we wouldn't have that experience again. Our first volunteer we talked to also served with Carlos Morgan, so that was a good ice breaker, and then  as we were talking to him and just getting to know him, he just stopped and told us that our Tagalog is really good. He said that he volunteers every week and he hasn't ever had any one as good as us. We were both in SHOCK!! It was such a confidence booster and the rest of the lesson went really well. And even our second lesson went well too. 

 

The volunteers evaluate the companionship and write things we could improve on and the first guy said that we were a great companionship and worked really well together. It was so cool!! I still am not sure if he says that to everyone or if he really means it, but either way I'll take it :) Then that night we kinda just pigged out on all of our sweets with our roommates as kind of one last hoorah with them before they left.

 

On Sunday we had Stephen B. Allen again, and this time he gave the talk he had prepared a couple weeks ago when he was prompted to talk about other things. But I loved his talk this week because he showed us a bunch of commercials the church has put out over the years that he helped produce and such. It was really fun to watch all of them and then he related them to missionary work.

 

 Tuesday night, we made the trek over to the Marriot center again for that devotional. It seriously will never get old seeing the thousands of missionaries all walking over there. It is so cool. And that night we sang in the choir again, but I don't think we were on the TV. Boo. Ha! but it was still a really good devotional. Robert C. Gay of the 70 spoke and talked about how missionary work is a revelatory work and we HAVE  to listen to the spirit when we teach and make sure we invite everyone, even the leaders we will be working with to come to Christ. He was a mission pres. in Ghana and said when Elder Holland came one time he asked the missionaries what power they had. After everyone shared what they thought, he told them "You have the power to astonish the world" because our real companion is the Savior and we are empowered by God. It was so cool. I absolutely love the speakers we get to hear from at the MTC and it really is so good to get a good pep talk each week about our work. 

 

Monday we had to say goodbye to our adorable roomies. I miss them so much, but we got their email addresses and everything so we are patiently waiting to hear from them. They were the greatest!!

 

Wednesday was fantastic. We finally got to be Host's to the new missionaries!!!!! The first Sister I helped came early because she flew in from Washington, so I just helped her carry her luggage to her room and then helped her get her books and showed her to her class room. After that I went back to the curb where I was supposed to stand to help host more people, but as I was walking up, I saw Sister (Meghan) Derrick getting out of the car and I was able to Host her! It was so fun! So I did the same thing and just helped her to her room and get books and go to her class. It was really fun to be able to host a familiar face. 

 

After we finished hosting, we had class again, and Sister Wilkes and I taught a really great lesson to our investigator "Nico". It is so amazing to see how fast I am picking up the language. I definitely don't know everything he said to us, but I was able to understand most of it and testify to him as well as answer some of his questions. It really was amazing. After class, our teacher Bro. Pearce, who is "Nico" ,  said that each of our lessons tonight were really good and he could feel the spirit very strongly in both of them.

 

That night when we were back in our dorm, we were sitting down to do a devotional with our new roommates, because we almost always did a devotional with our old roomies, and Sis. Harris pokes her head in the door and says, you are never going to believe who is here, then Sister (Abbey) Hafen comes in!!!! I totally freaked out and screamed and hugged her and we jumped around and screamed some more. I was SO happy to see her!!!!! I seriously couldn't stop smiling. It was so fantastic! I was so happy to see her. I seriously feel like the luckiest person ever! I have Sister Harris AND Sister Hafen on the same floor as me. It is just too perfect. Sis. Hafen is also in my branch so we have the exact same schedule so I get to see her a lot :) I am so happy about that. It will definitely be nice to have her there when Sister Harris leaves on Monday to Russia. I am going to miss her SO MUCH!!!!!!! (Also Sister Harris says Hi !

Also they are setting up for the Mission Presidents this weekend so they have been cleaning up the MTC and painting, so the campus looks great! We walked past a room a couple days ago and there were tons of gorgeous flower arrangements in there. It was awesome. It made me really excited for Sunday! Be looking for me in the choir. I am going to be wearing my yellow shirt from the missionary mall and my hair

 will be half up so you can see my name badge. And I will be standing by Sister Harris and Sister Wilkes.

Well I think that's all. I love this church I love that I'm a missionary, and I can't wait to go to the Philippines!!!

 

Mahal Kita!!!

 

Love,

Sister Mecham

 

This is Sister Amende and Sister Ormond. They are both from New Zealand. Amende was the cutest little thing and had a super strong accent, so it was so nice to just listen to them talk because they had the greatest accents and were all so genuine. It was great. Ormond helped me the first nigh I was here and just gave me a pep talk that it would all be alright. It was so nice of her. These two were both just so kind and so loving.

These are all the Roomies!!!!!! I love them so much!!!

Last night with our roomies!!!

 

Sis. Wilkes and I FINALLY got Philippines shirts!!!!!!!! Woot woot

This is Sister Gleave. She was in my english class at Dixie!

The morning they left :( They were the best!!!

Ran into Elder Sant on our way to choir practice.

SISTER HAFEN!!!!!! Seriously I could not stop smiling!!!****

This picture is my favorite. I am so lucky and so blessed. These two are such blessings and HUGE reminders from the Lord that he really wants me here. I love them both so much:)

Sis. Wilkes and I with Sister Kaufusi and Sister Krix. Kaufusi is from New Zealand and apparently at night when she would go to the bathroom and come back in, I would be sitting up in my bed starring at her and totally creep her out. But I don't remember doing that...haha oh well. And Krix is from Sydney Australia and may or may not be one of my absolute favorite people in the world. She is hilarious. She said one time after gym while she was just laying on her bed, "If i did a situp, my stomach would explode and a hamburger would pop out covered in chocolate and Doughnuts". haahaha seriously she was the greatest and she would make me laugh all the time. I definitely miss her.