MTC Week 6 ( Last MTC Email!!!!!!!!!!!)

Kumusta Pamilya!!

Time has flown! I can't believe I only have a couple more days here. It is kind of freaking me out. But I am super excited to go! I have absolutely loved the MTC and each week got better and better. We have had such amazing speakers and even better teachers! I am so blessed and so lucky.

 So as you know this week was the new mission presidents seminar and the broadcast was on Sunday. Relief society was great also, Sister Hafen and Sister Gass played their violins and they sounded amazing!! After we came out of relief society in the morning, we were walking back to our class, and in front of our building were 3 cars parked on the sidewalk with security guards standing by them. I knew instantly they were the first presidency's cars!!! We tried to stalk them through the windows in the buildings,but the security people asked us to go back to class. Well as it turns out, our class has a PERFECT view of the cars so we totally saw President Monson getting into his car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was trying so hard to get a picture, but my camera just decided it didn't want to work -_- but we totally saw him and some of the other members of the quorum of the twelve. It was the coolest thing!  We also saw Eyring on Monday or Tuesday getting into his car, so I have a lovely blurry picture of him as well.

The beginning of this week was really cool. Sister Wilkes got to sing in a special choir this week and so they sang the opening song in every meeting for the new presidents this week, so she pretty much saw the whole quorum of the 12 as well as the whole 1st presidency. I am pretty jealous, but I know she had a great experience with it. 

At the broadcast, we were sitting 7 rows back and I am the 4th seat in on the soprano side (the side not right next to the elders). It was SO cool to watch the all the members come in and I love the dramatic reverence that comes when they walk in and everyone stands up. It is my favorite part. 

On Monday we watched  the broadcast again to see if we  could see our selves.  About eighteen minutes in to the broadcast you can see Sister Willkes (she's in a green shirt), me in Yellow, Sis. smart in dark blue, and Sis. Streble in white. So look for us!!

Tuesday night we had the greatest devotional EVER! It was Janice Kapp Perry !!!!! Her husband spoke first about his mission in France and how it was really hard and that it is important to listen to the spirit when we teach because it will always guide us. Then Sis. Perry spoke. She talked about how she got started writing songs and such. She pretty much wrote all my favorite songs in the Children's song book and we were able to sing All of them like; Child's Prayer, Families can be Together Forever, I love to See the Temple, I'm Trying to be Like Jesus, Etc. It was SO good!!

 Then she told the story of how she met her husband. She said they were in the same music class in college getting ready to take a midterm, so she was practicing and she said he slid his chair over close to her and said "Those lips look like they could be doing something better than playing clarinet..."!!!!!!! Ha everyone went nuts! Then to top it, he gets up out of his chair, walks over to her and plants a great big kiss on her!!!! Ha everyone was going crazy!!!! He even got a standing ovation (mostly from the Elders of course) ha but it was so good!! The best part is, he is like 78. It was great! After that she sang a song she wrote for a family and all of her kids and grand kids had parts in it. And for her husbands part, he just says "I love you" or something and after his part he gave her ANOTHER great big kiss. I loved it! 

For the end of her talk, she had the Sister's sing her version of "As Sister's in Zion".  I guess she came to the MTC a few months ago and was very impressed by all the new Sisters, so she wrote a beautiful new version of the song and called it "The Sister's of Zion". I have all the lyrics to it, so if I have time to send it to you I will. But anyway, The Elder's sang Helaman's army.(it's the efy melody). My favorite line that the sisters and elders sang is "We are NOW the Lord's missionaries". It gives me the chills. I just love it. It was really cool though when the Elder's part came because they all stood up at the same time. And I wasn't paying attention to well, so I don't know how they all knew to stand up, but it was probably the coolest thing I've ever seen and the spirit just hit so strong. It was beautiful, and I couldn't think of a better last Tuesday Devotional. It was too perfect!

So that was the excitement at the beginning of the week. We had class just like normal  everyday. Wednesday at gym time, we went outside and played Frisbee and stuff. It was fun.  I did 2 back handsprings. IT FELT SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!  Elder Kunz in our district and I also have handstand contests. Its really fun (but don't tell anyone cause I don't think we're supposed to do stuff like that....haha oops).

We had our last lesson with our "investigator" Nico, and we committed him to baptism!! I memorized the commitment in Tagalog. He said yes! It was SO cool!! Tagalog is coming so much better now. We also taught another lesson to our other teacher last night, and we were able to pretty much do all of it in Tagalog with only a few English words here and there. And we were able to help him with some of his concerns. It was really neat to be able to understand what he was saying and be able to remember scriptures that applied to his needs.

 On Thursday we had TRC and we got to skype with people! We thought we would be skyping real Filipinos...but I am pretty sure they were all just RM's. But the lessons went pretty well. Yesterday we had our "In Field Training", but we pretty much just sat there from 8-5:30, with meal breaks, and learned about what it's like in the field. It was good, but super long.

We started packing on Thursday, and it is totally stressing me out. I'm sure it'll be fine, but I have sent some things home and I think I am just going to leave my lotion, shampoo, conditioner, and giant thing of hand sanitizer here so that I don't go over on my luggage weight. It seriously feels so weird to be leaving. I think I'm ready but at the same time I am nervous because I have no idea what to expect. I bought a calling card today, so be near the house phone on Monday and I will be able to call you guys from the air port!! We have to be ready to go by 6:30, but again, our flight won't leave till 11:30, so we'll have plenty of time to call our families.

I love you guys SO much and I really appreciate all of the letters and packages you've sent me. I am so blessed and I am just so glad I have so much support from you guys. I hope Abby had a good birthday and congrats to dad on the new calling!!! I am so lucky to have you all in my life and for your great examples. Sometimes it hits me really hard and at weird times that I am actually a missionary, and will be in the Philippines in like 3 days. I can't wait for all my new adventures! Mahal Kita!!!!

Love,
Sister Mecham

 

 Everyone huddled by the window to see the Prophet!

 Not very happy to see Sister Harris leave for Moscow:(

 Sister Streble likes to sing to her camera....ha! she is hilarious!

 Sister Streble and Sister Smart love to serenade us with Cheetah Girls songs as well as "Sisters" from White Christmas. We all sing that song at least once a day and none of us really know the words..

 Sister Wilkes with cookies from home! Yummmy!!!

 The district eating the cookies sister Wilke's mom sent!

These are our lovely teachers, Bro. Pearce and Bro. Nickles eating cookies!

 Sister Wilkes and I with Brother Pearce!

 These are all the San Pablo sisters! The one with the curly hair served with  Elder Kaleb Hurst!

This is Elder Tanner. Yes!  Tanner, as in Scott Tanner's son. He's going to
Sweden and we saw him while we were doing tall.
(These three awesome missionaries all took violin lessons together for years from Elder Tanner's Dad!)