WEEK 2(ish)

HELLO FAMILY AND FRIENDS!

Guess what??? I am most definitely alive. Also, BRAIN VOMIT this whole email. Really fast:
The MTC is probably my favorite place of all time.
Things about the MTC that are fun:
1. Creepy announcement voice that comes on every night at 10:15 and 10:30 to announce quiet time and bedtime. SUPER WEIRD!
2. The orange juice in the dining hall has laxatives. Straight up.
3. So many un-oak-approp. words, my ears are bleeding.

I guess I can start with a few things that happened on day one that I didn't already tell you about, but remember that there are way too many things going on each day to tell you every little detail.
First of all, ERIN OLDROYD was my happy little host as soon as I pulled up to the curb and that made everything so much happier and easier. She was the best host of all time and I actually see her all the time around here ;)
Umm, also on night one, we had this big teaching workshop thing for all the newbies and there was the most hilarious thing that happened during it: We were all introduced to this “investigator” named Tayla and she had tons of questions about the church. One of the elders in the room volunteered to stand up and try to teach her a little bit and started getting into the Pearl of Great Price on accident and she was all "Wait, what is the Pearl of Great Price? You have more scripture than just the Bible and BOM???'' and he was like "Well, ya see, it's a funny story... Joseph Smith bought this mummy and blah blah blah''....Moral of the story is this: don't bring up mummies in your very first discussion or bad things happen. Super hilarious.

Other great things:
1. My district and I all decided to join the choir and it is the BEST. Tonight we get to sing for the Tuesday night devotional where some general authority comes to speak. No idea who it will be yet, but please pray it's Elder Christofferson for me. :)
2. Our branch president (basically our bishop in the MTC) DESPISES the word 'guys' so the elders all decided to keep a tally of the number of times they say that and they have to do 10 push ups for each time. Elder Delahunty got up to 200 push ups one day and we're all very convinced that he said it on purpose just so he could show off to all the sisters and that's super weird of him to do.
3. Brother Farr (am) and Sister Stegelmeir (pm) are our teachers and they are THE MOST incredible people of all time. Sister Stegelmeir is basically just a surfer dude in woman form and also the biggest spiritual giant I've ever met. She's taught me so much about how to be a better teacher and lover of the people. Brother Farr is basically just husband goals. HE KNOWS EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT CHURCH DOCTRINE. I look up to him a lot. I'm super thankful for both of them!
4. So far, Sister Brume and I have 2 “investigators” that we teach, and we've taught a total of 4 lessons.
--Jessica: She's a pregnant mother who moved here from TN and wants to find a good church for her family. Out of the 3 lessons we've taught, there has only been one that we feel really good about. Teaching is super hard because you really never know what's going to happen or where the spirit is going to lead you. The other 2 lessons, we focused way too much on trying to teach them what we wanted to teach them, rather than listening to what they wanted to be taught. It's a confusing concept, hahaha.
--Lianna: We just met her yesterday at the training resource center (TRC). You know how sometimes they are just real members pretending to be fake? No, Lianna is a legit non-member/BYU student. She's really intelligent and has a lot of questions about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. She doesn't really think it's inspired and she's heard a lot of weird things about Joseph Smith. I’m honestly really intimidated to teach her. She's pretty set on what she believes already. PRAY FOR US.
5. On Sunday night, we stayed after the devotional to watch a video called “Character of Christ." It's just a recording of a talk given by Elder Bednar about 5 years ago at the MTC and it's only shown at the MTC, which is the biggest bummer of all time because it is seriously a LIFE CHANGING talk. It's all about how Christ, during his hardest trials, is always, constantly turned outward, or thinking of others, rather than turned inwards, thinking of himself and how hard things are for him. I wish I could tell you all the specifics or that you could see it yourself because it honestly completely changed my life and my whole perspective on everything. This mission is not about what I want. It's not about how hard it is for me. It's not about what my natural man wants. Everything about this mission is about the Lord and serving His children. Bednar's biggest thing in this talk was that having a testimony of the gospel is not enough. I have to do and BECOME fully converted unto the Lord and everything He wants, and conversion is a continuing thing. In class, we've been really focusing on the difference between knowing something vs. doing something vs. becoming something. It's a really hard thing to do and it's incredibly hard to change your mindset completely. The only part of a mission that has every been about me was those 5 seconds I spent reading the words "Dear Sister Lawson, you are hereby called to serve..." and the rest has been completely focused on others. BEDNAR IS THE COOLEST. I really wish the whole world could see this movie--the world would be such a better place if that happened.
6. EVERY BODY PLEASE STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING RIGHT NOW AND GO TO HEBREWS 6:1. Brother Farr shared this scripture in class, and it literally is actual proof in the Bible of apostasy. It says something along the lines of "we must leave behind the doctrines of Christ because we don't need it anymore". SO CRAZY. In class, we've been studying a lot about how the word "gospel" has been changed so much in our church. In a nut shell, gospel means "the atonement" and when we say ''the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored'', we are really saying ''the knowledge/fullness of the ATONEMENT has been restored" and this is so important. When we teach, our teachers have told us to relate every single lesson in PMG back to Jesus Christ and his atonement. Sometimes it's super hard. I really hope some of this is making sense, haha. It's so hard to condense everything I've learned into one email!
7. We went to the temple today! I DON'T KNOW IF I'LL BE ABLE TO EMAIL PICTURES.

I promise that I'm learning so much and feeling the spirit all the time, AS WELL AS having lots of fun, haha. Okay, I have no time now.

Other things:
1. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY THIS WEEK. I LOVE YOU GUYS.
2. NEWS ON MARY POPPINS????
3. Flight info: our Flight from Utah leaves at 8:30am on TUESDAY (Sept 22) morning. We have to meet at the travel office at 3:30 am to hit the front runner down to the airport. I'll probably be calling you sometime between the hours of 5am-8am hahaha. I'm so sorry! But try super hard to be ready for it, hahaha. I LOVE YOU.
4. Stuff I would please love to have sent here:
-toiletry bag (you were right...)
-some more tissue bags. I forgot to tell you guys that I have caught the worst cold I think I’ve ever had. Today and yesterday were miserable. Don't worry though, I'm taking care of myself and bought some Day/Niquil.
-the blue shampoo in the shower downstairs... I don't like the kind I have right now. It's destroying my hair.
That's all I can think of right now.
5. THANK YOU FOR THE COOKIES AND NICE NOTES. My roomies and I LOVED them.

Out-of-context quotes from Elder McRae of the week:
(DISCLAIMER: He's basically the biggest hick of all time, but also the funniest hick of all time)
-"Yeah, he mail ordered his bride. I'm like from Whoville or something."
-"If it floats your goat, then do it."
-"Bee keeping... that's where the real money's at."
-*Elder Goold sharing 1 Nephi 17:2 (please read this ASAP) with investigator during lesson on accident* "So how does that relate to you?"
Investigator: "Well, they like their raw meat I guess."
Elder McRae: "HOW DOES THAT RELATE TO ANYONE???"
-"I want a pregnancy massage"

Ummm, I really hope I got everything. THIS IS SO STRESSFUL.
I'll call you later :):)):):):):):):)::)):):L>O))::))::)):):):OO):)GFDII)FS:))::)

Love,
SISTER LAWSON