Week 1 (and only) In the MTC: "Do you have jet lag or something..?"

Hey there everyone!!

Man I am a real live missionary. Yup. It's pretty cool. And lets just say one thing, England is freaking beautiful. I don't know how I got so lucky to come here, but it blows my mind. We have a view outside our room window, and we can see hills and a little town and the pond full of waterlilies right below us and it's incredible.

So the MTC. Well it is pretty neat! I traveled here with about 20 other missionaries, and it was exciting. Except for the part where the flying part was super long and the sister missionary (sister Caffrey) in front of me had a panic attack and was freaking out the majority of the 8 hour flight because she took a whole ambian (sleeping med that makes you crazy). I felt so bad for her! But other than that it was cool. We got here and stuff and there are only about 40-45 missionaries total. Which is pretty cool because we are getting to know almost everyone.

My companions names are Sister Caffrey and Sister Johnson, Caffrey (yes the one from the plane) is from Arizona (Mesa area) and Johnson is from like Cache Valley. To describe them both... well here is a quote from sister caffrey that describes her pretty well "Sometimes, when I feel like I'm wearing lots of clothes, I think "I'm wearing lots of clothes". Yeah. Haha but she's great. And Sister Johnson is fun and balances out sister caffrey, so I think all together we are a solid companionship. Sis Johnson became our comp on sunday because her old comp had to get sent back to Finland due to visa problems. Her name was Sister Petch (from Finland, but she's Cambodian) and she told me that Slack means sunshine in Cambodian!! Coolest thing ever.

So here is a quick story about an adventure about my first day in this MTC. We had flown all Wednesday and stayed up all Thursday here in the MTC to try and kill the jet lag, so thursday night we'd sleep really well. Sister Pickett (who is one of our roommates) and I decided to go running the next morning at 6 am. So we talked to the MTC pres. and he said it was perfectly fine and so that morning, Sis Pickett woke me up and we headed out the door. Turns out the alarm was going off, but we figured the pres would be up soon enough to turn it off. We're running around the temple and stuff and suddenly a security guard comes up to us and explains to us that we cannot be outside at that hour, but we told him it was cleared and he was chill about it, then asked "Do you have jet lag or something?" And we were all "No way..." because it was like only half an hour before we were supposed to get up anyway.. So then we finish our run and go back to go inside and no one is there to let us in.. We kinda look around and find the security box with a clock on it and it turns out that it was actually 1:30 IN THE MORNING. No wonder the guard thought we had jet lag.... We had just gone running at one in the morning and the president wasnt getting up for 5 more hours to let us back in!! Man. So finally we said a prayer and then figured out how to call security after setting off more alarms and then dialing the number. Yeah. Talk about adventure of the MTC... I don't think the president knows we were out there, but we did leave him a note saying we weren't going running anymore, haha.

Anyways... The MTC. It is one incredible place. I learn so much every day in here. We have been teaching an investigator named Ramani and she has asked to be baptized, and also wants to hand out Book of Mormons to her friends! She's pretty chill. But when we went in and she told us she wanted to be baptized, I realized that the purpose of missionary work really isn't about trying to convince people to get baptized. It's really about helping them come closer to Jesus Christ, and we can only do that if we feel love for the investigator. And we need to be able to have the spirit there with us, because really He is the only one that converts people. At first teaching was really hard, but it's definitely becoming easier as we work as companions and are learning how to easily invite the spirit into our conversations.

Anyways, I love you guys!!! It'd be brilliant to hear from  all of you :) If you want to send me letters, send them to:

England Birmingham Mission

187 Penns Lane

Sutton Coldfield

West Midlands

B76 1JU

Also, quick quote from Elder Jamieson in my district "Faith is not the absence of doubt, faith is having doubt and still moving forward." Just let that sink in.

Much love,

Sister Slack

PS. Sorry these keyboards are a little weird so ignore the strange capitalization 

Me and Sis Fenton on the plane

 in front of temple +sis Caffrey

Name badge in front of bedroom window

 England MTC + Sis Caffrey + me

 Me+Sis Caffrey and Welsh BOM

pic of me and both my comps, sis Johnson + Sis Caffrey

I'm going on an adventure!

Well the time has come. The countdown is over. I'm less than 24 hours away from being a missionary! While I am over across the pond my parents should be keeping this blog updated with mission stuff.. And if they don't... well they have lives too.

So here's to going on an adventure! It's going to be hard, and awesome, and full of British people. Get ready to be stoked for it, and you better read all of these posts in a British accent.