Mission Happenings Week 1

Oi!

Hey everyone! I just finished my first week at the MTC!!

I am in love! I am in love with missionary work! If I could marry missionary work...okay maybe not that in love haha

So wednesday: My mom dropped me off at the mtc and there were crowds of missionaries greeting me with huge smiles! It was the most exciting feeling ever! I met my companion right off the bat because we happened to both be in our room at the same time. She is SO awesome! This is seriously a companionship made in heaven! You'll see plenty of pictures if I can figure out how to upload them. For all of you color coders out there I think she is a blue white haha. She's from Atlanta, Georgia. She actually has a sister in Houston and her parents might even move there! That'd be cool! She went to BYU and lived in Wyview!! But she was in building 9 which was the complete opposite side. The first day she told me that she wasn't musical at all so I like to joke about singing a duet with her. She's wasy smart! Wants to do either molecular biology or food science. And we get along great! We have had a few bumps along the road simply because some days are hard and on top of having a hard day you feel like you have to be happy and pleasant to work with haha but it's not that bad. Okay so first day was SO exciting and I just couldn't stop smiling until the end of the day when we did met with an investigator with a large group of missionaries. It was difficult because everyone had a different idea of what direction to take the lesson and these investigators were trained...they were not making it easy on us. My head hurt so bad after that meeting from thinking so hard but I learned a lot from it so that's good. Oh I love my teacher! His name is Brother Buttars :) He is SO awesome! He gives such spiritual lessons and really gives us the confidence we need. So the language hasn't been too hard at all. I can understand everything that my teacher or other portuguese missionaries say and I can speak farely well. I am SO glad that I prepared ahead of time! The other missionaries in my district didn't come with that experience in the language (except my companion- she knew french from high school and attended a port branch before she came) but they are picking it up really quickly! I love my district!

Thursday: the biggest news I have from Thursday is that I fell on my face in front of my entire branch...it was quite embarassing haha...and to make it even better during sacrament meeting our relief society president said at the beginning of her talk "You have to really watch your feet going up those steps...right Sister Hull?" haha..so yeah my whole district knows of me as a clutz because I've also spilled spaghetti on my white cardigan (came out!) and fallen getting into my seat once...haha

Friday: We taught our first lesson! This went super well for our first time I would say. I was able to improvise some portuguese. But we didn't involve Vanderlei very much or get to know him. Sister Hartman and I work really well together. We are able to discuss our lessons really thoroughly afterward and figure out what went well and what didn't go so well. Oh we also went to the gym for the first time today. Sister Hartman isn't much of a runner so I'm training her. :) I love it! We push each other along and encourage each other so much and I think that is why we are so close already. I also got two letters from dearelder.com today! Made me sooo happy!! If you want to write me while I am at the mtc that is the best way to do it! I only get to respond on p-days though (Tuesday).

Saturday: This was probably my hardest day. It was the 8 month mark since Madie passed away. I wore a necklace with a rose on it and made sure to carry her picture around. I was doing okay until someone walked by humming the song we sung at popshow. But I pushed forward and Sister Hartman and I were able to give our second lesson to Vanderlei! OUR BEST LESSON BY FAR!!  We were SO happy when we came out of that! I dropped my books and gave her a hug and we just smiled and laughed for about 10 minutes. So we planned this entire lesson on the Book of Mormon but as we were introducing it to him, he said that he already believed it was true!  He had already been reading it and he had gained that testimony for himself! WHAAATT??? So we changed our entire lesson ON THE SPOT...IN PORTUGUESE!!!!  Sister Hartman pulled out Mosiah 18 (not the scripture we were planning on reading) because I had brought it up earlier that day to be used for a future lesson on baptism. Sis H and I looked at each other and agreed that we were both feeling the spirit prompting us to commit him to baptism. We commited him to baptsim and he agreed!!! It was such a good feeling to know that we can communicate in portuguese with words we haven't planned if we are prompted to take a different route during a lesson. The spirit was so strong!! A funny quote for the day from Elder Berryhill who is from Georgia and has the greatest southern accent ever: "I was as scared as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs!"

Sunday: The saying "hold out till Sunday" is SO true!! I have never felt God's love for me more strongly than I did today. So the morning started out kind of rough but we had a lot of time for personal study so that was nice. I was exhausted and having a hard time focusing so I asked my companion if we could go on a short walk around our building. She agreed and on that walk I ran into Sister Pope!!! I had really been wanting to see her! (She was my roommate at BYU). Then she told us about music and the spoken word which is right before relief society so we got to go to that. I had no idea how much I missed music. I was balling during the entire thing because the spirit was so strong and I felt so much relief from the worry that I was feeling only an hour ago. I could breathe again. I knew in that moment that my Heavenly Father had heard my pleas for relief and he knew exactly how to comfort me. I hadn't even known for myself what I needed but when we sat in that meeting I felt so much peace and love. One of the songs was a pioneer song performed by Lyndsey Sterling and an orchestra. AMAZING. Later, we had some free time to watch mormon messages with our district and discuss them afterwards. I suggested that we watch Mountains to Climb because it is my absolute favorite and has helped me a lot. At the end of the video our district leader was crying. He bore a very sweet testimony. I didn't want to speak up but I felt like I should so I told how that video had confirmed my desire to go on a mission because I saw it after Madie passed away and I knew with all my heart that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the hope that we all need in our lives. It gives us peace and comfort to withstand life's trials. We bonded a lot with our disctrict because of this experience. Then we went to the temple to take pictures! That night we watched the Character of Christ by Elder Bednar! MOST AMAZING TALK EVER! because of it I am trying my best to not be self-centered. To think more of others than I do of myself.

Monday: The lesson didn't go as well today. I froze up a lot. Once again Vanderlei said all of the things that I had prepared. Sis H saved the lesson in my opinion. She says I did fine but I just felt like I couldn't communicate and I was having a hard time even knowing what to say in English. I realized afterward that I ignored a prompting to share a scripture. BAD Shannon! It wasn't all bad though and of course we learned a lot from it! I'm so glad that I have the opportunity to learn as much as I can at the mtc. Okay that's it. Today is pday and it is wonderful! Hope to hear from you all! I'll try to upload the pictures in the last 14 minutes I have! LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

Oh! Look up 2 Timothy 1:7

 

Love, Sister Hull