Week 2 From The MTC

posted by Jana

(I just wanted to let anyone who wants to comment know that I will send the comments on to Christine. I feel like commenting even just as a forum for us to discuss Christine’s letters with each other since it’s not like we get to do it over Sunday dinner or anything so convenient. Anyways, feel free to comment.)

Sister McCracken’s letter:

Greetings from the MTC!

Once again it was another bright and early morning at 615 am. But this is way better than the 430 am wakeup I was doing this summer! I´m finally starting to sleep better, but I´m still usually pretty tired every day. This work is a tiring one for sure. One of my teachers explained that the your time at the MTC will reach a point where days feel like weeks and weeks feel like days. It is soooo true!!! Some days feel like they´ve been going on forever, but then I look back and I'm shocked to think it's been another week. I got my travel information and I will be flying out of Salt Lake the morning of Tuesday the 27th! I have to report to the travel office here at 4 am that morning to make my flight so I'm gonna be one tired girl. The hilarious part is we get a 2 hour layover in Atlanta though. I'm sure we could drive to Jacksonville in that amount of time, but you know how traveling Delta works.

Yes we do get to do kickboxing! They have morning workout classes just for the sisters so that we can stay feeling pumped! They've got pilates, yoga, and other classes other mornings. During our regular gym time I'm lifting with all the guys as usual. Wooh me! My companion is a rockstar though. She plans to beat the situp record this week. It currently stands at 610 situps and she did 611 last week just to make sure she could even get close. So this week we'll get an official judge to watch and she's gonna blow it out of the water. Did I menyion I have an awesome companion?!

I'm trying to think of any hilarious stories for you guys but I'm coming up short. Sister White in my district to me that it's her goal to make fun of me every day. Is it just me or does she sound like she's trying to fill Dustin's spot in keeping me humble? At least I won't get a big ego this way. Oh here's a good one I forgot to tell you. My first morning here I dropped my conditioner bottle while in the shower and to my amazement and shock it broke the neck of the bottle. My clutzy blonde ways never fail. It totally reminded me of Ella breaking my nail polish that one time. So now I have a topless conditioner bottle. Not real sure how well that's gonna pack to fly to Florida next week...we shall see... Oh and I've seen a sister that I think is trying to be a padewan. She's got her hair cut really short and then there's a little braid hanging down the back. No joke. Looks just like annekin (sp?) on star wars. I want to ask her if she plans to cut it when she leaves because she'll be a master missionary. Oh and so far I've haven't punched out an Elder. Yay me! Sister Wall thinks that instead of having a betting pool you all should give me incentives for what I'll get if I go 18 months without doing it! Any ideas? I think a trip to Disneyworld sounds fun? You talk it out amongst yourselves and tell me what you think. ;)

Thanks for the packages this week. The Elders are going crazy because I've gotten a letter or package almost every day I've been here. The first couple days it was just masses of letters for us girls. They couldn't understand why we were getting so much and they weren't...Silly boys. Our families and friends love us more. I wasn't about to tell them it was just a bunch of stuff I had forgotten at home. So keep the letters coming! haha

I was going to attach a couple pics, but I found out we're not supposed or something. I'm not really sure what the rule is. So I'm going to find out for sure this week and then if I can I'll attach a bunch next week. I've gotten some really cool and really funny ones. If all else fails I'll just send my SD card back to you and let you send them around so that some can get posted to blog world. Speaking of, hi blog world! Thanks to all who are reading and supporting me! It means a lot to know that so many people are interested in how I'm doing here! So far I love it and feel like I've learned as much here as I learned in an entire semester at college. They feed us with firehoses when it comes to teaching. I'm glad I'm not learning a language though. Those people are here for 9-12 weeks and it seems a lot harder than what we're doing.

Devotional Tuesday night was given by none other than this one guy named....M RUSSELL BALLARD!!! Oh yeah! We got an apostle! It was amazing!!! He taught us so much about effectively using our time here and that it's ok to struggle at first. He explained that his first day in his mission was a complete crash and burn. So if an apostle crashes and burns I must be ok if I'm still having problems in my lessons.

Glad you've got the twins! hope they're keeping you on your toes! Keep me updated on michelle!!