Monday, July 2, 2012

First letter: The MTC!

Hello Family!
How are all of you? I don't have much time on here, but I will try and write as much as possible.
First off, I love and miss you all so much! Thankfully we stay really busy here, so we don't have much time to focus on home. I'm sure once I get out to the field it will hit me harder that I'm actually out here and away from all my friends and family. Time here is such a funny thing. Days go by so slowly. I am more exhausted than I have ever been in my life, both spiritually and physically. But, it definitely gets easier every day.
My companion is Sister Morrison from Encinitas, CA. She is AWESOME! She is called to serve in the New Jersey, Morristown mission. We get along so well it's almost scary. We are both very outgoing and love to laugh. I can honestly say that I truly love her. She reminds me so much of my sister, Erin. She's short, blonde, outgoing, and just has a lot of the same mannerisms as her. It definitely makes me miss Erin more than I already do. I'm so grateful to have a good companion who has such a strong testimony of the Gospel and has a strong desire to work hard and learn like I do.
Mom wanted to know what the MTC day-to-day life is like. On Wednesday after we were dropped off we were taken into a gym to get our packet (which has our name tags, keys, and "blue card" in it) and to fill out some paperwork. We were then escorted to our classroom to do an online orientation and to meet with our district. Let me just say, I LOVE MY DISTRICT. All but three of us are going to Alaska (4 elders and 3 sisters) and the rest are going to New Jersey. We get along so well and have a tendency to get loud very quickly. Haha! We work hard and we learn a lot, but we all know how to have fun. The age difference between the elders and sisters is very apparent, but Sis Morrison and I try not to think about it or dwell on it. Anyway, after that we went to the Presidency Orientation. That was the first time it started to feel real that I was actually at the MTC and was a missionary. We sang The Army of Helaman and they changed the lyrics from "We will be the Lord's missionaries" to "We are NOW the Lord's missionaries". It really brought the Spirit and hit me hard. After that we had dinner than headed to a Teaching Experience. They had us teach actual investigators that very first night. They definitely don't waste any time here, and I love it!
The second day we spent most of the day in our classroom with our teachers Sister Murray and Brother Dohm. They are the most amazing people I have ever met. The testimonies that they have are almost tangible they are so strong. I really look up to both of them and hope to learn as much from them as I can. We really focused on learning the fundamentals of teaching and our purpose of teaching which is: To invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. It was an incredible day full of insight and inspiration.
The third day all we seemed to do was STUDY. 5.5 hours straight to be exact. And after that we had a 30 minute lunch and back to the classroom for 6 more consecutive hours of classroom time. We actually taught our first lesson and it went pretty well. We definitely have a LOT of work to do, but we are grateful to be getting a lot of experience.
Today was about the same as yesterday. We did a lot of studying, teaching, and role-playing. We also went to Zone teaching and Sister Morrison and I were asked to teach an "investigator" which is normally not done until you're in your second week. Apparently they think we are more advanced. :) We then went back to class and learned about the Restoration.
I feel like I have learned more about the Gospel in the last 3.5 days than I have in my entire life. The Spirit here is so strong and I can feel my testimony being strengthened every second of every day.
I am out of time, but I am glad I got to write you. I love you all and miss you tons. Please write me! You can even use DearElder.com.
Have a great week!
Love,
Sister Hatfield
P.S. My PDay next week is Friday
P.P.S. My expected departure date is July 16th!

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