Week 4!!!

Missionaries in the England MTC

As I'm sure you all know, this week was Easter! It was so fun getting to be here at the MTC for it. Quite honestly I thought it wouldn't even feel like Easter and things would just go as normal on Sunday, but there are only seven of us missionaries here right now so President and Sister Edwards did a great job of spoiling us. We all went for breakfast at their apartment in the morning. It was crepes! Then at sacrament, five of the seven of us had to give talks. The topic was Easter, and I was "fortunate" enough to have been able to be picked to talk. I had to do it in German becuase that's "my language" but I think it didn't go too bad. I did read a lot from the scriptures though...

Desert!

For dinner we had a Sunday roast which was fantastic as usual, but dessert was the real kicker. Our cook made little chocolate suffles with homemade ice cream and strawberry sauce. I've attached a picture, I think it speaks for itself sufficiently. 

Anyways, later on we watched a live devotional broadcasted from the Provo MTC. The speaker was Dieter F. Uchtdorf and it was AMAZING! Sister Arnold and I want to see if we can get hard copies of the talk becuase it was just so great.  Here are two big things I learned from that devotional: 1) Fear no man! Talk to everyone. I'll admit, man is pretty tough, but the strength of the Lord is even greater. 2) When people know and feel your love, you can never be too bold. 

The District

Sister Arnold and I have been noticing when we go to the store that people see our name tags and then look down right away because they don't want to be preached at, but we did notice that if we smile at them and say hi, they look at our tags to see what our deal is and smile back. Just love people. We're all God's children so why not? 

Well, after this amazing devitional, we got to go to the President's apartment and watch the movie "Legacy". We ate popcorn, drank apple juice, and sat on couches. It was so nice. We all freaked out whenever David and Eliza kissed...it was weird.  Overall it was a great Easter. I don't think I'll ever forget my Easter at the England MTC.

Tough conditions

In other news this week, the weather has been great. On Saturday, it was so nice out that one of our teachers moved our tables from the dining room outside so we could sit right next to the pond and eat our lunch. It was so pretty and picturesque.

Sister Arnold and I have one "investigator" that we've taught about seven times now and is committed to baptism. The other day, we were trying to explain to him that he would be baptized by a man (don't make fun, we can only do really simple statements in German right now), but it took us a few tries to get it right and the "investigator" even broke character a little bit trying not to laugh. First we told him that "You are baptizing yourself". Then "You are baptizing a man", then "A man is letting himself be baptized" and I think we even got to, "A man will let you be baptized". The only reason we knew that what we were saying was wrong was because of his facial expressions after each statement. I think we got it right eventually but I really need to work on reflexive pronouns.

Ok, so here's my last story for the week: there we were, the seven of us and our two teachers playing soccer on the field outside during our exercise time. It was going fine, no injuries, and smiles on faces, when all of a sudden a flock of about 30 elders (not from the MTC) started approaching us. My first thought was, oh they want to play, we can just give them the field then. But no, what ended up happening was we had to play WITH them. Sister Arnold and I and about 30 elders. Lets just say, the testosterone level was really high and I felt greatly outnumbered. We were divided into teams and I stayed out of the way most of the time becuase these elders were so serious about this game. They were from all over the world, but I was particuarly afraid of the Belgians. They don't mess around. So there I was, standing there, attempting to look interested when all of a sudden the ball came right to me. What are the odds of that? There was no one else around me to make it seem like it was really for them, so I knew that my foot would have to come in contact witht the ball. The thing is though, it's never just the ball coming towards you. There are also about seven elders coming towards you who look like they are willing to rip your head off in order to get it from you. I'm a sister so they wouldn't get too physical, but they would still be capable of a significant amount of damage. Anywho, for the brief milisecond were the ball was just in front of me, I heard about three people yelling "Sister Smiley!". I don't know what they expected. I just kicked the ball somewhere and ran away. And that is my soccer story. After a few more minutes we, the MTC missionaries, had to leave, but our teacher stayed out cuz he wanted to play, so he made sure our team won. It probs wouldn't've happened without my magical moment.

My companion, Sister Arnold & me

Well that's all for this week folks. PLEASE keep in touch. I love hearing from people and knowing what's going on in your lives. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Smile at someone, go to the temple, hand out a passalong card, and make good choices.

Sister Smiley