power!

Bonjour famille!

Oh my GOODNESS. I have so much to tell you. This week was long and tiring, but amazing! I'm still absolutely head-over-heels in love with being a missionary. It's the greatest thing ever!

Let's see, I'll start with telling you about Sunday. Church at the MTC is wonderful. We had Sacrament meeting with our little branch of French missionaries- there's about 60 of us. The entire meeting was in French, except for the leaders who spoke at the end. Every week, everyone has to prepare a talk in french on an assigned topic, and they call two missionaries up to give their talks at the beginning of sacrament meeting. Kind of scary! I didn't get called up this time, but we'll see about this sunday :) After sacrament meeting, the sisters all watch Music & The Spoken Word together. It was so nice to hear some music from the choir! (we're not allowed to listen to music at the MTC. lame.) Then we all had relief society together. You're right Katie, it's the most amazing Relief Society meeting ever! i can't wait to see who will come speak this time. Last week it was Sister Doxey of the Relief Society General Board. She was awesome. All of us sisters were crying, of course :)

On sunday nights we have a fireside. Elder Stephen Allen came, he's the Managing Director of the Missionary Department. He was hilarious, and he gave some great council. After the fireside, your district can pick from a list of movies to watch. (movies! we were so excited.) we chose the Joseph Smith movie, and oh gosh. I bawled like a baby through the ENTIRE thing. When it was over, I looked at the elders sitting next to me and they were wiping away tears, all 10 of them! It was so sweet.

On tuesday, we had a devotional with Richard G. Scott! It was a sweet surprise. We sang "Called to Serve" for the opening hymn- my first time singing that song in the MTC. It was so powerful singing those words with 2,000 other missionaries and an Apostle. Elder Scott didn't really sing, he just sat there looking at all of us and smiling. His talk was SO good. He talked about following the guidance of the spirit. Towards the end of his talk, he was telling a story abou two sister missionaries following the spirit to get out of a dangerous situation. He suddenly stopped and said he was going to invoke his Apostalic power in order to cast a protective shield over all the sisters in the room. I could tangibly feel that power settle down on me. He spoke a lot to the sisters, which was a surprise and a great blessing. We're very outnumbered here, so it was nice to receive blessings and guidance just for us! At the very end of his talk, he pronounced two more Apostalic blessings on the congregation: The Gift of Tongues (yay!) and the blessing of confidence and guidance of the spirit. He told us we are far more prepared than we think we are. It was such a great booster!

Speaking of general authorities, I was telling Soeur Larsen about the whole "Dieter" thing and about how we love his white teeth and fabulous ties. She said, "No way. Me and my roommates used to call him Elder Hunk-dorf." I knew right then and there our companionship is meant to be! It was so funny.

I'm still loving the MTC. We spend almost all day, every day in our little classroom as a district. we're already really close. 6 of us are going to Paris (Soeur Larsen included-- we're leaving the MTC on the same day! yay!) and the other 6 are going to Montreal. We're already sad about splitting up. The Elders are hysterical: yesterday Elder Andersen (the one from Norway) picked up a pinecone and, I kid you not, started to eat it. Nasty! When we asked him why on EARTH he was eating a pinecone, he looked totally unphased and said, "This is how Norwegians get their fiber." So we all asked Elder Hayden (from Austria) if he had ever eaten a pinecone and he replied, "I only like them with ketchup." Um, what?? Hah. We all have so much fun together. We have been working really hard as well. Some of the Elders had no French experience coming into the MTC and after only a week they are praying and bearing their testimonies in French! It's amazing. Soeur Larsen and I have been reading Doctrine et Allinances together and I can understand almost everything! We speak French to each other about 60% of the time.

My time is running out, so I will send a letter with more. By the way mom, today is our first temple trip! I can't wait!

I love all of you!
Please keep the letters coming, i look forward to receiving them every day! I can only write back on Fridays, so the responses are coming, I promise!

Until next week,

soeur williams

I love, love, love the MTC!!

BONJOUR FAMILLE!

 

Oh my goodness! I'm here! I love, love, LOVE the MTC. It's the most amazing experience I've ever had. The spirit is constantly so strong, I feel like I can reach out and touch it. So incredible! The sisters are treated with so much respect. It was a little weird at first to get used to teenage boys being so respectful and sweet to all the girls. :)

 

My companion's name is Soeur Larsen. She's a cute little brunette from Provo and I LOVE her. We have so much fun together. Both of us have some experience with French, so it makes things a lot easier in that way. We're also a lot alike (she reads Nie Nie!)  which is both good and bad. It's bad because we're both easy going and not assertive, so we've made a goal to grow backbones. (Aren't you proud, mother?)

We are the only sisters in our district, which is a blast. There are 10 elders with us. Two of them are international: Elder Andersen is from Norway and Elder Hayden (pronounced high-den) is from Austria. Elder Andersen speaks like five languages and he has the most powerful testimony I have ever heard. {Amie, his first name is Marius :) } Elder Hayden is very soft spoken, but when he does speak, it blows our minds. Yesterday he talked about Lehi's vision and how he thought the tree represents the Priesthood. He went into this whole thing about how the women are the roots of the priesthood tree and their job is to nourish, nurture, and support. How cool is that?

In class, they've been emphasizing how the gospel is all about love. Or as Elder Hayden would say, it's all about "Lauff". Seriously guys. He sounds just like Dieter. It's awesome.

Another Elder in my district, Elder Tam, went to AF High! He's two years younger than me, but he looked familiar when I first met him. I've seen so many people I know here: Elder Lunt, Austin's cousin; Elder Clements, Elder Simmons, and Soeur Wiseman, one of my close friends from Junior High, is in my zone! She's going to Toulouse. We freaked out when we saw each other.

 

So this is kind of how my schedule goes:

We wake up at 6:30 every morning. So far (I'm totally shocked about this) I've been doing just fine with waking up early. I know, I know. Earth shattering.

Usually, we go to our classroom to meet our district and sing a cantique (hymn), say a prayer (I can pray in French now) and read from Le Livre de Mormon.

Around 7:30 we go to breakfast. I do not like the MTC food. Nasty. The only good thing is the full cereal bar, which has a few healthy choices. They also serve fresh fruit, and they have Einstein's Bagels in the morning :) everything else is gross. All the Elders got the lasagna last night-- it looked like vomit on a plate. I'll be so glad to be able to eat some good French food come December!

After breakfast, we go either to gym time or back to class. Gym time is really fun. Until it starts snowing, we can go to the field across the street to play around. It feels really weird to walk outside the gates into the real world! I love the little MTC world. I feel right at home. Everyone is so happy here! There's so much laughter and smiling and singing. Everyone says hello to everyone. The first couple days, everyone would say "Hola, Hermanas!" to Soeur Larsen and I. Um, no. We're not Hermanas! It was really funny. Now for the most part, everyone says "Hello, sisters!" because no one can pronounce Soeur. :)

Our classtime takes up most of our day. It's a blast! Our teachers are Soeur Gabriel, who is from Geneva, Switzerland, and Frere Welch, who is from Utah. He served  his mission in Geneva and he looks like a long lost LaPointe brother. Seriously, I did a double take the first time I saw him. He looks just like them! So weird. Our class is with our district. Half of us are going to Paris, the other half to Montreal. We're already sad about splitting up! Soeur Larsen and I are the most advanced as far as French goes, so the Elders call us the "Missionaires Dictionaires". So funny :) Aside from French, we've been practicing teaching techniques. We've been using this really cool website called 6billionothers.org. It's not affiliated with the church, but it is the coolest project. You guys should go check it out! We watch a clip of a video, then we talk about "Where this person is on his or her spiritual journey" and "Which gospel principles would help this person?" We've done a lot of those. The aforementioned questions are starting to get really old.

 

I love being a missionary oh-so-much. I feel sad when I have to take my tag off at night. I feel naked without it on! This is seriously the most amazing thing I have ever done. Each day is a new adventure. I'm constantly learning and growing, and I am so very happy!

There's an annoying timer thing in the corner of my computer screen: "5:34" in bright red numbers. 5 minutes left! Seriously, I could not sleep last night because I was so excited to email you! i have so much to tell you still, but my time is up.

 

Thank you for the card mom! And Katie and Matt... um, YUM! We devoured those cupcakes. Thank you so much :)

 

I love you so much! keep the letters and packages coming, they make my day!

 

Avec Amour,

 

Soeur Williams

 

P.S. My emails will be coming on Fridays from now on.

au revoir!

i was set apart tonight as an official missionary.

an official french missionary. how perfectly exciting!

i enter the MTC tomorrow afternoon and i. cannot. wait.

i love all of you, thank you so much for your support! 

my MTC address is in the sidebar to the left.

write me lots of letters!

see you in 2012.