Cornfield in Just One Week or Sister Melan's Last email from the MTC

Wow. I really need to figure out how to type a lot faster than I am doing right now, because I never feel like I have enough time to type everything I want to say in the time I have to say it. Maybe that is all for the better though because you wouldn't want to hear everything I have to say. Ha ha! Seriously though, I sit and have to plan out everything for about ten minutes, then take a few deep breaths and log into my account and start typing!

Last Tuesday after I emailed, we had devotional with Elder M. Russell Ballard. He and his wife both spoke about all kinds of missionary things like keeping it simple, knowing the gospel, setting goals, accountability to the Lord, making commitments, etc. His wife talked about how people outside of the church don't understand why we do the things that we do because they don't know the things that we know. On Wednesday, my district was invited to host the new missionaries that were reporting to the MTC that day. It felt really strange to be on the other side of hosting/being hosted after only a couple weeks. But, it went pretty well. Sister Pinchak got two of her three sisters lost and they wandered around for awhile before they figured out where they were. :) Two of the three sisters that I hosted were learning languages. I felt really guilty when I dropped them off at their classroom and their teacher immediately started talking to them in only their mission language and they just looked a little confused and lost. But, I think that they turned out alright. The other sister that I hosted was really shy. She was so cute but when I first went up to greet her, I gave her a big hug and she just stood there, completely baffled. It was pretty funny but I kind of felt bad. Guilty, guilty, guilty.

This week we had our last TRC (teaching resource center) lessons. When we first got here, there was a huge debate as to if the investigators are actual investigators and less active members or not. I was convinced that they were all members of the church but after these last couple of lessons, I am pretty convinced that some of them are actual investigators. If they are not, they are pretty good actors. We taught a lesson to a kid who is a freshman at the U of U and was in Provo to go to the football game on Saturday. He was dressed up in red and for every question we asked him, his answers were flawless. I don't know if I hope that they are real because that would be pretty cool, or if they are pretending because I would feel bad for the people that we taught in our first couple of weeks teaching.

I keep running into an Elder Lamb. He is tall and skinny and from Idaho. That is about all I know, but I say hi to him every time that I see him and he looks confused every time.

On Saturday, it was obviously the BYU-U of U game. My first indication of this was that Elder Burt talked about it the whole day and teasing anyone who went to BYU (which here, is anyone who works here and a lot of the missionaries) that they were going to get creamed, which of course they did. The second indication was the smell. Starting at about 3 (remember the game didn't start until 7), we could strongly smell the food from the stadium. It was pretty strong. After that, we could hear the game and lots of the elders kept "taking breaks to get some fresh air" to go try and figure out what the score was.

Earlier today, I got to leave the MTC to go to the doctor. (I don’t know that going to the doctor is ever a privilege, but I will say it is for now). It was very strange to see the outside world, especially one that I am so familiar with. We drove right across BYU campus, by the Marriott center, past the RB, and down Bulldog Avenue, then down University Ave. The weirdest thing was to see people doing normal things like going to class. We are so closed in at the MTC that it feels like the outside world has just stopped completely, but it clearly has not.

The last of our elders left this morning at 4 am, so now it’s just the sisters left. We have to get our own mail now (a privilege that is typically done by the District leader). It’s a good thing that it is just our p-day today because it would seem very depressing to have to go to class with no elders. But, I guess that is what it will be tomorrow, at least we will be joining up with at least three other sisters for visitor center training.

I am out of time so I will let you know the rest in a letter.

Love, Sister Lamb