MTC #5 "Last Week in the CCM (MTC)!!!

Hermanas at the temple on Sunday!! I love them so much!

Elder Durham's parents sent him finger lights!

​Going to miss them!!​

Hola Familia!!

This week was by far the best week here!

Wednesday: (PS mom, I know I told you I would try eating better last Wednesday, but I had to help out, ya know?)  

There is an ongoing challenge here at the MTC called the cereal challenge. We are not allowed to have competitions or play any games, so we have to do something to keep ourselves going. The rules are simple: your zone has 45 minutes to eat as much cereal as you can and nobody is allowed to throw up, or you're disqualified. The old standing record was 268 bowls of cereal. We were all so pumped before dinner! Then we walked into the cafeteria and saw they had chicken courdon bleu. Can you believe it?! They only made that stuff one other time here! So my entire district dropped out because we wanted the chicken. I felt so guilty sitting with my zone eating my chicken courdon bleu! So me and hermanas in my district ran and got cereal (by the way our zone took up two long tables and cuz everyone was trying to eat really fast, they were just covered in milk and cereal, it was nasty).

When we came back, everyone was complaining because three of the Elders in my district refused to join in and they would've eaten a ton. So Hermana Harrison stands at the front of the two tables and gives the most amazing cereal pep talk I've ever heard. It's super loud in the cafeteria, so she was yelling things like, "Listen up people! It is either all together or not at all! If they drop out that's okay because we will never quit and we will not lose!!!". Everyone was so pumped and it was so funny because we were taking this dumb challenge to the extreme! Anyways, we did indeed win. 300 bowls exactly. Actually a couple of the workers came out and started yelling at us and got the manager, but he just thought it was funny, so we kept going! Oh and I also got third or fourth place for eating the most cereal. I ate 10 bowls. Go me. I was so sick the next day haha! But it was all worth it... Kind of.

Thursday: Me and Hermana got slips to go to this alternation place and guess what?... They gave us free pants! Apparently every sister who got their call before the dress change gets 2 pairs of free pants! And they are super duper nice pants from Banana Republic. Good thing I didn't bring any! Haha!

Friday: It poured! And everyone was freaking out at the change of weather! Especially the three of us going to Panama because it's just prep for the rain there!! And we also got our travel papers! From SLC to ATL and finally to PANAMA!!!! I am gonna miss it here, but I am so excited to be out in the real world again!

Saturday: Just a normal day to be a missionary

Sunday: Pioneer Day!! Nashville Tribute Band (who Hermana is obsessed with) came and they were amazing! During dinner the lead band guy (idk what to call him... He was the one who talked when the band wasn't playing), Jason Deere, sat by us and got to know us and stuff! Hermana was so excited, she almost started to cry haha! The spirit was really strong and for choir practice we learned three songs and got to sing with the band! That was by far the most amazing and strongest time I ever felt the spirit.

Monday: Everyone was sooooooo tired after the band hype!

Tuesday: The highlight of this day were the finger lights. One of our Elders got a package of about 500 little lights that you put on your fingers. All the hermanas put them on and we had so much fun with those haha!

Anyways, that was my week! I love you all soooo much!

Hermana Hallsted

MTC #4 “Elder Bednar just WALKS IN!”

Pictures:

Me and Mitch!! We're pretty sure you're allowed to hug family... (1st cousin from AZ)

half the sisters in my zone at the field

my district sisters at the temple

Hola familia!!

What a week! Filled with so much it just flew right by! I can't believe I only have a week and a half left! I am gonna miss this place!

I saw so many friends from Lone Peak and college and that was super cool! And I also saw Mitch (my cousin)! Our classrooms are right next to each other, so we get to see each other all the time! Oh and I also met Brother Heaton, who is the MTC administrative director and we figured out we are third cousins or something like that. He's Paco's (Grandpa Jones) 1st cousin! We went over our family history and it was really cool. We were both at that gigantic reunion in Kanab!

Also this week, me and Hermana were studying outside on the grass by a building and she points out this perfect circle of feathers behind some bushes. We both were just too curious and couldn't let it slide, so we crawled (well, I crawled and she stood back and cheered me on) through the bushes and poked it with stick. It was just a bird wing and beak with a pile of feathers! So we're pretty sure the poor thing flew into the building and died. We couldn't find the head or the body anywhere! Anyways, this all turned out to be a real bad idea because right after my arms started turning red and bumpy and they hurt super bad like pins and needles. We had another bad idea to rub some of the leaves of those bushes on my comps arms to see what would happen. Luckily nothing happened to her and the bumps went away after a few days, but I am proud to say that my bush crawling days are over.

The biggest highlight of the week was Sunday. We usually have a devotional and then watch a movie, but they announced that instead of a devotional, we would be watching "Characters of Christ", a devotional by David A. Bednar that they play every week. We were excited cuz it is amazing!! If you haven't seen it, I recommend watching it for FHE or just whenever you can because it is seriously life changing. Anyways, we watched the devotional together with the whole MTC and when it ended everybody suddenly stood up. I was just casually like, "Oh everyone must be trying to leave or something" like an idiot and my comp starts punching me and then I was like, "What the heck is going on?" And David A Bednar- in the flesh- walked in!!!! Me and my comp were freaking out and everyone was so excited!! He did a Q&A with the whole MTC and it was so amazing! 

Some highlights of Sunday:

"Charity is not something you do, it's something you become"

"We receive blessings only when we desire to use our gifts to be an instrument in the Lord's hands"

It was so funny and inspiring and the Spirit was so strong!

I have already learned so much from being on a mission. My first week here, I picked up the language really fast (gift of tongues is verdad), but didn't put in as much effort into lessons and planning as I should've. Unfortunately success doesn't come from just being smart. I have learned that diligence is more important that intelligence. And a lot more effective. The Lord blesses us when we put our shoulder to the wheel and work for it. And if you listen to the Spirit enough it will start to trust you with more guidance and comfort then you could ever have imagined. I know the Gospel is for everyone and God sincerely wants us all to return to live with Him again. I know that through Jesus Christ and His Atonement, we can come back from wherever we have fallen. Jesus Christ knows everything we have been through. He and Heavenly Father know us each individually and will do what they can to help us when we do our part. I'm so happy to be able to sacrifice just a short 18 months to Him and hope that for the rest of my life I will always be dedicated to repaying all that he has already done for me. I love the Book of Mormon!

I miss you all so much, but am so happy that I am where I am right now. I'll see you all in a few! ;)

Te Quiero Mucho!!

Hermana Hallsted

MTC #3: Week Three at the Good Ole MTC!!!

PICTURES FINALLY!!!!!

Me and my companion, Hermana Campbell

Our Door!

The hermanas in my district ( I love them all so much)

I apparently sleepwalk all the time...picture of me NOT in my bed! who knew?

at Stadium of Fire

Provo Temple Trip!

The Elders keep stealing my camera and taking pics of themselves haha

Elders also keep falling asleep in class haha

Bryan Thorpe is here! (Friend from Rec Volleyball team)

Sadie Grant- friend from High school!!

Family!

My four amazing roommates left us this week! It was so sad! But we are getting two new girls in their place today! They will be going to Spain. Ooh!

I'm doing well here! Spanish is tricky, but I can carry on somewhat of a conversation. And I still know so many people here. We taught a member TRC and I graduated with their nieces! Also my friend works here (Spencer Baker) and my other friend, Caleb Porter's fiance! Tell Hannah good luck! I am praying for her to pass her CNA test!! 

This week was filled with miracles!

We had our fourth lesson with our teacher investigator (named Azul) and we were planning on teaching the last half of the Plan of Salvation. We followed up on our commitment, which was to read Moroni 10 and pray about it, which she read, but didn't pray, and she asked us what it meant to 'Come unto Christ and be Perfected in Him'. We had the most amazing lesson about the Savior's atonement. We talked about what things we can do in order to show how grateful we are for the Atonement and the Spirit was so strong. We all had tears in our eyes. So the original lesson plan was not at all what we ended up teaching. And at the end of the lesson I felt prompted to change our commitment we had planned. So I aksed if we could all kneel down and if she could offer a prayer to receive a confirmation of the things we had talked about. After her prayer we invited her to be baptized (which I memorized earlier that day on a whim, and thank goodness I did!) and she accepted!! It was so cool!

But the day doesn't end there... We had our fourth lesson with our TRC investigator a couple hours later. Her name is Maribel and our first lesson with her was awful. She just didn't understand us and didn't care to understand either. It was really frustrating. But we have grown to love her! She is a stay at home mom of 3 kids. She's from Mexico and is a 'Catholic" who doesn't actually attend church or pray or read the Bible or anything. Well this lesson she told us a sad story about her husband's coworker who shot another man this week, and she was really stressed out for her husband and the family of the man. We had asked her to pray to God as our commitment and she told us she prayed many times this week and she could feel the Spirit in her heart, telling her it was all going to be okay. Perfecto, Maribel! Well, we were just pumped as could be about that and we talked about why she knew it was 'going to be okay'. And we talked about the Atonement. And we asked her to be baptized. And she accepted! 2 in one day!!! It was amazing! It was so cool to ditch our plans and just follow the Spirit! And although role play is not my favorite, it is really cool to still be able to feel and invite the Spirit and touch these amazing teacher/investigator's lives!

My comp has been pretty discouraged. It's hard because she really has a strong testimony and is really sweet, just isn't sure if she can make it. But I know she can! I love her so much! And this is definitely something we will conquer together! Our two baptism commitments this week really lifted her spirits, so that's good. I helped her memorize the invitation to baptism and had her ask our investigators. It was such a blessing that I happened to make her memorize it that morning and we weren't even planning on inviting them to be baptized!

I love the MTC! The Spirit is so strong here!

I love you all!!

Hermana Hallsted

From her companions letter:

My companion is great as ever! She is very patient with me and even though she picked up spanish much faster than i did she is always motivating me to do better, she's so sweet and we get along very well! We will definitely be life-long friends. I just hope I will continue to be this lucky for my other companions. We also hope that we will be put together as companions for the end of our missions in Panama.. That would be so fun!

MTC #2 "You don't need to be confident in your Spanish, only in your Testimony"

Dear Familia (as they say in the good ole espanol),

First thing is first, Shout out to the coolest bro ever and Happy Birthday!! (@BReton)

The MTC is a spiritual hair dryer that is directed right at your face. I have learned so much and never felt the spirit more in my life! I love it here!!

Last week we had the opportunity to meet our Mission President!! President and Sister Current are so sweet and very inspiring! We were chatting about things old missionaries had told us about the problems of Panama, because it actually has the lowest baptism rate in Central America. President told us, "We are going to let the old Elders and Sisters come to us and tell us what the problem is. We are going to nod and say that's great. But really we are not going to take any excuses. No excuses!" Me and my comp always say it to each other!

I love my comp!!!! Her name is Hermana Campbell (like the soup--the district calls us Soupsted, haha) She's from Sacramento, California, and doesn't know Spanish either. We are actually the only two who don't know any Spanish when we came in. She has a super strong testimony and has taught me a lot through bearing her testimony to me (in English :))

Fourth of July at the MTC is so fun! We had some random devotional about Christopher Columbus and Nephi (which Dad, you should look up stuff about that because it was actually really cool) and sang lots of American songs and then we got to go outside and watch the fireworks!! They announced there was no curfew that night! It was so fun!! We tried to go to bed on time anyways, but it was impossible with the announcement blaring over the PA and the kids screaming and singing and the banging fireworks. Things calmed down by around midnight. It was still super fun :)

My favorite part of the week is the Sunday temple walk. We always leave at 4:00 when the sun is burning hot, but then we get up there and it is so beautiful! Lots of love for the temple. Oh and we saw a couple sitting on a bench so me and my comp hid in a bush nearby and watched them and sure enough... He proposed!! It was so cute! But then we kinda ruined the moment because we were hiding in a poky bush and couldn't sit there any longer, haha. 

This week I made a cool connection. I realized that my Branch President and his wife are the aunt and uncle of two of my roommates from college!! And I met them at Katie's wedding, but just didn't realize it! Isn't that crazy!! My district keeps making jokes about how I am all connected and am on the 'inside' because I know so many elders and sisters here and because I knew my mission and the branch presidents! 

We had our first TRC investigator and it was the worst lesson we've ever had. The language was actually really good! I could understand everything she said and she could understand us. The problem was that she doesn't really want to learn anything. We tried to talk about her beliefs and she says she's catolica, but doesn't know how to pray or what the trinity is, but she loves God. And she's never read the Bible. So everything we tried to talk about just ended with her saying either "no se" or "no intiendo". Ugh. So we will just go really slow and take extremely baby steps, I guess.

 I'm getting really strong because I do not waste my exercise time and my comp loves working out too! 

I think that's about it, but I love you!!!!

Hermana Hallsted