Christmas 2012

Hi family!

Merry Christmas to you all! I didn't realize that we would be able to email you today,  but I'll be able to do it again on Thursday for P-day. Lucky you. :)

How has your Christmas been? What did you guys do last night without any other family to do the nativity and such with? I missed the sibling sleepover last night. It felt weird to go to sleep on Christmas eve just like any other night.

So far the MTC is still great. It's SUPER busy all the time! We don't get any down time on most days, so it's pretty exhausting. It feels a lot like I'm just back in school though. I'm learning about the gospel, so the content is different, but I'm learning how to teach... So, that's basically the same. Except USU has never told me to pray to have the Spirit in my lesson haha. We have two investigators right now. They're just our teachers who are impersonating an actual investigator that they each had on their own missions. It's a little weird to teach your teachers, but we did role plays so much at school that I've kind of gotten used to that aspect of it. I finally understand why Melissa was always talking about how stressed she was about her MTC investigators that were "fake" or role plays. I can only imagine how hard it's going to be when I start teaching real investigators in the field... Mom, stop worrying about me being too stressed. I'm eating. Every meal. I'm already pretty sick of the food, but I do eat at every meal. :)

Our schedule every day is pretty much the same every day. Wake up by 6:30, get ready, be in class at 7 or 7:30 for planning, breakfast, back to class for 3 hours, lunch, personal study time, companion study, three more hours of class, doctrinal/additional study time, dinner, zone teaching. Sometimes they throw in a workshop, or something random, but or the most part that is what the day consists of. I've only been here for a week, but I swear it feels like it's been a month. Yesterday and today have been nice because our schedules have been a little different. Yesterday, the whole day was mostly normal. Then they did a fireside where they acted out the Nativity. They started out with a real baby playing baby Jesus, but part way through he started bawling so his mom took him back. But they still needed a baby! Luckily they had a back up doll buried in the manger. They pulled it out while there was a guy singing a solo and everyone started laughing. I felt bad, but I'm hoping someone explained what had happened. We had our Christmas devotional today, which was really good! I was part of the choir with my companions. I was told to join, by grandpa and Trina, for the sole purpose of getting good seats at devotionals. I thought that meant that we'd be like right in the front. Nope. We were in the bleachers at the back. I was in the 2nd or 3rd row of bleachers though, so they were still pretty good seats. We had Elder Nelson come today, and he and his wife both spoke and I really enjoyed both of their talks.

Well, time's up. Sorry! I'm still happy, busy, and learning. I love my district, and I'm getting along with my companions pretty well. I miss you guys, and love you lots! Drink some extra Grandma Great smoothie for me. :)

Love,

Sister Goaslind

P.S. Haley, I saw Tim Robertson and Connor Barlow. They both said hi. :)

P.S.S. Thanks for the letter! You picked the best way to send it to the MTC, so keep using Dear Elder.