First Week Behind Me!!/First week in the MTC!! (11/23/18)

Cześć Rodzina!!!/Dzien dobry!!!

Oh my goodness you guys... So much has happened!! You have no idea how many times I've wanted to just tell you everything that's been going on! I feel like I've just been sitting listening in on a conversation with y'all but I haven't been able to open my mouth and speak (gosh I'd hate to be a mime...), but now I can finally talk!! So get ready... this is gonna be a great first email!!

Okay, just some things y'all should know: 

1. We have iPads here in the MTC!! For the duration of my time here, I will have that with me 24/7. And I am allowed to read emails anytime. (Well, any free time... which isn't all that much. haha it's so busy here..) So feel free to send personal emails throughout the week! That way I can have time to read them all and just respond on p-day. 

2. The "Dear Elder" letters are super fun to get and they make any day better. We actually get them as soon as our district leader picks them up, so it's pretty fast. (It's literally just like a letter so they give us a piece of paper with your message on it.) But feel free to send either those or emails. (Seriously though, letters are the best thing here. It feels like Christmas whenever we get one!!)

The MTC is great!! It's SOOO busy all the time though. I'm sorry to hear that all y'all were crying, but I hope you're doing better now!! In all honesty.. I haven't cried since the parking garage. Which is weird because, I thought that the first night would be hard at least. (By the way, thanks for the note mom!!) :) But... it's too busy to cry. There's barely time in our schedule to go to the bathroom, let alone cry!!  But don't worry, I still miss and love you all!!

So, I'll start with answering the questions that mom gave me and then I have a ton I want to tell y'all:

-We do not have our own personal bathroom. It's a big shared bathroom and there's 2 of them per floor. Our closest one is actually just across the hall from us. There's like.. 8 shower stalls and 8 toilet stalls. And in our room there's 3 mirrors, so plenty of room for everyone. So far, no problems sharing the bathrooms and no trouble with getting ready. Everything just seems to work out here.

-Sundays in the MTC are basically just one long day of church! We have the 3 hours like normal. We also have ponder time where we do a ponder exercise. Also, each week EVERYONE writes a talk for the next week and also prepares a lesson. You don't know if they're going to call on you until Sunday morning!! Oh, and the talk has to be in your mission language, so that's cool. But when we get to the field, we'll have like.. 9 different talks!! I think it's really smart actually.

-Language training is good! Polish is such a hard language, but it's coming. Actually, we learned to pray in Polish 2 days into the MTC (Friday). It's really simple, but we can do it. So, I've been praying in Polish for about a week now. It's crazy. So they have a thing called SYL here. It means "Speak Your Language." Basically, they want you speaking your language as much as possible. You say what you can in Polish (or your language) and just substitute the words you don't know. That happens for prayers. For meals it usually sounds like, "Prosze pobogoslaw the food." or something like that. Haha, that looks so wrong.. I don't have a Polish keyboard here, but yeah.  Anyway, the language study is rigorous, but it goes well. It totally feels like we're being fed through a fire hose. (I don't know if that's what you say..) But, It takes a lot of faith. Usually what happens for me is I work my hardest during class and language study and even then I still don't feel like I have it. But then, after a good night's sleep, I wake up and I remember everything I've studied. It's crazy! The gift of tongues is real!! But it definitely takes a lot of faith to trust that it works.

-Food is....well.. it's food.  It's not bad if you pick the right things. Lucky for me, Siostra Emett likes to eat healthy too. It's kinda fun to find all the good fresh fruits and vegetables. They have some good salads and wraps and fruit. Also... THEY HAVE POG!! And they have the right kind. This one actually tastes like the one they have in Hawaii. So I have that every now and then as like a treat I guess. But yeah, the best thing about the MTC is definitely NOT the food. 

-How am I adjusting to the sleeping schedule?? Eh.. I don't think it matters how much or little sleep you get. Waking up will always be hard, so you just have to roll with it and get on with your day. It's a lot easier when everyone is doing it. But I didn't realize that 8 hours is plenty of sleep for us. The MTC has everything down to a science. For instance.. using every possible minute of our day for something productive.

-Here's our schedule for Thanksgiving Day. We're Branch 12.

-So far, I'm feeling pretty good about it. I feel like I'm finally getting a feel for everything here. It's crazy, they just throw you into this INSANE schedule. There's no easing you into it. It's literally just throwing you in the deep end and hoping that you'll swim. Actually, scratch that.. it's like throwing you in the middle of the ocean and telling you to keep swimming until you hit land.  HA! College is gonna be SO EASY compared to this!! ~ When you get here, everyone tells you, "Just make it to Sunday." And it's SO TRUE!! The first few days are actually the worst... They're so hard. Not even gonna lie. It's insanely hard and you go through just about every emotion imaginable!! But the nice thing is, everyone else is going through that same thing and we all just hide it super well. But once you make it through Sunday, you're golden. You've gotten settled and kinda figured out the schedule and everything. Good thing we have the Spirit to comfort us.

Okay, sorry if none of this next bit makes sense. I'm just trying to go as fast as humanly possible!!

I'm a senior companion! So that's pretty cool. And for whoever told me I probably wouldn't see anyone from home *ahem* *Hailey...* you were dead wrong!! I actually see a ton of people from home!! Like... all the time. It's actually crazy how much you see everyone!! I've seen Ryan Sevy, Wes Vane, Alec Richardson, Kelly Haskell, Kaleb Morrison (from Nauvoo), and yeah!!

Another funny thing, we were at lunch one day and there were these Senior missionaries (or so I thought) sitting next to us. So, I was just talking to them for a while until they left. As soon as they left, Siostra Emett told me that they were the MTC President and his wife!!!  And I had no idea, I totally didn't even recognize them. Oops.. Good thing I didn't do anything embarrassing... But yeah, I ate lunch with the MTC President!!

We were super lucky and had 5 days with the old Polish district. As it turns out they actually brought our group in a week early since they didn't want to make Thanksgiving totally miserable for the families... So we will be here for 10 weeks!! Or as some missionaries like to call it, "Maximum Sentence."  I've basically just accepted the fact that this is my life now and that's how I cope with it, (the idea of being here so long). I've had so many moments where it's like, "This is my life now.." fun times.  Anyway, the old Polish district was the best and definitely gave us a ton of hope of learning the language!! They loved us weeks before we came and so they were stoked for us to be there with them. They left for Poland on Monday.

Haha, okay, so everyone knows the Polish missionaries since we're such a small mission and district here. Everyone loves the Poles!! So, everyone we pass will yell, "Cześć!!!" at the top of their lungs. It's a blast! Also, funny thing.. "Cześć" normally just means Hello or Goodbye, but it's kind of turned into a word that has many, many, many meanings. So we say, "What the Cześć!" and "Dude, that was Cześć" or "Was it Cześć??" So yeah that's really fun! **Note to Zach: Please start saying "Cześć" for everything!! It'd be great. (Cześć= ch-eh-sh-ch or like chess-sh-ch  or chess with an "sh" and "ch" at the end, but the "e" is an "eh" as in "set".)

There's like.. no adults anywhere here. I just realized that a few days ago..Wait, we're the adults haha. It's basically just all missionaries. I keep looking for someone to tell us what to do, but there's nobody there. It's so crazy.. like, we're just totally adults now!! We're totally on our own and just expected to follow the schedule and figure it all out by ourselves. I mean, it's pretty weird. All my life, there's always been some sort of authority figure and now there isn't one. (Other than MTC President and Branch President) It's an interesting change. Also, random thing, as we're studying, sometimes the Germans are close by. I keep hearing the Germans talk and when I speak Polish, I often slip into German.. dang it.. oops.. oh well.  But yeah, German hasn't helped me at all just so you know. But it has helped with my understanding of language structure and conjugations (and charts of those) and cases and other fun things like that. So, I am grateful for that.

Story time: I was feeling pretty down and frustrated and stressed about learning everything (even though it had only been 2 days!) BUT, Friday night after dinner, we had our first exercise time and it was SO GOOD! Siostra Emett and I ran for about 20 or so minutes and then did some core stuff. Afterwards, I just felt light, and happy, uplifted, my brain was clear, and I was definitely more optimistic. My attitude did a complete 180 just because of one workout!! It was so great! So I guess I have a testimony of exercise and how important that is to our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being!

A super fun thing here: Soccer Saturday is a thing!!! Our zone is entirely European missions, so it's only appropriate that we all love to play soccer. Every Saturday!! It's the best. Siostra Emett and I and like.. 2 other sisters are easily the best ones out there, but it's still fun to play. :) It's good for the soul! :) Ethan, Siostra Emett and I each nutmegged some people!!

Hey, thanks for the Thanksgiving package!! That was awesome!! You all are so thoughtful! And Mom.. you're a tricky one. I can't believe I didn't pick up on that one back in WinCo.

Ethan!! Thank you so much for your picture and poem!! I LOVED it!! Siostra Emett and I loved the detail in both of our dresses. It's hanging on my bulletin board now. :) I see it everyday and think of you, buddy. :) <3

Also, Ethan you'll like this. There's a word in Polish that makes you sound like you're a viking, from "How to Train Your Dragon" (and other words that make you sound Chinese and French. It's a cool language.) Anyway, the word is "drugi" (d-roo-g-ee) with a rolled 'R'. So that was funny and I thought of you, Ethan.

Super funny story: There was this Elder Kennington telling us this story of his love life (middle school that is). He was a really good story teller and there was quite a large group listening. We were in this courtyard, so I told him to get up on the table. And he did! He continued to tell the story and as people walked by, they would stop and listen. Pretty soon there was just this huge crowd of missionaries and Elder Kennington on the table. He looked like a soapbox preacher. It was hilarious!!

I'm also in the MTC choir!! The choir director, Bro. Eggett (not sure how you spell it) is exactly like Bro. Ricks!! Just the ability to teach the gospel in a way that's relatable to us as young people. And he's super funny like Bro. Ricks. Anyway, for the Thanksgiving Devotional, we sang "Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise." And of course I loved it because of Nauvoo. So that was a cool experience to sing it here.

Actually, Thanksgiving here was super great!! It was probably the best Thanksgiving ever! (only thing better would have been if y'all had been here, of course) But our Morning Devotional was with Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf!! It was absolutely amazing. He talked a lot about gratitude of course. He also talked about how no matter which road we take in life, whether it be well-paved or a broken one, we need to rely on the Savior. And if we do that, then we will arrive sanctified. I loved that. He didn't shake everyone's hand, but I was 2 people away from getting to shake his hand. But he did smile and wave at me, so that was awesome!! As he was walking out of the room, the organist started playing, "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" and the missionaries all started singing really quietly. Slowly we got louder until everyone was singing and it was super loud on the line, "I Know That My Redeemer Lives." The spirit was so strong and it was just a super magical moment. I teared up, I was touched, it was great!! Best day ever!

Later on Thanksgiving, we watched "The Other Side of Heaven!! It was awesome! Ha, at the kissing part everyone totally freaked out and then started laughing. It was hilarious! Only at the MTC... AND we even got a sneak peek at "The Other Side of Heaven 2" which comes out Summer 2019. It looks incredible, so y'all definitely have to do that. (Add it to my list Hailey!! And Wreck it Ralph 2.. and the new Mary Poppins.. Got all that??) And we also had a presentation on "Light the World 2018" and it looks AMAZING!! All of you need to do it! There's even a special missionary lesson and FHE lesson that you can use. So go check it out!! We also did a super cool service project where we made meals for the Utah Food Bank. It was a really fun time!!

During the project, I was across from a sister from Lima, Peru. I had the chance to talk to her the whole time. Her name is Sister Romero!! She is so so sweet and I just had the best time talking to her!! We got pictures together and exchanged emails and everything. I can honestly say that I already love her! I'm so glad I was able to meet her! She'll be going to Independence, Missouri in the Visitor's Center. And she actually just decided this year to serve a mission. She's amazing! And her mom just got baptized last month. She had a cool story. I loved being with her.

Also, we both got interviewed by a lady from Deseret News. The lady was interviewing Sis Romero and then surprised me by coming over and talking to me too. (This stuff never happens to me!!) She was covering the story of the service project we were doing. She talked to me for a LONG time. She asked how I felt/what I thought about the MTC, the service project, Light the World, service at Christmas time (and how it's all motivated by Christ and having a love for Him), how I decided to serve, if I was excited for Poland.....So yeah! Watch for me in the newpaper! Actually just go here: www.deseretnews.com/article/900043458/missionaries-grateful-to-serve-others-on-thanksgiving-at-the-mtc (I'm at the very end. No picture of me though. Just quotes.) But super cool that I made it in the papes!!

Sorry for the novel family, but Mom did ask for "pages and pages" ;) haha, don't worry, it probably won't be this long every week. It's just that everything happens during your first week it seems!!

TRUTH WILL PREVAIL!!!

(Picture outside our dorm in the common area.)

I'll just leave you with a quick spiritual thought:

1 Nephi 4:6- "And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do."

I just thought this scripture was perfect. There is a huge mural of Nephi about to go into Jerusalem to get the plates. (no picture this week, sorry. I'll get them all soon though!) And this verse totally applies to me as a missionary. I don't feel like I know what I'm doing. I was totally not expecting anything that has happened in the MTC so far. But I still felt and feel the Spirit telling me that serving a mission is the right thing for me to do. So whenever you don't know what you're doing, just trust the Spirit and it will guide you to know the things that you should do.

That's all for now!!

I love and miss you all!!

Siostra Shaylin Carroll
P.S. My Polish teachers are: Alexis Einfeldt, Whitney Barney Theriault, and Hannah Pickett.