Elder Ballard Advises MTC Missionaries to Smile

This week was pretty much the same. We study all day long and have class and eat and have class and eat and study and eat! I think I might puke we eat so much! But the MTC is still amazing I met some people this week from England and Italy and a couple of other places. I also met an elder going to Africa who speaks Portuguese, random I know right!

So this week we heard from Elder Ballard! This is the third week in a row that we have heard from an apostle, so basically that's the good thing about being in the MTC for so long. Elder Ballard talked about becoming a master communicator.He also said the most powerful thing we have is our smile. And that we need to have confidence in our message.


Another one of our districts is leaving this coming Monday, that's 3 districts we have sent off. We get 11 Elders tonight in the Branch it's going to be fun!

My companion Sister Chang is leaving in two weeks and I will get another companion. She has only been here for 3 weeks and they are sending her out early because she already knows Mandarin and she is learning Cantonese. She is picking it up fast enough they are sending her out 6 weeks early! She is so lucky.

Today in the laundry room I met some elders that were reassigned to Texas to wait for their visas, but they were sent back to the MTC because they needed to sign their visas. They have been here a whole week and the consulate is still not open when they go, so they might be here another week. That would be horrible to have to come back here after they already went into the real world.

I feel like I got here yesterday seeing all the new people coming in today but I am ready to leave. I should be leaving December 7th so expect a call from the airport!

On October 26th it snowed enough for us to have a snow ball fight it was random and fun... I don't think it was against the rules. It has been warming up though and I hope it stays warm until I leave. The cold does not make me a happy person. I completely lost my tan but it's okay soon I will be sweating and I will be happy.

Speaking of cold for the last couple of weeks our heater hasn't worked I think though they finally got it fixed today so we shall see. I never want to get out of bed when it's so cold in our room!!

My teacher told us a story about how when he got home from the Philippines that he one night he pulled a worm out of his mouth and showed it to his mom... Puke!! He also talked about killing a dog and eating it.... fun times makes me so excited to go let me tell you. My old companion Sister Brinton told me her friend went to the Philippines and he would lay in bed at night and listen to the spiders crawling up his door. I'm so excited to go to the Philippines now to have experiences!

Nahigugma Ko kanimo,

Annika