Off we go!

OH my heavens, I cannot believe it's just about time to leave the MTC! I'm just about freaking out, riding the biggest emotional roller-coaster that was ever created *insert roller-coaster face here*. Goodness, it's such a scary thought! But at the same time, it doesn't feel like much to worry about. It's like my natural man and my spirit just sit on my shoulders like the angel and the devil and argue ALL DAY. It's quite annoying actually, haha. Well, here are some highlights:

• Our district has gotten really good at getting good seats for the devotionals just so that if someone really important shows up, we're not stuck in the overflow, and this week it paid off!! Our speaker was Elder Russell M. Nelson! Oh my goodness, he is so ridiculously funny. He and his wife (I didn't know he was remarried) talked about family history and how we can pray for our ancestors by name or characteristic to help us, or how the ancestors of the people we will teach are praying for us all the time. Pretty cool. Anyway, my favorite quote from Elder Nelson: (he was talking about something with the international MTC's) " He (pointing to a guy on the stand) is the Director of the International MTC's actually. My job's to be a prophet. *grin*" bahaha, it was hilarious. Or he was telling us a story of someone he baptized when he was a dr. in the army, and he showed us a picture. "I'm the guy in the middle in the red tie. The same tie I'm wearing now actually..." haha, as if we don't all have pictures of him up in EVERY room on this campus. It was pretty great.
• WE SKYPED WITH SOMEONE IN THE PHILIPPINES. So, yup. Completely freaked me out. For TRC, we're running out of room for everyone to get a chance to teach regularly, so they've started asking teachers for people they know that are native Filipinos and have access to skype. Most of the people in my district were skyping with people that were living in California or Utah, but when we asked our person where he was from, he said some crazy name and then "Manila". Sister Storey just paused and said, "Ngayon?" which means "right now?" He just laughed and said yes. AAAAHH. It was horrifying. We ended up just reading off what we'd "prepared", (we were supposed to do it tonight, so we hadn't prepared yet but they changed the day suddenly) and hoped for the best. He didn't say much, but still. He was in. the. Philippines.
• So yesterday, we did In Field Orientation! Woo! Holy Cow, it was nutso. We just went back and forth between two room sitting and learning and practicing for 9 hours straight, with a 30 min. break for lunch. Wow, it was rough. It was really cool though, and they made a really big effort to make it entertaining and fun. I guess they call it the "Disneyland of the MTC", which sounds dumb, but it really was kind of like that. There was this one teacher who used to be Athiest, but about 7 years ago was converted in France and he is VERY proud to be a Frenchman. I would be too if I had an accent like that, but still. It was pretty funny. There were some really cool things we did though- like practice how to share about mormon.org with someone at the airport, or practice how to just briefly give a one minute overview of some doctrine if you meet someone in a park. It was very cool, but afterwards, my legs hurt so bad!! It got me pretty excited, until we went to class and I had to teach in Tagalog again (IFO was all english) and I felt SO inadequate. This next week will be quite an adventure! haha. yikes. Pray for me.
• We heard about President Monson's wife. Oh, how I love them! I know things get hard, but this Gospel is true!

I am so excited to go teach the people of the Philippines! Everytime I get scared, I just have to remember that the Lord knows what he's doing and it's such a good thing he does! I know this Church is true. Alam ko po na totoo!

 

*If you want to write to me, plese use the Laoag Mission Home address now. I'll get my actual address up when I can! Emails are always welcome, but I don't know how likely it is to get an email back. I'll try very hard to write back though!

 

Love,

Sister Amy Porter

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