2/25/13: WISCONSIN!!!!!

Since, I last posted, I've made it to the field! But let me start at the beginning :)

The end of my time at the MTC was rather sad, to be honest. I loved my teachers there and my my district was AWESOME. Loved them.

We took lots of pictures and made our goodbyes worth it, for sure. It was grand.

On the plane from SLC to Denver, I was surrounded my missionaries. It was a relatively small plane, and 23 of the people on it were missionaries. So any opportunities to share were negated there :/

HOWEVER. On the plane, I sat next to an Elder Parry, and on the other side was a talkative, opinionated old lady. Her name is Barb. We were scarcely on the plane waiting for take off for two minutes when Elder Parry nudged me and whispered something I didn't understand. Then he repeated it.

"Convert her!"

I guess I can do that.

So I started asking her about herself and what she believed. She was headed to Milwaukee for her fathers funeral, and although she was in mourner's black, she was talking about how she knew he was with Jesus and how it was actually wasn't that sad of a thing. We asked her about her relationship with Jesus. She seems to go to church somewhere, but her philosophies are her own based on her interpretation of scripture.

She knows about Mormons. She thinks it's nonsense because she's compared the BoM to the original Greek and apparently JS's translation was way off.

Wait...what?

Don't ask me what she was trying to get across. I didn't completely understand it. Greek? Whatever.

Anyway, we actually talked for almost two hours about the gospel. Elder Parry took out his BoM and she took it from him and made us give her a rundown of every single book in it. We NAILED it, and she was super impressed, because she didn't know anyone who could do that with the Bible that well.

She went on a tangent about how Satan sometimes makes bad things seem logical and reasonable in order to draw people away. That was an interesting contrast to her statement about the BoM.

We started running out of gospel principles to talk about, and looked out the window to see how we were doing. 1 hour and 45 minutes, and guess who hadn't even lifted off yet? That's right. Us.

Turns out there was a messed up computer or something, so we were delayed. But we got off the ground a few minutes later.

Even though we had woken up at 3:00 AM and were pretty tired, it was worth just talking to Barb the whole ride. About life, occasionally straying into the gospel. At the end, as we were landing, the Milwaukee suburbs were SO BEAUTIFUL. And Lake Michigan. Awesome.

We landed and I extended the invitation to pray about the BoM, since, as she had said, Satan sometimes uses what seems like logic to distract us from truth. She accepted it and challenged us to do the same with the Bible.

O...kay.


Love her though. She actually taught me a lot. She's taught every single grade from kindergarten to 12th in her life. We talked a bunch about homeschooling, too. She was pretty cool.

So that's my story for the day. I got to the mission home, and we did a little testimony meeting and some interviews. It was grand. On Wednesday, we went to the stake center and I met my new companion, Sister Ipson. She's spunky and wonderful.

My first assignment is to open a new area. It's West Allis, a suburb of Milwaukee. I was so excited to get to work.

So how was my first night? Besides Sister Ipson feeling the most bored she'd ever been on her mission because we sat in the stake center for 4 hours waiting for a ride, it was...well...yeah.

New sister area. No car. No bikes. Just the public bus system and our own two feet. We knocked like 4 doors before it was too late to do much more. We have a nice little apartment with brand new stuff, and we bought bread, PB, and J to last us until Pday. Then we did some comp inventory and called it a night.

So, the rest of the week in our new area? The work here is going SO

nowhere.

Okay, I'm kidding, but I'm not. We keep getting lost on the buses. It takes us two hours to get to appointments, and most of them have cancelled or we've missed. Okay, all of them. We did get to teach a lady named Mallori, who is a member but needed some strangthening. I really liked that. But the numbers in our planners go something like 0,0,0,1,0,0,0,2,0,0. I so wish we had a car. But we decided we're not complaining anymore. We're just not.

This week is going to pick up SOOO much! We're finally figuring out the bus system, and we've met quite a few people that we can hopefully turn into investigators, and the ward is SUPER nice and helpful. West Allis WILL be the promised land. All in good time.

We accidentally wandered into a mall at one point. I got SO nostalgic, which is weird, because I don't generally even like shopping. But it happened. We're staying away from there.

Love you all!

Sister Neal

2/14/13: MTC: Make The Change

So it's my first week in the Provo MTC as a Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and can I just tell you, WOAH. It's been absolutely incredible. I can't even put into words how much of a miracle this place is. IT'S A MIRACLE. Like, if the church were not true, this place would be the worst learning institution EVER. Everything is based on the Spirit. You can't go five minutes without opening your scriptures or praying. All the teachers are recent RMs, and they just teach us based on our needs as they are inspired. There's no curriculum other than Preach My Gospel, which is AWESOME. And our teachers know SO MUCH. They can answer any question we have! There's so much to gain here. In addition, all application of what we learn in through the Spirit. 

But let me start at the beginning. Wednesday was crazy. I loved it. Apparently it was really hard for most people, but it was great for me. Homesickness, or something. We learned lifetimes in just that one day, but mostly it's all a blur. New missionaries are like deer in headlights.

Thursday was Learn to Study or Die day. We had like ten hours of study time, not exaggerating. All the other missionaries reassured us that this is the worst day at the MTC, but I didn't really feel it. Yeah, it was intense and crazy and all but I didn't think it was that ridiculous.

Friday hit me hardest. I was sick most of Thursday and was feeling better on Friday, but it's when the exhaustion hit and we taught our first investigator and realized how much work we had to do. Even then, though, I didn't realize what was going on.

What was going on: I was roadkill. Like, TOTAL roadkill. It wasn't until Sunday that I realized how miserable that first week had been. We had been warned and it's SO TRUE: Everything goes downhill if you can make it to your first Sunday in the MTC. Easy-peasy after that.

My companion is Sister Bean and I'm SO MAD I forgot to bring my stuff to the computer lab, so I don't have any pictures for you. But I will hopefully get those out soon :) Sister Bean is amazing, I love her. We compliment each others strengths and weaknesses really well. She's obedient and determined. I push up her self esteem when she's feeling inadequate, and she does the same for me :)

Anyway, not a lot of time and I think it's important that I get some things out for anyone preparing to serve:

First off, STAY AWAY from the orange juice and chocolate milk. It tastes great, but it will make you sick all day. Trust me.

Also, Sit back and enjoy the ride your first few days. Be serious, but don't let yourself get overwhelmed, cause it's pretty easy to be. Just take in what you can and the rest will come later.

YOU ARE NEVER RESPONSIBLE FOR AN INVESTIGATORS SALVATION. If after all you can do, they don't join the church, that's their choice. It doesn't fall on your head, even though whenyou love that person as much as you will, it will feel like it. Know how to gently but firmly pull yourself away from a situation that would otherwise tear you up.

So yeah, everything else sprouts from those things. It's not about teaching the gospel. It's about teaching people. It's not about bringing people into the church, it's about bringing then to Christ. KNOW what your purpose is. Live it.

So yeah, life is great, and EVERYONE should experience the MTC for at least three days. You learn and grow so much. And I've literally learned more in three days that I normally learn in a full semester of school, or multiple years of Sunday school. The only way cramming that much info into your mind and heart that fast is possible is because THE SPIRIT IS HERE BECAUSE THE CHURCH IS TRUE. That is all.

Have fun with life, I'm having fun with mine :) This work is so beautiful.