MOMMY!!!
Surprise! It's P-day already. I know it's only been 2 1/2 days for you, but it's been forever for me. The MTC is amazing! I love it here!!! You know how I was before I left... kind of depressed, sad, scared, nervous, not wanting to go... well. That is no more. In fact my branch president asked me yesterday in my interview if I had any questions or concerns and I responded "If you would have asked me that on Monday, or Tuesday or Wednesday I could have talked for an hour. But not anymore. I'm doing fantastic!! The spirit here truly is amazing. I have so many friends to say hi to as I'm walking to class or lunch or to my room.
Alright. From day 1. My host took me to check in and I got my name tag (FINALLY) and my room key and my access card. Then I was taken to my room. We just set my luggage inside, got my scriptures and notepad (which I didn't have... ) and we went to the bookstore to get my supplies. I walk around the corner and Miller jumps in the doorway and yells "Rokovitz!!!!" I yelled "Miller!!!" and he gave me a big hug! It was so good to see him! I got my supplies which was a Preach my Gospel, an MTC experience manual, a personalized schedule for my entire stay, and some study pamphlets. My host then took me to my classroom and basically dropped me off :P I met my companion who is Sister Evans. Funny thing is we met on FB before we got here!!! It was so cool! So our district is 4 elders and 4 sisters: me and my comp, Sister Leavens & Sister West, Brother Cottam & Brother Snow (District Leader), and Brother Wilkinson and Brother Godfrey. Our district is amazing :) We eat all meals together and laugh and have really deep discussions and we are just family! Our teachers, Sister Ure and Brother Winters are so great! They really plan their lessons for us and engage us and discuss with us and we really are getting the absolute most out of our classroom experience!
Next we went to a new missionary orientation. Over 600 new missionaries entered the MTC that day. It looked like about half were from Utah when the MTC president had us stand up. How cool is that?! There are missionaries from singapore, and malaysia, and china, and africa, and everywhere!!! Next was dinner. I saw Sister Lisie Dixon, Elder Kimball Crocket, Elder Chet Oxborow, Elder Andrew Poulter, Sister Katelyn Neilsen, and Sister Adelheid Hulme. I have so many friends here!!! Oh and the Cafeteria is amazing! It is huge and has so many options and there is always cereal and always milk and tons of juices!
After dinner was a teaching experience. It was truly amazing. We went into 3 different rooms as a large group where there were "living rooms" set up. A set of missionaries did a door approach and started the lesson. Then we had to finish the lesson with questions and answers. The spirit really was there. We prayed for the investigators and shared scriptures with them and we even found out that they were real investigators.
Last we met our zone, or at least the other new missionaries in our zone. We are amazing! We have fun as well. I love seeing the other Elders and Sisters on campus and saying Hi all the time. Oh, one thing we are not allowed to do here is refer to each other as "guys." It's always Elders or Sisters. So we can't say to our district, "See you guys at lunch." We have to say "See you Elders and Sisters at lunch!" It's the hardest thing in the world, but it's cool because we're avoiding "worldly slang"
So my first night was a nightmare!! I tossed and turned till 1:30 a.m. I had so much noise going on inside my head! So many conversations and songs and plans all at the same time!!! So finally I got up, dug for my oils and lathered Lavender all over my feet. I finally fell asleep and stayed asleep.
I got up at 5:45 to shower because apparently at 6:00-ish the showers start filling up. They're really nice because they have a hook and shelf area for your towels and robe and shower things. Anyways we went to breakfast and then to a workshop. The workshop was so hard to stay awake through so I didn't get much out of it.
So next me and Sister Evans hit up the gym. We walked in... and my face went red because it was just all Elders playing basketball or volleyball. I felt so lost. Then the administrator said "Are you sisters here for the first time?" ... He showed us around and so we went upstairs and did the elypticals. I sweated buckets. Ok that's not all that spiritual.
During class we had a very in depth conversation about planning. It's importance, the effectiveness of it, etc. Then at the end we learned about 2 investigators that we will be teaching. Lang and David. They are real people that our teachers taught on their missions, but they are acting as them. We got to go in to individual rooms as companions and pray for revelation on which investigator to teach. Coolest thing ever!! I said the prayer and when I said David's name I just felt... something. We talked about it and both agreed on David.
So that's pretty much it for the first real day. We went to bed a little after 10:30 and I slept so much better. I love it here!!
Commercial break. (That's what Sister Ure says in class haha) There is a tree on campus that smells like cream soda. No lie. It is the weirdest and coolest thing!! You always see people sniffing it.
Today was truly amazing. Well... breakfast wasn't because me and Sister Evans were late so we had 5 minutes... but after, we went to class. Today Brother Winters taught. We had the chance (after planning and preparing yesterday) to teach David for the first time. We went to a different room, (his house) and did a door approach and taught him an inspired lessons that we had prepared just for him. It was amazing. The spirit definitely guided me as we taught. We had him read a scripture and he looked like he was touched by our message. We go back to teach him tomorrow night :) The rest of class was about the Doctrine of Christ and how it relates to our purpose as missionaries. We studied very carefully 2 Nephi .... 5 or 31... I can't remember but I think it's 31. It was amazing!!!!!! There is a scripture in that chapter that talks about how Christ was baptized and he was perfect, so us as unperfect people definitely need to be baptized. I used that in my other investigator teaching practice today. We also studied the introduction to the Book of Mormon. That is a neat page. I am definitely going to be using that a LOT.
After class we had lunch, ONION RINGS BABY!! and dessert was good. Then we did laundry, checked email, wrote in our journals, visited Miller again.... and now I am writing you. We had to try so many computers to get them to work! It was so frustrating!! And my time is up... We need to go study. So I am doing so well... and no offense, I don't miss you guys yet :) I took a lot of pictures but the computers are retarted. We're going to try computers in another building so look for those... if not... next week. I love all of you so much!!! I am so glad I'm here and I absolutely love what I am doing!!! I can't wait to here back from you!! Oh and I got your letters from Dear Elder... but I'm not allowed to open my mail till tonight! I peeked though to see who it was from :) I love you!!
Love, Sister Rokovitz
