Week 1: The MTC

 Hello friends and family!

     This has been the busiest week of my life. I have never learned and grown so much before. The spirit that is here is incredible! From the second I said goodbye to my family, I was whisked away into this assembly line of missionaries. After being put through the assembly line, I emerged on the other side with a name tag, a room, a schedule, the name of my companion, and a loss for words. While getting settled in, I got to meet my beautiful companion, Sister Baird. Sister Young and Sister Sonnenburg also room with us, and there is no way I would be getting through all of this without those three sisters! We build each other up, learn from each other, and have a LOT of laughs together. We are also all going to North Dakota Bismarck mission! My whole district is just amazing, really.

     I think that the two things I have learned most while here are discipline and humility. It has been pretty crazy being intentional and working every hour of every day. You get ready, study, eat, study, go to class, eat, study, go to class, etc until you collapse back in bed at the end of the day, then you repeat it all over again. It takes quite a bit of discipline. We've also had a lot of messages shared with us, one being from Becky Craven during a general conference asking if we are being careful or casual. It's been a big period of growth, and I hope that I can be intentional and avoid being casual in all I do, because it truly is astonishing what you can accomplish that way. I have also been studying the Christlike attribute of humility. It's been a good reminder of what pride is, what humility, and the promised blessings of being humble. Essentially, humility is recognizing that by ourselves we are weak and nothing, but with God and through the atonement of Christ, we are made to be strong and everything. I have definitely seen this for myself. I have had to pray for the strength of Christ all day every day, and the blessings I've seen has made me wish that I had learned how to rely on Him earlier in life!

     For anybody wondering, what everyone says about the MTC being amazing but really hard is absolutely true. This is the best I have felt my whole life, but I have also shed some very real tears. I have loved studying the scriptures, learning how to invite others to come unto Christ, and every other opportunity the MTC has offered me. I love you all, and I cannot wait to be able to share the rest of these 18 months with you!