Week 2 :D

Hello, family and Friends!

I hope that you're all doing well. All of your emails make me smile (and, not gonna lie, tear up a lil), and I love them with all my heart, so thank you muchly!

Since last P-Day, it feels like it's been at least a month. I feel like I'm growing so much so fast, every day feels like two! On Sunday, we had a devotional and the speaker was Donny Osmond. I of course had no idea who he was, but other people were f r e a k i n g out. His talk was not great. A lot of it was just him talking about his career and famous life, like he was bragging and stuff. He had a few good nuggets of spiritual wisdom, but way too much of it was "whaaaaat? You guys don't know who I am???? I'm famous tho!!" Afterwards, people S W A R M E D.

But after Donny, we got to watch The Character of Christ by Elder Bednar and it was amazing!! I forgot to bring my notes, so Sister Woodcock and I are going to watch it again on Sunday. Sadly, it's only legal to watch in the MTC, so I can't get it to Y'all. 

Monday was super full and we had three investigators to teach (we're hitting the ground running, yeah?). We had two TRCs which means "teaching resource center", and my companion and I taught a girl about our age named Alicia and then a woman who's a bit older than us (who's Pregnant!) named Paula. The other person we taught was named Kristin, but our teacher Sister Roberts was role playing as her. Sister Woodcock and I have taught the restoration, the plan of salvation, and the gospel of Jesus Christ so far, and it's been really stretching me. We got the farthest with Paula, who committed to be baptized during our third lesson!! She is such a cutie and I love her so dang much. Next week we get two new investigators, so I'm sad to not teach Paula and Alicia next week, but I've learned a lot about this gospel and about myself. 

Tuesday and Thursday were really hard. I broke down on Tuesday night, but not because of homesickness! It was because I felt like I was inadequate and selfish!!! Fun heckin times :) It's just been a lot of up and down, back and forth with that kind of stuff. It's hard, but it's so good for me. [section redacted]

But getting past that, it's been super fun at the MTC! In our room, we have three sets of sister missionaries and it's so fun to chat and just be girls before we go to bed. We accidentally stayed up until 11:00 pm last night, but it was so fun that I didn't care too much.

We've been doing a lot better with our Elders!! They're actually talking to us now, but I think it's mostly because of the other district in our zone (bless em). We invited our Elders to play volleyball in the sand pits outside (which we had been doing with the other district for a couple of days), but they were like "oh no, we're going to the weight room" But it's okay because the other Elders in our zone talked to them and got them to come out on Thursday and today to play. The Elders on both sides keep getting super competitive, but the rest of us are just there to have fun :) And it's SO dang fun! I have a low-key sunburn, but it's been so great.

I made sure to take pictures this week so I could send them to you!! In the first four pics, the other Sister is my companion, Sister Woodcock. She is so wonderful!

That's all I have time for today, but I love you all so so so much!!

Sister Carlson

P.S. - please dial down my sassiness for the blog, thank you!! - [Sassiness remediated - Dad]

P.P.S - Mama, if you find any of those floral dresses that literally every missionary has that's like a high-ish collar, short sleeves, and long length, I would greatly appreciate it :) They're kind of like Ivy's red floral dress, but made of a more t-shirt like fabric. Or really long pencil skirts. Bless :D