Our Days in the MTC

 It was so fun to see Booters when we first arrived!  We saw him every day because we were on the same cafeteria schedule as he was!  He looked so good and was soooo happy!

 MTC Day One:
(Taken from the email I sent out to friends and family)

We just wanted to give you a brief re-enactment of our first day away from home.

Left Santa Clara at 6:30...bawled the whole way out of town!

Got to the MTC at 10:30.  The guy who helped us thought our truck was too "cool" to be a "Senior" missionary vehicle.  The boys who were waiting by our door to get our luggage all wanted our truck, too!  When we got up the three flights of stairs to our room, all the boys were waiting for us.  They said," We've all been talking, and you two DO NOT look like senior missionaries!"  We laughed and told them we aren't seniors, we are "Tweeners"!  They all agreed!  Then when we went to our first orientation meeting, they all thought we were lost and in the wrong meeting!  We met lots of cute "Senior" couples, and made friends with people who are definitely old enough to be our parents...but we had fun and they like us!  The other couples call us the "Youngsters" and we are definitely YOUNGSTERS compared to anyone up here!!!!  We got emotional a few times during the day, but overall, I think we did pretty good (well pretty good for US anyway!)

We ran in to Jacob (Booters) Frei in the cafeteria right when we walked in.  He was so happy to see us! Then we saw Nick Bott and another girl from Snow Canyon High.  They were all so cute and you could tell they loved seeing a familiar face.  We met some boys from the Island of Savaii (Samoa) where Mitch served, so we made friends with them right off the bat.  Everyone is jealous of where we are going....we feel really lucky! 

Now, we are both in bed, so tired...studying 32 PAGES of "Preach My Gospel"  I can already tell that this book is going to help US more than anyone we teach!  We feel like two fish out of water.  We said our prayers tonight and cried our eyes out, and then opened our eyes and looked at each other and laughed soooooo hard!  We are so glad we have each other to laugh with and cry with!

I have a whole new appreciation for our boys who did this at 19 all by them selves!  The food wasn't too bad, and we can leave at night to go out to dinner if we want to.   I can hear PF CHANGS calling our names!!!

Well, we better get to bed...we have a busy day tomorrow!  Our cell phones have been vibrating all day with cute texts and pictures from our kids. I'm so glad I live in a day with modern technology!!! I feel guilty when the young missionaries see us with our phones...they are so jealous that the couples can have phones and computers!! 

JAMES Chapter 2

Taken from the e-mail I sent out on the second day:

Today takes the cake!  

We had to teach our first lesson.  It was the first chapter in the "Preach My Gospel book.  It has eight different parts.  They bring in people to act as investigators.  Lonne told me to start it off and he would "Have my back." 

The room is set up like a living room, we have to knock on the door, and our guy was suppose to be named Ferrin.  So we knocked on the door and a lady dressed up like a "floozy" answers the door...it took us off guard and Lonne says, "Um, is Ferrin here?"  She almost started to laugh...we realized we had the wrong room! Actually they had SENT us to the wrong room, so we ended up teaching "Patti." 

I started the lesson and everything was flowing really good, and I thought things were going good. Lonne wasn't saying much so I finally just looked at him and kind of gave him the look like "Ok, you can join in any time now!" so he starts telling the Joseph Smith story.  and then he just kind of froze up...The lady asked a question ..."why did he go to pray?" so I said young Joseph was confused so he went to the bible and read James 1:5.  We are suppose to invite the investigator to read with us, so I invited her to read the scripture , which she was glad to do. I asked  Lonne to look it up for her.  I waited and waited, and waited, I was getting a little nervous so I looked over at Lon, he was fumbling through his bible, looking at all the tabs, looking in the front of the old testament, the front of the new testament, the front of the Book of Mormon, etc....I realized he couldn't find James!! Now for those of you who know the first part of our "James" story, you are probably laughing right now.  But for those of you who haven't heard it, let me re-count it for you:

A few years ago, Lonne was called to be the Sunday School teacher for the 14 year olds.  The first lesson he was teaching was out of James.  I was in the family room and all of a sudden I heard him yelling for me from the den..."Nance, Nance, Nance....I need you, get in here!"  I went in and he was sitting at his desk fumbling though his scriptures and said, Where the H***is James and what did he do??" This has been a standing joke at our house and throughout ournfriends ever since!

  

So here we are sitting in front of a camera, teaching this lady and it's De-Ja-Vu!! Luckily I KNEW the scripture off the top of my head and just quoted it!  I had heart palps and anxiety throughout the rest of the lesson,  but it went pretty good, regardless!  Lonne got Patti to commit to go to church with us on Sunday! :)

When we walked out of the room, we looked at each other and laughed so hard I thought we were going to die!  He looked at me and said, "Where the heck is James and what did he do?"

We told our "District" group about our first experience at giving a lesson, and they all laughed so hard they about fell off their chairs!  One of the ladies made a big pink tab for Lonne with JAMES written on it for him to put in his scriptures!  It is now the joke of our whole group!

It doesn't end there....

So... after our meeting, we made a potty break.  I still had heart palps from our lesson, and needed to just chill for a minute.  As we were walking down the MAIN hall to the cafeteria, this little lady came running behind me saying, "oh sister, oh sister, let me help you!"  She started pulling on my skirt...I had gotten my skirt stuck in my tights and my whole rear end was exposed!!  Seriously, this has always been my biggest fear, and I joke about it all the time!  I am not used to wearing tights in the first place, so I think that's why it happened, but regardless, it just added to the day and Lonne and I laughed so hard our stomachs hurt!  I think I had even passed some young elders in the hallway before she caught me!  It was hilarious!!

So....our first teaching day is going to go in our journals as one to remember!  It wasn't all bad though....we were able to end our day by going to the BYU game with my cute friend Lisa Petersen.  She got us some GREAT tickets (everyone in the MTC was soooo jealous) It was the best game!! I hope all of you were able to watch it!  Jimmer scored 43 points against #4 in the nation San Diego State, and the Cougars won!  This will be HUGE for BYU basketball.  It will probably put them in the top 5 in the nation.  Soooo happy for Dave Rose!!

It's late, I need to get to sleep, but I had to write all this down before I forgot the details.  I don't think it sounds as funny on an e-mail as it really was, but I hope it makes you smile!

We are having a ball, and we are definitely "Livening" this place up!! :)

Love you all!  Wish us luck tomorrow on our second lesson!! Aaaaahhhhhhhhhh!  I'm already nervous about it!! 

We are learning more than we will ever teach anyone, and I know that's why President Frei must have been inspired to call us on this mission!  I can't wait till I can just quote scriptures off the top of my head like the others in our group! Did I mention we have 4 other couples in our district (group)..one is a Patriarch, one has been a bishop twice, and the other two are scriptorians.  And then there's Elder and Sister Gubler....:)

The Famous Map Picture!!

BYU game with Lisa and Bill

 Me and my BFF, Lisa Dawn

Shayli is such a cute cheerleader!  It was fun to watch her up close and personal

 Thank you Shayli for getting us the GREAT tickets!!! We were sitting right next to a bunch of scouts who were here looking at Jimmer Fredette.  It was an awesome game!  LOVED seeing Lisa one more time and I told Shayli she can't get married till I'm back!!

FUN NIGHT!!!!!

We looked for Dillon Clement all week!  We finally found him on Friday!  He was so happy to see a familiar face, and we were happy to see him too:) 

Below:
This is a picture of our little District Group with our teacher, Elder Johnson.  He is such a cute kid!
We are going all over the World! We had a FUN group!  It's amazing how small the world is...we were all connected in one way or another.  Someone said, "There are no COINCIDENCES" in the mission field.  I believe that!

Elder Johnson, Sister Erickson (Samoa), Me and Lonne (New Zealand), 

Elder and Sister Pett (San Diego), Elder and Sister Marcov (Romania), 

and Elder and Sister Aland (Siberia)