Week 3 - MTC

Greetings everyone!

Firstly, Happy Birthday yesterday Mom! Hope it was a lovely birthday!

Also, thanks for all the wonderful goodies and treats everyone has sent. I think I have enough cookies now to last the rest of my MTC stay! :) You all are the best!

It has been a great, and busy week in the MTC. Like I mentioned last week we got a new sister in our apartment. Her name is Sister Steck and she is going to Hungary. Since she is the only Sister going to Hungary in the MTC right now, she is our newest fourth companion. She is so fun, and now we are able to split up into two companionships when we want to do different things.

Sister Summers from my district finally got out of quarantine this week, but then yesterday our other roommate who is going to the Figi mission got put in quarantine for Swine Flu. Now we all are taking tamiflu pills so that we don't get sick. I'm also taking the typhoid pills right now, so that I will be protected when I get to Albania. They had a shot option for the Typhoid, but obviously I chose the pill option. :) Me and my companions are all really healthy though, so that has truly been a blessing.

The day we came into the MTC we made really good friends with some three other sisters who arrived the same day. They were all serving in the Independence Missiouri mission, so they only had three weeks in the MTC. That means they left last night. Our companionships had gotten really close, so it was hard to see them go, but they will be amazing missionaries. It is so crazy that some people who arrived when we did are already leaving the MTC and we still have like two months. I'm not complaining though, I need the time to learn Albanian. Anyway, our room is very obedient about turning our lights off and going to bed at 10:30pm, but for the first time last night we were up till 11:15pm saying good bye to the girls. I'm sure that sounds pretty funny to most of you that 11:15pm is late, but to me that is really late now. :)

On Sunday, our District (the eight of us going to Albania) sang in our Sacrament meeting. All the Elders have great voices, and so we sang "We Thank Thee Oh God For A Prophet," in Albanian. It was really good, or at least we thought so.

At our Tuesday devotional this week we had Elder William R. Walker from the First Quorum of the Seventy speak to us. He is the head apostle over Temple Building, so he gave a huge history of all the temples that have been built and future ones to be built. It was really cool. If you didn't already know, there are currently 130 operating temples, 8 temples under construction, and 13 announced temples. That is a total of 151 temples throughout the world. And three of those announced temples that they will start building in the next coming years are in Arizona. We are all praying for a temple in Albania, but first we have a lot of work to do there. Hopefully I'll see one built there in my lifetime though. That would be so cool!

This week we taught in the TRC, which is where they bring in people (usually volunteer BYU students), and we practice teaching them the lessons. I taught the First Vision this week, and recited Joseph Smith's account from Joseph Smith history, and I only spend a few minutes reviewing those verses. That means I remembered that account because I memorized it in Seminary. So seminary truly is a blessing, and even though we all make fun of me for being a drop-out, I did learn something there. Ha ha!

Sorry my time is short this week, because I have so much Albanian study to get to, but I love and miss you all. I know that the church is true and that Joseph Smith was truly a prophet of God. I'm so grateful to be a missionary at this time and to be serving the Lord.

I Love You!

Love,
Motra Hall