Week #6 !

Oh my.... WE LEAVE IN A WEEK FROM TODAY!! We had a very busy week this week so be warned...

 

This week Irmao Staples pulled all the sisters aside and wanted to try something new. We switched companions so we could learn some different study habits and different teaching habits. Sister Cahill was my companion and it definitely was a learning experience. I loved being able to see how different people plan and prepare and teach. 

We got 14 new missionaries on Wednesday. The 6 sisters are amazing and we already love them so so much! They fit right in here! 2 of the sisters got their visas so they will be leaving to the Brazil MTC when we leave on Tuesday. 

 

We were kind of homeless this week too. We tried to get into our room after the day and none of our keys would work, so the security guard tried to open our door with her key and it wouldn't work either. They had to call a locksmith (taking drastic action here). We sat in the hall and were a sad looking group drinking our juice we bought and studying. It was a sad sight. We waited for over 45 min for the locksmith and finally were able to get into our room. It was quite an adventure. 

 My grandma sent me a card this week and on the out side put, "we went to olive garden without you. Sorry." and then inside the card she put these mini breads. Haha it was so funny and we all got a good laugh out of it. 

 On Thursday we went to In-Field orientation. We learned a lot about working in the field and with members. It was basically an overview of everything we have learned here at the MTC. We were all so excited to finally have a little change in our schedule for the week.

 

Elder Hunt and Elder Buhler didn't get their visas to Brazil so all week we were waiting for them to get their re-assignments. They finally did and they are going to Portland, Oregon! We were so so excited for them! They left early yesterday morning so we all got up and said goodbye and had one last district prayer. We will miss them tons but are excited for the day when we all see each other again!

 

WE GOT OUR FLIGHT PLANS! We fly out on Tuesday of next week! It's coming so so fast! We have almost a full day of flying.

 Irmao Staples challenged us to make a personal title of liberty so as a zone we picked a scripture to memorize in Portuguese. Our title of liberty scripture is Alma 26:12. And it's my favorite scripture! As missionaries we will boast of our God and share Christ and His example with everyone!

 

On Sunday, i did something out of my comfort zone. Elder Hunt wanted to do a musical number in sacrament before he left, so me, Sis. Savage, and Sis. Hillam sang "Savior Redeemer/ Missionary Medley" and guess what.... I Sang the first part of the song as a solo! Ahhhh it was so scary but I'm really glad i did because it was a beautiful song and i loved being able to testify of the Savior through music!

 We had our last lessons with Irmao Crestani this week so we decided to make him a shirt to remember us by. We all signed it and put the funny quotes on it that had happened while he taught us. He is such a good teacher and he helped us so much and we are going to miss him our last week. 

 Elder M. Russel Ballard came and spoke at our Sunday night Devotional and it was so powerful. He talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and the Truth it holds. I know that the Book of Mormon is Evidence that Joseph Smith is a true prophet. One thing he said was, "When you are feeling down and discouraged, write a letter to Joseph Smith while he is in liberty jail and try and cheer him up. I know that he wouldn't have gone through all of the hardships he went through just to teach a lie. I know He is a Prophet and that He saw Jesus Christ and our Father in Heaven. 

 

I love you all!

Sister Jarnagin

 

 

Week #5!

This week has been kind of slow and we didn't do much that was different.

There is this rule here at the MTC that we aren't allowed to shake hands because of the worry that we will spread the flu around, so we do this weird elbow bump thing instead. Two of the elders in our zone weren't feeling so well so they went to get it checked out and they got QUARANTINED! Ha ha that just means they had to stay in the little hospital thing for a couple days until they got better.

Sister Post and Sister Overson left this morning and yesterday morning. Sister Post had her visa to Brazil so we got up and took her to the travel office and to the shuttle yesterday morning. It was so sad to see our mama bear go! Sister Overson didn't get her visa to Brazil so she got re-assigned. The first re-assignment she got was to her home town in Arizona, and then I think they realized they had made a mistake because the next day she was re-re-assigned to Reno, Nevada. We took her this morning to the shuttles. It was so sad to see our friends leave but i know they are all going to do great! Our district is now the oldest district in the zone! We even get newbies tomorrow. 14 missionaries total with 8 elders and 6 sisters! We are so so excited!!!

We are still teaching Paulo and Samuel and enjoy the lessons with them! Irmao Staples suggested that the sisters might switch companionships for teaching so we can learn the different styles or studying and teaching we each have.

 We got the opportunity to host more new missionaries! We love hosting and seeing all the happy elders and sisters who are excited to serve the lord!

Last p-day we got to attend the temple again and it was so wonderful! The weather has been beautiful here and so so warm! It all makes us happy to get out of the classroom and just be outside! We can even study on the benches outside on our personal and companion study. We ate lunch at the temple and then attended the session afterward.

 On Friday we had TRC again but instead of someone coming in for us to teach, we Skyped with members speaking Portuguese. Sister Hillam and I Skyped with a lady in Rio, Brazil. OH MY WORD SHE TALKS SO FAST! It was definitely a change Skyping and listening to the difference of the language. We will get to do that 2 more times before we leave.

Yesterday we were in class studying and Elder Hunt had gotten a bottle of orange juice. Elder Wakeham gets up and takes the bottle of orange juice, puts it on the floor, holds up 2 fingers, whistles, and kicks the bottle of orange juice straight at the window! EXPLOSION! The orange juice seriously went everywhere in the classroom and everyone was just silent for a minute. Ha ha sometimes we wonder about our elders. That was the weirdest/ funniest thing that happened all week!

On a more spiritual note, on Sunday the new MTC presidency spoke at all of our meetings. And guess what!? They all speak Portuguese! One of the couples were even mission presidents in Portugal! We always get to watch a movie on Sunday night and we chose to go to Elder Bednar's talk, "Becoming a Missionary" that he gave at the MTC in 2011. Ahhhh it was just so so wonderful. One of the things he talked about was getting out of the way so the spirit can teach! A lot of times missionaries just talk, talk, talk and teach neither people nor lessons, but rather talk to themselves in front of people. I love how as missionaries we get to teach by the spirit and be instruments in the Lord's hands. At the end of the talk he said "YOU CAN DO THIS!" I really just needed to hear that. Sometimes it gets frustrating and discouraging trying to give lessons in Portuguese with very limited knowledge of the language, but if we trust in the lord we can do all things in his strength!

I love you all and I am grateful for all the letters I have received from you! Just 2 more weeks until we get to enter the field!

Tchau!
 -Sister Jarnagin

Week #4 !

We have done so much this week and time has flown!

The Provo temple finally opened so we were able to go on our last p-day! Ahhhh I loved it! It's so beautiful and I felt so at home!

Bonnie L. Oscarson came and spoke at our devotional.  She talked all about missionary work and how important it is. She had us watch "The Current Bush".  It's a Mormon message and it has such a good message.  The gardener has a little current bush but it had grown so big and wasn't producing any currents. The gardener trimmed and pruned the current bush down to almost the stump. The current bush said "Why would you do this to me! I was making such great progress and I was growing so big!" The gardener said, "I don't want you to be a shade tree, I want you to be a current bush." The current bush grew and produced tons of currents. One of the lines from the video I liked best was, "Thank you for loving me enough to cut me down." We often don't realize how much we grow from a trial. But looking back we realize the progress we made and say to our maker "Thank you for loving me enough to cut me down."

We got to be Hosts for all the new sisters that came in on Wednesday! I helped 4 girls and we took them to their classrooms, residence hall, and to get their books. The saddest part was having to pull them away from their families at the curb, but I remember how nice my host was when I came in and how much better she made me feel. 

After we hosted, I had to get my ingrown toenail taken out. All of my roomates talked me into doing it because I really did not want to. We got to leave the MTC and go to the podiatrist and he was sooo nice! He said he couldn't believe I had waited to get it taken out because it was so big! It was about half the size of my pinky fingernail and as tall as my big thumb nail. My toe is doing so much better and now it doesn't hurt. I am so happy I got it taken care of!

 The MTC presidency is getting released today so the wives gave the lessons in relief society on Wednesday. It was really weird because they talked about marriage, and all the new sisters were crying because they had all just left their boy friends at home a couple days before. It was weird because we are all on a mission and marriage is not the first thing on our mind right now haha, but it was still good. 

We are still teaching Paulo. We found out that his addiction to smoking is taking him away from his family and it is making his family and him sad. So we are going to help him stop! We have grown close to him and it's always enjoyable teaching him. We also started teaching Samuel. He is an inactive member and he doesn't see God's hand in his life. We had our first lesson this week with him and are excited to get to know him.

EXCITING NEWS!! The Portugal, Lisbon mission is being split into the Porto, Portugal mission and the Lisbon, Portugal mission effective July 1st. They have already called new mission presidents for both missions and which ever mission we are currently serving in at the time of the split, that is the mission we will be in. We are all excited! We only have 2 and a half more weeks in the MTC! WHAT?!

My sweet mom sent me some new shoes this week, and some of the elders wanted to try them on because they were so "cute" so that's what some of the pictures are. 

Thank you for all writing me and sending letters! I love you all!

Love, 

Sister Jarnagin 

Week #3 ! ! !

 Oh man! This week has been a busy one! The weeks are usually all pretty busy but this one was especially busy.

We taught our last couple lessons to our investigator, Anna. We are sad to see her go because we have grown really close. I always loved our lessons with her because we really opened up to each other and we always felt the spirit in our lessons. 

Sister Hillam and I were really struggling with our progress on the language this week and we asked Sister DeCampos how we could improve our language study. I love what she said to us. "Does the language really matter?" Of course we said YES! But she said no. She told us that even though we couldn't say a lot, we could teach a spiritual filled lesson on the few vocab we do have. She said it is not us speaking, but the spirit speaking through us. It really boosted our spirits. We will just keep studying and working to learn more every day so we can be the best instruments in God's hands. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE MTC! We had a small new years celebration in our room at 10:30. We blew kazoo things that shoot out when you blow them, ate popcorn, and did the popper things that shoot out confetti. It was quite fun :) When we did the poppers they let some smoke off and we were so scared we were going to set the fire alarm off... but we didn't so it's okay.

We had our first TRC, which is where you teach a member in a living room setting with a camera for language practice. We taught two twenty min. lessons and they both went so good! We loved talking and visiting with the people and sharing a message with them. We also practiced our first street contacts. It was hard because we don't know a lot of words, but some how we are able to get our point across!

We have an Investigator, Devan, who we are teaching in English and I absolutely love her! She is one of the sweetest people I have met! We had a wonderful lesson and it's so easy to share with her. 

Sunday was our first fast Sunday at the MTC. Right before sacrament meeting started, Brother Adolphson asked to speak to me and sister Hillam. He asked us if we would be the new sister training leaders! Of course we said yes! We are excited about our new calling, especially because we just got a new district of 10 missionaries all going to Brazil, with 3 new sisters! They are so sweet and we already love them! The new zone leaders are Elder Masubalubelele and Elder Bullock. One of the pictures of us at the temple is with them.

We named all of the districts with Harry Potter house names. And of course we are Gryffindor. And of course we are the best at quidditch!

I hope you all are doing wonderful :)

Tchau!
 Sister Jarnagin