czech her out!: MTC Week 4 "Two Year Mark"

Note from Melanie on another letter this week: Also my address is FEB 16 CZE-SLVK. Not FEB 17th. Every time I get a letter they always circle and cross out 17 and write 16. They just recently changed the color of their correcting pen to RED. If you could repost and tell everyone to change that, it would be phenomenal. That way the MTC mailroom won't light all my mail on fire.

When my district all realized we are almost halfway through our MTC training, an Elder shouted out "IT'S OUR 2 YEAR MARK" uhhhh...so our ice cream eating celebration on Friday is now called the '2 year mark'

WELL if you are reading this hoping to receive some type of inspiration or spiritual thoughts, you will not get a lot of that in this email. NOT SAYING the spirit turned off this week but I really remember some fun times in the last week!

Well, nevadí. I will start with a spiritual story. The MTC presidency has changed! The Nally's were wonderful presidents but now their 3 years of service are done and everyone is so happy they were here when the large boom of missionaries were here. Their second to last devotional the choir (which I have been a part of since I got here) sang "A Childs Prayer". The Nallys have a ton of grandchildren. So some of them came in and were all sorts of cute! They sang the first verse, all the sisters sang the second verse -as if telling them how to pray and the power of prayer, then we all sang together. The mother instincts inside of me released a few waterworks. Which is only embarrassing because every devotional is recorded and sometimes broadcast to the other MTC's around the world. Oh well. It was beautiful!

This last Tuesday Elder Russell M. Nelson came to speak to us with his wife and a man from the Quorum of the Seventies, David Evans I think his name is. They were alllll GLORIOUS speakers. I know the Holy Ghost is real because I had a hard day Tuesday and their words were exactly what I needed to hear. --This church is sooo true---But we all sang "Joseph Smith's First Prayer"---HELLO FAVORITE SONG! We sang a version of it that was so powerful I felt my inside burn with love for the Restoration of the church. I have really grown a testimony through music. Ever since I entered the MTC I feel like I have sang better than I have in the past and I have internalized each word of the song to then bare testimony as I sing it.

So every Thursday night we have these things called TRC. It is when we teach an RM (returned missionary) from the Czech Republic about various topics ranging from Revelation to prayer of receiving answers by reading the Kniha Mormonova (Book of Mormon). It was way fun to do last week. I challenged an RM to pray in the mornings. He laughed and said okay! Then I asked him to say the closing prayer. He was like "haha okay" (he served in 2006-2008) We are actually recorded and our teachers listen in and hear how we are communicating. I love it! So I am excited about tonight.

So now for funzies of the MTC. My companions OH! Cectpa Barch is in Macedonia now! The night before she left, her and I probably got a total of 2-3 hours of sleep. She had to report to the travel office at 3 am in order to make all her flights and whatnot. It was a rough day but I wasn't too tired!

Okay anyways now I am in a trio with 2 Bulgarian Sisters. Cectpa Olden and Cectpa Taylor. I have been rooming with and hanging out with them this whole time, so not much change really went down. I love them so much! During gym time we have been working on some records. There are a few records of Elders and Sisters doing various fitness things. There is nothing for wall sits yet. That is the one I am working on. So far I am at 3 minutes. I'll let you know when I set a high record that can't beat my thunder legged wall sits. Sister Olsen set the sister's record for the mile. We have a track that when ran around 10 times, is 1 mile. Sister Taylor and I cheered her on as she ran around a ton. On the last lap we raced her which pushed her a lot because she was slowing down. So as we ran around that last lap I was yelling at her and hollering and sprinting my heart out! SHE GOT 6:31!!! yeahhh baby! Sister Taylor now is a gangster with sit ups. The record now is 50. That is cake for Sister Taylor. She said in 4th grade she did 400 of those babies! So we are soon to be pretty famous :)

A little bit ago my mom sent me some funny #mormonproblems. So I have been compiling a list of #MTCproblems. Připravedný? (Ready?)

#not knowing what you are eating but consuming anyways

#6:30 AM line for showers

#cold/influenza spreading like a wildfire in the desert

#"PAGE 33!"

#getting too aggressive playing volleyball

#no snooze buttons allowed

#new rule of "no throwing snowballs"

#MTC gas...it all smells the same and it is everywhere

#our obyvatel (residence) constantly smells like righteous missionary FEET

#long lines for BYU Creamery ice cream

#candy/junkfood in every room

#needing Comp. Inventory (its like a pow wow for companionships to talk about strengths and weaknesses and to discuss companionship problems) after playing a wild game of 4 square---SERIOUSLY some Elders get way too worked up about 4 square...not even 3rd graders care that much!

#making our own music since we aren't allowed to listen to it here

#hiding things in our scarves

#taking photos of random missionaries with cameras with really nice zooms (they are hilarious. It is surprising how often ransom missionaries look like professional models!)

Okay well that is all I can really say. I love you all. When you pray for missionaries or specifically for me, trust me, the Spirit listens and sends your love my way. There are bad times and doubting thoughts but I know because of my purpose and because of your prayers I am lifted up. Thank you for all of the love!

-Sestra Hale

P.S. I am going to start leaving little messages in English/Czech. Don't bother translating it because A) it might not be all the way correct and B) don't trust google translate. Our dictionaries for Czech are even filled with mistakes.

P.S.S. tak, milují ste moc. mám čtřy weeks left. jsem vdečná za toto experience a ya moje učitelkí. oni jsou trpělivost a miluící k Sestro Hale. Vím že evangelium Ježíše Krista je právdiva. Miluji se modlit v český! děkuji MOC za vaše modlitbo a laska. Okay. Mám jít. Budu mluvít k jste dalši week!