The Blessing of Letter's from home!!

So much happened this week. A common phrase that you hear in the MTC is "the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days." It's true! We learn so much in one day.. The closer I get to entering the mission field, the more excited and nervous I get. I have only 3 full days left in the MTC. I think my next P-Day will be next monday. So I have a little bit of a wait before my next email.

Okay my companion is so great! She provides me with so much entertainment all the time. On Tuesday we had a lesson with our roll play investigator named Jess (one of our teachers roll plays Jess). During around the middle of the lesson Jess abruptly states that he realized he needed to go and that we would have to continue another time. Sister Beach (my companion), panics, throws her arms in the air, and shouts out "BUT WAIT, GET BAPTIZED!!" We all burst out laughing. It was so funny! Hopefully she doesn't use that approach in the mission field.

Also, she is so great because she has been adopting all of my Canadian lingo. For example, she always calls it a washroom now instead of a restroom or bathroom. All of the other missionaries in our district think that is the weirdest thing. Haha I think it is hilarious because I didn't even tell her to, she just started randomly one day.

There are so many great people here too. Sister Pyper is my favorite Sister Missionary. She is from Texas and grew up in pretty much every southern state, so she has a super thick southern drawl. It is so great. She would always say things like "come on sisters, put a little hitch in your giddy up." My favorite was how she would say "bless her heart." She sat us all down one night in the residential halls and explained to us the "proper" way to use "bless her heart" She said basically you can say whatever you want about any of the sisters without being too mean, and by ending it with "bless her heart" you just cancelled out everything you just said about her. Haha. She was such a character and super spunky. Bless her heart. One night her and her companion burst through our bedroom door making Indian sounds, jumping up and down and all over the place. Her companion yells, "It's a Lamanite! She wont leave until you convert her to the gospel! Quick, someone teach her!" Haha so we jumped right in on it and proceeded to teach her the first discussion as quickly as we could before she destroyed the whole place. Those sisters were so fun!

Roll play is a funny concept. It is so good, and sometimes is so challenging. But it is super helpful. It is so good for being able to step outside of your comfort zone and learn new things. My companion and I discovered that doing roll play with any of the senior staff members here on campus is completely fruitless. Don't do it! Our class was given the challenge to go outside and get practice committing random people to baptism. it was really fun, and super funny. So, obviously everyone on campus is already a member, and usually they would understand the concept of roll play. Well Sister Beach and I went up to this one lady who looked to be in her early 60's and proceeded to give her the baptismal commitment. Well we could barely get through it before she looked at us appallingly and says, "sisters, I am already a member." We tried to play it off by asking what church she was baptized into and proceeded to explain the priesthood authority. She was just not getting it. She says, pointing to her name tag, "see, look at my name tag, I am already a member, why else would I be here on this campus" and then actually ran away from us. Sister Beach and I look at each other and burst out laughing. Maybe next time we will stick to the Elders and Sisters to practice on. Seniors just DO NOT understand roll play AT ALL. My teacher said he experienced that several times too when he was in the MTC.

True story, there is actually a tree that smells like cream soda on campus! When I was giving the new sisters and orientation of campus they would not believe me until we passed by and saw a huge group of poeple actually sniffing the tree. No lie! Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of it right now. But I will for sure send one next week.

Getting letters as a missionary is probably the greatest thing in the whole entire world, besides when people accept the gospel. You can NOT get your hopes up though because if you do it is SO disappointing when you don't get anything. Especially when everyone around you is getting 2 or 3 each. Jenaya Thompson, Gabi Carvalho, Daniel Dromey, and Jessica Tippetts pretty much made my week this week. I literally squealed and jumped for joy when I got letters. BUT  don't send me letters cause you feel guilty, haha, send other people you know that are out on missions. You have no idea how happy it will make them. And if there is anyone out there who would be willing to do a service. My companion has not gotten even one letter since entering. She is so great and says its not a big deal. But I swear I can see her heart break night after night. Her name is Sister Beach. We have the same address. AND sending mail through dearelder.com is SUPER easy and its gets to them same day which is great since we only have 3 days left.

I love you all! I am out of time to write. But I love it here. I love everything about being a missionary. I love how incredibly hard it is, because it is 10 times more rewarding!
Sister Carter


NOTE from Malia's Mom - If you are trying to send a letter to Malia or Sis. BEACH at the MTC through DEARELDER.COM the you will need her unit #87 and Mission Code AUG06 CA-SRO