Week 3: I'm SO PUMPED #TheChurchisSOTrue!

26 July 2016

Hello my lovelies!

Week 3 of my Missionary Training Center stay blew past so quickly! It's crazy how these last three weeks have simultaneously felt like three days and three months! I think it's simply because SO much happens in a a single day, let alone a week. I'm going to miss the people I've come to know and love here at the MTC... but I'm so majorly PUMPED to hit the field and teach the gospel to everyone! :D

So Wednesday, my companion and I studied with some of the Elders and we really bonded. It was incredible to see the testimonies of 18-20 year old young men and how strong they are. The Elders also make me laugh so much! xD I have come to re-realize that male members of the human race make a LOT more sense to me than their female counterparts (which is probably because of growing up with all brothers and a mom who grew up with all brothers)! xD Also, something that was such a major blessing is that Elder Bush in my district knows Sign Language!!! Talking with him this last week in Sign Language was wonderful because it made my homesickness level go down by a LOT (Mom and I sign to each other all the time and I hadn't realized how much I had missed that type of communication and her in general)! :)

That night I received letters from each of my parents. And those letters really strengthened me. It was such a testament to me, if my earthly parents know me so well that they knew exactly what I needed to hear, how much more does my Heavenly Father know and love me and knows exactly what I need to experience??? I'm so grateful for having such wonderful parents who work hand in hand with Heavenly Father to inspire me and lift me up when I need it. :)

Thursday was really wonderful for me! That day in Sister Gregerson's class she had us all go outside, be absolutely silent, listen, and record what we hear. Do you know how many things go on all around us that we don't notice simply because we aren't listening?? A lot apparently! Something else that I learned from that is that in order to truly listen, we have to listen with our eyes as well as our ears. When the Nephites heard the voice of the Lord they couldn't understand it the first time, or the second time, but the third time they looked to the source of the voice and they finally understood Him. I think a lot of times we don't see the ways that Heavenly Father and His Son are talking to us because we aren't looking for Them in our lives.

This week, but especially on Thursday, I have been studying the scriptures a lot in order to figure out what it means to be "valiant". This is what I've learned so far, PLEASE send me your thoughts or scriptures on what it means to be valiant. Valiant:  courageous, dependable, having integrity, diligent, noble, upright, steadfast, firm, immovable, opposite of idle, loving God more than man. There's also been a phrase that keeps popping up in my scripture study of this word "right hand".  So if you have any thoughts on this, send them my way because this is something that has really been on my mind. :)

By the way, I adore reading and studying the scriptures! There is nothing like opening them up and knowing that by so doing, I am spending time with three People who love me always! :)

Friday was CRAZY awesome! Friday was the day that the soon-to-be-departing missionaries got together for the In-Field Orientation. Holy cow, the Spirit was working overtime on Friday! One of the things that was really emphasized during this training was the phrase, "If you lower your expectations, your effectiveness will decrease." That's so powerful! In my own words what that means is, "Your expectations determine your reality". Wow. That still hits me every time I think about it! What we think about the future is what we will get. I'm still mulling over that nugget of wisdom!

To go along with that we talked about how as missionaries, as representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ, we need to expect miracles in our work. We are working side by side with Christ Himself and yet a lot of times us missionaries do not expect miracles! How ridiculous is that??? Just look at the story in St John 21! We can be fishing for hours and days and weeks and months and years by ourselves. But as we diligently work with Christ, all we will have to do is cast our nets where he tells us and we will not be "able to draw it for the multitude of fishes"(reference: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/john/21?lang=eng)!!! Take-away is: Trust in Christ=Expect miracles.

Saturday was super cool! I was in the TRC building and I saw one of my friends from BYU this past year, Harper *waves*! It was so funny because she was working as an investigator and I knew that I couldn't draw too much attention to her because I shouldn't blow her cover. :P But it was so wonderful to see her! Heavenly Father has been blessing me with seeing my friends because I have also seen Mason Tarwater (friend from home), Jeff Albee, Kenney Davis, Jerry Davis (all 3 from working at BYU last semester), Sophia, and Katie Ogden (friends from BYU ward)! *waves enthusiastically at all of you!*

So, Sister Vandervelde and I had been teaching Katie (TRC investigator) since Monday and she was really progressing and wanting to know the truth for herself. Saturday I felt so prompted to invite her to be baptized and after teaching her about it she agreed! It was so wonderful to be an instrument of the Lord in that moment and to feel the incredible amount of love that He has for her!

In class with Brother Gardner he had us do a self-evaluation using Preach My Gospel page 126 (I highly recommend doing this!) And good heavens, it really made me reflect on myself and how well I'm doing and things I need to work on. It was a really powerful moment where the Holy Ghost taught me some things that I should do in order to become a better missionary.

Brother Gardner also finally told us all who "Nathaniel" is (the investigator that he was pretending to be). And it turns out that it was someone that he had met with on his own mission. The story was SO inspiring! Nathaniel did end up joining the church and right now he is on a mission of his own! How cool is that???

During class with Sister Gregerson I simply daydreamed about how wonderful it would be to be companions with her, I love her to pieces! *waves at Sister Gregerson*

That night (since I was called as the music coordinator for my branch) I got the two districts who were leaving this week (my district and district 35-C) and lead us in the practice of "Come, Come Ye Saints" for a musical number the next day (since we were leaving and because the 24th was Pioneer Day.)  Saints above, I can't ever remember praying for divine grace more than when I was conducting about 25 Elders and 4 Sisters (that is including me!).

Sunday came, like it always does. We two districts got up even earlier than our normal wake-up time of 6:30 am in order to practice for this musical number. Again, lots of silent prayers on my part. But Sacrament meeting came, and it went smoothly! It actually sounded really beautiful! Miracles do happen! And while I am grinning while writing this, I am completely sincere! How could two 45 minute practices with a bunch of rowdy Elders with unfamiliar accompaniment turn into a beautiful prayer to the Lord if not through Grace? Miracles happen every day. We just don't see them because we aren't looking for them or prefer to rationalize them away.

Sister Vandervelde and I taught Relief Society on Sunday about the Book of Mormon and that was fun as always. I love teaching! Some of you know this but when I get back from my mission I am studying to become a religion professor at BYU! I LOVE teaching the gospel!

That night for devotional it was a super special devotional!!! For devotional they had the Nashville Tribute Band come in! The whole night was just INCREDIBLE music and though-provoking spiritual messages! I disliked counrty music my whole life, but I LOVED the music that was played. I was sobbing by the end of the night! As I said in previous emails, we (the MTC choir) had been practicing three of the twelve songs they sang in order to sing with them! IT WAS SO AWESOME! OH MY GOODNESS!!! On a scale from 1 to 10 it was EPIC! With them we sang "I Was Born", "John's Song", and "When The Son of Man Comes Again". And then the main singer started speaking about where he served his mission! He served in the Nevada, Las Vegas mission! That's where I AM serving!!!! Then he sang a song about it and my emotions broke. That was just one more miracle that Heavenly Father sent me to show me that Nevada, Las Vegas is where I need to be! And then he had us sing the song with him! It was incredible! "The Hardest Thing I Ever Loved To Do" is the name of the song!

Yesterday was exhausting in the best way! :D I felt the Spirit SO strongly, it was so wonderful! It was also a really bittersweet day because, while I am SO ready to hit the field and get to work, it was hard to say goodbye to the two best MTC teacher in the world! I am so truly grateful for the opportunity to learn from these two spiritual giants, they inspired me more than they can ever know! *waves to Brother Gardner and Sister Gregerson*

After dinner yesterday mine and a couple of companionships in my district wanted to sing "If You Could Hie to Kolob" an LDS hymn. But then it ended up turning into an impromptu hymn singing sessionwith everyone in our district and with Elder Hatton on the piano! We all got to the hymn "I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go" and we were all silent for a few minutes just pondering about what the words in the hymn meant to us. And then all of us began bearing our testimonies of the gospel to one another without any prompting from anyone, besides the Spirit. :) The Spirit was there with us SO strongly. Then we all began singing "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" it is so powerful to be able to bear testimony all together through song. We then knelt together as a district and said a prayer together. By the end of it we were all (Elders included) crying because we love each other so much and knew that the church is SO TRUE! :D We all knew it and we all loved knowing that we each know it!

I know that the church is true. I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ restored the true church on the earth through their chosen prophet Joseph Smith. I love you all and I love my God!

Love,

Sister Longo

Week 2: I LOVE THE GOSPEL! :D

Hey my darlings! :)

It's been an incredible week! It feels like I've been here for months! I'm so ready to just hit the field and teach the gospel! :D

So last Tuesday when I sent the email and said that I was having trouble sleeping because I didn't have enough blanket weight.... Six hours later I get called down to the front office, and I'm kind of freaking out wondering what on earth I could've done wrong in the 6 days that I've been here, I arrive to find a fluffy, blue, polka-dotted blanket with a note attached that read, "Sister Longo, your mom loves you!" I don't know how Mom did it, but it made my week! :) The Sisters in my district teased me saying that Mom must have a SWAT team here in Provo at her beck and call to get me anything that I need! xD Though knowing my sweet Mama, that is a real possibility! :D

Wednesday was a little rough, our (Sister V and I) lesson with Sahara didn't go very well. We were in the middle of our lesson and then Sahara gets a face-time call. We obviously tell her it's okay to take it, thinking that she would just tell her friends that she was busy and then hand up. Nope. That is not what happened. She took the call and then had Sister V and I come into view of the camera and say hi to her friends. After three minutes of awkward conversation her friends ask what she's doing. Sahara looks awkward and says that she's meeting with the missionaries... Now imagine all of the disdain and disgust that a female around the age of 24 can muster in her voice and imagine that girl saying, "...You're meeting with the missionaries...?" Good heavens! I have never felt so awkward in my life! xD We later in that lesson learned that the reason why she's meeting with the missionaries is because her fiance (a member of the church) wanted her to take them, so she was only doing it to make her fiance happy not because she had an actual desire to learn for herself. I can laugh about this now but some others things happened through the day and I was in need of comfort from the ultimate Comforter. I asked for a Priesthood Blessing of Comfort from Elder Brantley and Elder Heppler. That really helped. I know that I'm supposed to be here, even if there are people around me that don't want me to be here. I am here because Heavenly Father has people whose lives I can touch! There are people who I can bring the light of Christ to! And that is worth ANYTHING that I have to go through here at the MTC or in the mission field! :D

Thursday I woke up sick, just a cold that has been going around the district, and so I went to the MTC clinic because they ask us to go no matter how trivial our illness really is. So don't worry! (*cough* Mom *cough*) They sent me to the BYU Student Health Center to pick up some cold medicine and when we got there I say Katy Ogden, one of my roommates from last year! :D It made me so happy to see her! (*waves at Katy*) Afterwards we had our lesson with Sahara. And we were both so nervous about it because the last two times we taught, it was rough to say the least. But when we walked into the room, the Spirit was so strong and Sister V and I were able to teach well and I was given the boldness I needed to help her commit to reading the Book of Mormon! It was an amazing lesson! I can testify that the Spirit is the real teacher NOT me! :D

Friday was a lot of fun, we were able to have an MTC teacher come in and pretend to be an investigator for us so we could get feedback from him. His real name is Brother Swanson, his convert name was Jesse. It was really cool because Jesse (a person who he actually knows, so Jesse is a real person) is Catholic with a lot of Mormon friends and he wanted to know more. It was awesome because since I have family on my dad's side who are Catholic so I was able to relate to him and answer a lot of questions because I have a background in Catholicism. Afterwards he told us a few things that we could improve on but overall he said our lesson was powerful and impressive for how long we've been at this! So huzzah! :D In all seriousness though, it's the Spirit. I don't know what I would do without the Holy Ghost! I love Him so much!

Later that day I saw my wonderful, beautiful friend Sophia! She has such a sweet spirit and always manages to brighten up my day and make me feel loved. I really needed to see her that day. (*blows kisses to Sophia*)

So the other thing that happened Friday... Oh goodness. Sister V and I were teaching a lesson to Sahara, we were teaching her the Plan of Salvation. So we were talking about how before the Fall Adam and Eve were immortal, we began to move on from the Fall when Sahara interrupted and asked, "So... it's like Vampire Diaries! You know? Like... how vampires never die or get sick!?" I have never been so speechless before in my 19 years of living! Before I can even think of replying, let alone breath, Sister V just nods excitedly and exclaims "YES!" Okay... I lied. AFTER Sister V agreed I have never been so speechless before in my 19 years of living. Before I can frantically eye-communicate with my companion that she's teaching false doctrine (Adam & Eve were NOT vampires!) Sahara continues with, "So when Adam and Eve became mortal it was like when Bella in Twilight turned into a vampire but reverse?!"

I'm sure my jaw dropped in utter and complete shock!!! Again my companion exclaimed in excited joy. It took me the rest of the lesson to make sure that Sahara understood that Adam and Eve were NOT vampires and try to get her and my companion back on track. *facepalm* But by the times I had managed it, our time for teaching her was up! And that was our last appointment with Sahara. About how Adam and Eve were vampires... I'm hoping that it was just a bad dream. XD

Saturday was a regular, run-of-the-mill day here at the MTC. But we studied Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life. I invite you all to read 1st Nephi chapter 8 and really try to visualize what the SCRIPTURES describe, not the gospel art depiction! Tell me what insights you've gained and then I'll tell you mine!

Sunday was AWESOME! For starters I taught the Relief Society lesson. i LOVE teaching so I had a blast! I want to be a Religion Professor at BYU so this is practice for me! :D It was about how to Endure to the End! I loved it and all of the sister' insights.

As is scheduled every Sunday at the MTC, as a zone we walked to the temple to feel the Spirit there and to take pictures with our district. While there I had the feeling that we would have a General Authority speak to us for devotional that day. The others sisters told me I was crazy because a General Authority had given the devotional the Sunday before we arrived. But I knew I had gotten that impression so I prayed that I would indeed have the opportunity to be in the same room as an apostle and prophet of the Lord. Later after MTC choir practice we had devotional. The MTC Presidency had decided that they wanted to watch Elder Bednar's talk "Character of Christ" together as the entire MTC. Which was really nice because I had wanted to watch it again. Even though I had taken four pages of notes last week there were still notes to be taken again! After the recording had finished everyone began standing up and gasping! ELDER BEDNAR AND HIS FAMILY CAME AND DID A Q&A SESSION WITH US!!!! IT WAS SO AWESOME!!!!!!! I wish I had the time and energy in my fingers to tell you all about it! Suffice it to say that it was incredible! I can testify to you that that night Elder Bednar was the answer to my prayer and the prayers of many others!

Monday was really fun because we got new TRC investigators, Katie and Andy. Andy is a BYU student from China. And so he had the most thought-provoking questions as Sister V and I taught him the Plan of Salvation! I can wait to hear what new questions he has for the two of us sisters and for the Spirit in our next lesson with him tomorrow!!!

Well my friends, I have to go. Not only is my time up, but I think my fingers are now permanently curved from all of this typing. 

Love you all! :D

Sister Longo

(MOM NOTE: Sorry, no pictures were sent this week. Stay tuned for more pictures later.)

Week 1!!! THE CHURCH IS SOO TRUE!

Hello my lovelies!

This week has been CRAZY! Heavens above! Monday was a looooooong day because I had to wake up at 3 in order to make my flight out here to Provo at 5:45. Thankfully Mom and Dad were able to get special clearance to sit in the gate with me. Funny story about the airport. So. I LOVE Lemon Pepper, the spice. I put it on anything reasonable and so this last year at school I bought a huge container of Lemon Pepper and I hadn't even used a 1/4 of it yet. So I followed the only logical course of action and packed my container of Lemon Pepper in my carry-on. Well... When it went through the security scan it was flagged as a possible explosive. You all should have seen the LOOK on the TSA person's face!!! xD I think a Lemon Pepper "explosive" was a first for her! xD

The flight was smooth and I called Mom before I took the shuttle to the MTC (the lady who drove was super sweet and I chatted with her for the entire time). When I got to the MTC I was with a group of missionaries who came much earlier and the twenty or so of us were able to meet the MTC President and his wife and were able to chat with them for a bit. When everyone began arriving I was shown my room, left my luggage there, given my nametag, and was immedietly guided to my classroom where I met one of my two teachers, Sister Gregerson (26 yrs old)! She is an ANGEL! She's a return missionary who graduated from BYU for Neuroscience and is going into an MBA program next. I was then given my companion, Sister Vandervelde. She is a sweetheart! I love being her companion so much! We are going to the same mission the same day which is awesome! There are twelve people in my district (gourp of missionaries) so 6 companionships. 2 sister companionships and 4 elder companionships. The four of us Sisters live in the same room and we all have a lot of fun! Sister Mackay and Sister Maxey. Our distric leader is Elder Brantley and his companion is Elder Heppler.

We basically live in our classroom though. Other than food and sleep we spend our days in that classroom or in the courtyard right outside the building where our classroom is.

Thursday, our SECOND day we, as companionships, were TEACHING! Granted it was "Emily" who is actually Sister Gregerson. But when we (my companion and I) walked into the room, it wasn't Sister Gregerson, it was Emily. Which was crazy! We taught her Thursday, Friday, and Saturday afternoon and then we found out that Emily is actually a real person, it's Sister Gregerson's roommate which was really cool!

Our second teacher during the day is Brother Gardner. I. Kid. You. Not. He is a 24-year-old version of Brother Bowne. The resemblance is CRAZY! Not only in how they look but in how the teach (which is awesome, btw). He is AMAZING! We all ADORE having him as a teacher. His phrase that he says all the time with so much genuine enthusiasm is "The church is SO true!!" It totally is and I have found myself saying the same phrase with the same enthusiasm! I have never learned so much in such a short span of time before in my life than I have here. Partly because of how amazing our teachers are, but also because of how incredibly strong the Spirit is here on this campus! If we could all live the way missionaries do at the MTC (plus books and tv shows) we would be Zion! It's amazing!

I have also never written so many notes in my life! Those of you who know me know that I deeply dislike taking notes, especially by hand. But I feel like my pen and journal have been permanently fused to my body!

The first day of exercise time was a little rough. I have never in my life wished more for a piggy-back ride! Sadly, it's definitely not appropriate to ask an Elder for a piggy-back ride... *sigh* :P

Friday I got a package from my Mama (donuts!!! Who loves me!?!) and a package of snacks from Grammarie (*kisses*) And I've gotten letters from family members that I have read and reread. :)

That day Sister V and Sister Maxey asked our District Leader and his companion for priesthood blessings. It. Was. SO. POWERFUL! The Spirit was SO strong in that room that before they even got to the personal parts of the blessing I already had tears in my eyes! These two boys, these two Elders are only 18 and 19 and yet they were able to be so in tune with the Spirit that they were able to give such a powerful blessing from God!

Saturday was rough. I was so exhausted. My spirit felt like it had been doing push-ups for three days straight with little rest. But when Sister V and I taught our last lesson with Emily, my body and mind woke up and the two of us (even though we had prepared a lesson) went completely off script and just followed the spirit and it was AMAZING! Even though we weren't following our lesson plan, we were still comfortable and confident in what/how we were teaching! #feltlikearealmissionary

Some other things happened on Saturday that really hurt my feelings and it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Because I had given so much of myself over the last fews days and because I haven't slept well (My blanket isn't heavy enough to keep me asleep through the night) my emotional tank was running really low. At dinner everything hit me hard and all I could do was breathe deeply and drink milk. But I reminded myself of why I am here and how TRULY excited I am about being here and serving a mission and how wonderful Friday was and how there were incredible times to come. I managed to pull myself together just enough so I wasn't crying. Then we went back to class with Brother Gardner which made me feel so much better and SO inspired! He has Crohn's disease and that night it was flaring up. But I couldn't even tell he was in severe pain until he told us about it! My heart hurt, here he was giving his all JOYFULLY even though he was in incredible pain. And here I was moping about like a wounded puppy because my feelings had been hurt and I was feeling a bit homesick. For SHAME! :D

"My yoke is easy and my burden is light." Even though Brother Gardner was in pain, he was filled with strength because he was yoked with Christ. Why wasn't I doing that??? *singing* "For shame. For shame! For shaaaaaaaaaaaaame!" (See "Pirates of Penzance for musical reference). No matter what I am going through my burdens can be made light, not necessarily taken away, but made light and easy to endure through Christ. It's high time I pulled myself together and used the enabling power of the Atonement!

Sunday was INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!!!! I wish I had the time to type out all the notes that I took that day because there was some incredible insights! We fasted Sunday, even though it wasn't Fast Sunday, for Brother Gardner. Yesterday he told us he was feeling infinitely better!!!! (We haven't told him that we had fasted for him :D)

The Cool things about Sunday was choir practice! The last sunday I'm here (24th), the Nashville Tribute Band is coming to perform at the MTC and the MTC choir (which I joined Sunday) is going to sing backup for them!!!! The song that we practiced Sunday (one of three) is "John's Song". And it was AWESOME! I wanted to jump and shout Hallelujah! It was marvelous!

That night there was a devotional (maybe I'll have time later to write down the notes." And then there was a film that we were able to watch which was a recorded MTC devotional that Elder Bednar gave a few years ago titled "The Character of Christ" which you can only see at the MTC! I have never written so much so quickly in my life! I'm surprised my fingers didn't spontaneously combust from the friction! Again, if/when I have time I'll write the notes I took on it. Just know that I was in awe the entire time.

Yesterday we started teaching ACTUAL investigators!!!! Named Kayla and another named Sahara. The lesson with Kayla went very well... Shahara's was a learning experience. It was hard because the only reason she came to the missionaries was because she was doing a favor to her member fiance. But Sister V and I have been praying fervently to know what it is that Heavenly Father wants her to know, what will touch her heart. So we will see how our next lesson with her goes tomorrow! :)

Right now I'm at the laundry typing this to you while my clothes are in the wash. Today has been wonderful to relax and reflect on the past week and the week to come. I can't wait to talk to you all next week! Send me letters on DearElder!


All my love,
Sister Longo

(NOTE FROM MOM:  I didn't get any captions with these photos.  The computer Moriah used to upload and send them wouldn't let her see them, so she didn't know what she was sending.  XD   She actually sent 71 pictures (that's the photography major I know and love!), but I was afraid I would break the blog if I put all of them on. ;)  I'll do my best to add some names to the pictures for you.)

Sisters Maxey, Mackay and Vandervelde 

Sisters Mackay and Vandervelde on the District Temple Walk

The Whole District in front of the Provo Temple!

Sister Longo and her companion Sister Vandervelde

Elders ?? & Donaldson with Sister Maxey and Mackay

Room and District Mates (Sisters Maxey, Mackay, Vandervelde and Longo)

Look Mom!  We've got nametags!

Elders Brantly (DL) & Heppler and Sisters Vandervelde & Longo

Another Complete District Picture

They <3 the Temple

One more try to <3 the Angel Moroni

Sister Vandervelde ready to serve a scorcher!

Sisters Longo and Mackay

SHE MADE IT!!!

6 July 2016

Hey howdy hey! :D

I made it to the MTC in one piece! Huzzah! :P
It's kind of overwhelming, so many places, people, and things so running at you and past you so quickly. Writing this email feels like the first chance I've had to breathe, in a good way :)

I haven't met my companion just yet, but I have met my teacher, Sister Gregerson, and she's pretty awesome, no worries on that front.

All of the current missionaries here in the MTC are scarily excited for the new missionaries which makes me a little nervous... It's probably just being the suspicious older sister :P It really is cute. All through the halls I keep hearing the teachers (who are only a few years older than us) and the "older" missionaries stage whisper, "the new missionaries are here!" It's adorable.

And YES they do stick put the idiot stickers (dork dots) on the new missionaries badges! XD Which makes everyone else go "Welcome to the MTC Sister!" over and over and OVER again. Haha! It's annoying yet endearing in an odd way. I have to go now, things to learn, stuff to do. Ta!

All my love,
Sister Longo

P.S. My P-day (Preparation day) aka: the day I get to email, is Tuesday! :)

(This is Sister Longo's mom typing for today.  After this post, all other posts will be written by Sister Longo, unless otherwise stated.)  ;)

Today was such a rollercoaster of emotions! We're so excited for this new adventure and at the same time we can't help but miss our beloved daughter.  Here are a few pictures from this morning.  We had to leave our house at 3:30am to get to the airport in time.  That's so early!! 

WE MISS YOU ALREADY!!

SLEEPY MISSIONARY!

WAITING TO BOARD

 SAYING GOOD-BYE

(just after I paused the recording she stepped back and yelled, I LOVE YOU!)

(Made my mommy-heart go pitty-pat!)  :)

DELTA FLIGHT 1214 WAITING TO TAKE OFF

5 July 2016

The very first post!  How exciting! 

This picture was taken at the Stake Center tonight just before being set apart to be a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints by President Ortiz.

The Brand New SISTER LONGO!!

In the car on the way home!  Isn't that crazy cool?

There's still more to finish tonight! I'll be so surprised if any of us get any sleep. We have to leave crazy early in the morning to get to the airport on time.  Next stop...the Missionary Training Center!

This pretty much captures us all!  :D