Nevada: The Final Frontier: 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.)