MTC - Provo, Utah - Thanksgiving in the MTC

Thanksgiving service hair accessories!

These girls are so much fun!
We never take ourselves too seriously!
Which is a good thing!  Because it can get intense here!

The lights are turned on at the MTC on Thanksgiving!
It was magical!  I was so happy!

Thanksgiving Feast from Sister Kamp's boyfriend!
We were grateful!

We both received Christmas PJs from our families!

Thank you Santa for finding me in the MTC!

I loved knowing that I was matching my family tonight!

We decorated our room for Christmas to make it feel more like home - I had to climb on top of the shelves!

We were laughing so hard!

Doesn't it look awesome?! 

We have the best "dom" (home) in the MTC!

Sinter Kamp is on the bottom bunk and I am on the top!

I slept through my alarm once and she punched my mattress so I would get up and turn it off!  Ha ha!

We vacuumed instead of cleaned bathrooms 

for our service day!  Wahoo!

Talk about a Christmas miracle!

Our vaccums names were Herbie and Flo!
They do their best to make everything happy here!  LOL

We look at your poster every day Mom!
Polish or bust is right!
Sometimes I feel my head might bust from learning it!!!

Temple walk!
So refreshing!  It started snowing!

Elder Brown and Siostra Kemp!
(He is one of our favorite elders here!) 

Cheesy smiles!  Our favorite pose!

Sister Rollin & Sister Mary Rougeaum (Croatian sisters)!
And of course the never-ending-photobombing elders!

Elders in our zone!

Cześć Family and Friends!!!

I have so much to tell all of you this week!!! 

I will start with my Thanksgiving! Oh my goodness Thanksgiving at the MTC is the absolute best! We were able to hear from Elder Oaks! He gave the most amazing talk! It was incredible to have all the missionaries stand when he entered the room! He brought his grandkids and they performed! His daughter is named Jenny Oaks Baker and she is a famous violinist! She was incredible and performed the song Amazing Grace! 

The power of music is so incredibly strong and I felt the Spirit as she played that song! I love the lyrics, "I once was lost but not I am found, was blind but now I see!" I know there have been times in my life when I was lost but I am grateful that I was able to get through those times and finally open my eyes to how incredible this Gospel is! 

At the end of his talk we all began to sing I Believe In Christ! As we began to sing, everyone gradually stood up and we all sung with all our might that we do believe in Christ! It was one of the most incredible experiences so far of my mission! 

For those of you who were wondering if I had a good Thanksgiving meal..... I DID!! The food was so so yummy!! We also got to watch a movie, 17 Miracles, and it was amazing!

Later that day we did the service project I mentioned last week! We made meals for families in need! In total we made over 350,000 meals - the most that has ever been done before! It was so incredible to give back on a day that is full of gratitude! 

We then had a closing devotional full of videos about different things to be grateful for and funny musical performances such as yodeling and the rubber ducky song! 

When we walked outside the entire MTC was lit up with Christmas lights! IT WAS THE BEST DAY EVER!!! We all ran outside and took pictures and sang Christmas songs! It was beautiful!! I will forever remember this Thanksgiving! My heart was full the entire day!!

I had the opportunity to sing in sacrament meeting as a quartet! I sang with Sister Mary Rougeau, Elder Pickett, and Elder Burnett! It was incredibly special to be able to sing with Sister Rougeau because she is leaving to go to Croatia this week! I have become so incredibly close with her so I am so grateful I was able to sing with her before she left! It was also really special because Sister Kamp played violin and Sister Rollins played the piano! Sister Kamp and I talked about doing a vocal and violin duet the first week and so we were so excited to be able to do it! We sang the hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, it is one of my favorite hymns of all times! 

However, before we started to sing we found out some news about Sister Yochim! I mentioned before that she had become sick and we were hoping she would get better! However, she instead took a turn for the worst and was in and out of the Emergency Room this weekend! She stayed with one of the counselors in our branch presidency the whole weekend! Before Sacrament meeting we found out the sad news that Sister Yochim would be going home! We all burst into tears! Sister Yochim has had a huge influence on all of us so we were all devastated to hear she was going home! However, in the midst of all the sadness this incredible peaceful feeling came over me that this was a part of God's plan and that she would return to finish her mission once she was better! Although I am sad she is gone I have no doubt that she is going to come back! 

As we sang our song in sacrament I sang the hymn for her! The Spirit was so strong and I again felt that same peace! We said goodbye to her on Tuesday! We all cried again and hugged! As she was leaving she spoke Polish to all of us and bore her simple testimony in Polish that she knows this is God's plan for her! I have never met someone so incredibly strong as she is. Like I wrote, I know that this is a part of God's plan for her and I am grateful for the time I was able to spend with her! 

Another incredible opportunity I have coming up is to sing in front of the MTC presidency and all the branch presidencies! I was selected to sing with 50 other missionaries and perform a small Christmas pageant! I have loved rehearsing for it and we sing tomorrow night for all of them! 

Along with this, this week has had incredible progress with our investigators! We finally committed Karina to be baptized next month! When we got out of the lesson Sister Kamp and I literally jumped around screaming and hugging each other! 

We also gained two new investigators! We have the opportunity to portray investigators and we get to teach each other! We teach Sister Lerch and Sister Dekker so they are our two new investigators! 

We have also began to experience going into a lesson with one plan and then being directed to teach a completely different one! This happened with Sławek this week and instead of panicking, we knew exactly what to say! It was such an incredible experience to be able to be directed by the Spirit to know what to teach! 

Polish is coming along! We learned all our cases! AHHH!!! I remembered when I was learning Spanish I memorized conjugations to the song Ice Ice Baby. I figured I could do it again with cases! I wrote an entire rap for all the cases and memorized it! I now can conjugate every single case thanks to my silly little rap and I have begun teaching it the rest of our district! It helps so much!! I told it to our teachers and they just laughed and one of our teachers recorded it to put it on FaceBook! 

We have also learned how to turn verbs into nouns and how to conjugate two clauses with two different subjects! I didn't quite understand the two clause thing and so I spoke a sentence trying to say, "I want you to understand' without using the two clause with two subjects form and I instead said to our male teacher, "I want you, you understand!" I was so incredibly embarrassed and everyone laughed, but I was bound to make a mistake like that sooner or later! I am beginning to understand the language more and more though and can now understand most of what my teachers say!

I just wanted to end by saying how grateful I am for this Gospel.  I know that God has a plan for all of us! We have been hearing about some of the scary stuff that has been going on around the world and although it is scary I know that God is there and has a plan no matter what happens! 

I am grateful for you all and I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!! 

Kocham Was!!!!

Siostra DeMordaunt