Monday, September 30, 2013

Look, I can do my own laundry!!
Getting ready to sing at the Conference Center


Our Sunday walks around the Provo temple.......lot's of missionaries!!



Conference Center, singing at the General Relief Society Conference
Rainbow over the MTC

Week 4 General Relief Society Conference


Bonjour Heureaux Lundi!                                     Monday 9/30/13

This week has been a very crazy and amazing week! Every day this week we have been practicing for hours all our songs we sang at the Relief Society Broadcast. On Monday my district got the opportunity to go to a teaching conference where this guy named Nathan Tanner was teaching new people that wanted to become employed here at the MTC how to teach. They used us as the guinea pigs to see how these teachers taught. They first taught us how the Book of Mormon is the biggest thing in conversion and then the next thing we had to do was teach the teachers as if they were investigators that the Book of Mormon can help them in ENGLISH. You would think I would be relived to finally speak in English but I was freaking out I wasn’t sure what to say because if I messed up I couldn’t blame it on “I’m just barely learning the language”. I just said what I felt and it turned out really well. On Tuesday we had a great devotional by Don Clarke from the 70’s. The day before Jaren had written me an email saying Justin had taken the Provo MTC president which is President Nally and all the Utah Mission presidents and some other high up people on some kind of chuck wagon. Jaren told me that I should go talk to him, so after the devotional I saw that my district leader was shaking his hand so I made my way over there and asked him if he had been on a chuck wagon lately. He looked really confused and said how do you know?! I told him I had gotten a letter. He looked at my nametag and with a big smile said SISTER DICK it’s so great to meet you! On Wednesday we got to host all the new missionaries coming in.  Over 600 missionaries came in that day; it was so crazy but a lot of fun to be able to welcome them into this great place. I feel like it was just yesterday that I was coming in and now this Wednesday I will be starting my fifth week! It has been very chilly this past week I have really been missing that warm Hawaii Weather! I haven’t experienced this cold in a long time and its only the beginning of a very cold winter! I have had to break out my winter clothes a lot sooner then I expected! On Friday I had to go to the dentist because a tooth that I just had filled before I came here has been bothering me the lady at the MTC called my mom as I was inches away from here to tell here I was having a dentist appointment I could hear her voice and the lady is very lucky I didn’t rip the phone out of her hands so I could talk to her. Luckily I restrained my self and just enjoyed hearing my moms voice. I went to the Dentist and my bite was just off because of that tooth. They fixed it and had me leaving with no payment in no time. I love being a missionary =) Saturday with no doubt has been the best, most spiritual day since I have been here! It was an all day event! We got ready in the morning in our lovely jewel colored shirts that sister missionaries had to gather from every corner of the MTC because honestly who wears collared jewel color shirts anymore.. Not me! We ate lunch and then went to a big room where they called us row by row to get clothing and make up check. When I went into the Make up room they had 10 older sisters lined up with different things of makeup. The first sister covered my face with blush everywhere. Another sister didn't think I even had blush on so she covered my chin nose cheeks and you name it on my face and neck with more blush. Thinking I already looked like a tomato, I turned around and to my surprise another sister was covering my face with blush again! She complimented on how beautiful my skin was and I couldn’t help to think to my self that "yes maybe my face was, before but not after all this make up has been on it I feel like a wall that just got paint smeared all over it!" I hurried and got my hair inspected by another sister and as I was running out to get away from that room a different sister stopped me with a foundation brush because she said she could see a shiny spot! I didn’t care by that point I was out of there!  When we got to Salt Lake, they lined us up by height and situated us in the loft where we would be singing, the view from up there was amazing! The Relief Society president and her two councilor’s gave us all a spiritual thought and how thankful they were for us.  I was so grateful they would do that when i know they already have so much on their plate. When the first councilor informed us that President Monson would be speaking I had to pick my chin up of the floor. I could not believe he was speaking I was so excited! While we were practicing our songs I got to see the lady from my ward that is in charge of all the flowers for the church.  She was watering all the flowers on the stand. I had heard her tell all the stories when she taught in my ward back home about creating flower arrangements for all the conferences, and then I got to see them Saturday! We got to go under the conference center to this big room where we had a snack and some people applied more makeup I thought I was good to go for weeks! When we walked back out for the broad cast and I thought to my self, “wow normal people”! I laughed and thought ok I have been in the MTC to long to think that! The Broad cast was so amazing! I couldn’t believe how all the talks were on covenants.  I think that is a big hint that they are so important and we need to keep our covenants! When President Monson spoke it was crazy for him to be so close instead of watching him on TV. When he spoke about his wife I cried.  You can really tell how much he loves her! Singing up there was so spiritual and so neat to be able to hopefully touch many women’s with our singing. After it was over I saw so many girls look into the audience and see there moms and start bawling it was so sad! One of my roommates actually saw her mom and gave her a hug! I felt like someone famous when we walked out of the conference center we had 20 bodyguards lined up helping us get to our bus across the highway. There were people screaming out names and WE LOVE SISTER MISSIONARIES it was so cool. On the way home on the bus we sang hymns and shared our testimony it was great that we could keep such a great spirit with us all the way home.
This Sunday was a little rough the night before I prayed that I could some how get some good rest because I was so tired. Well On Sunday morning I woke up to my companion yelling wake up its 7:00 we have ten minutes to get to sacrament I guess Heavenly Father answers your prayers in different ways because for some reason our alarms did not go off! At all the meetings on Sunday all the presidency complimented us so many times on how great it was. They even played it at the devotional so we could see it. This Sunday was fast Sunday and its really easy to fast at the MTC because they don’t serve any food here tell five. It went really well though and I felt the spirit very strong all day! 
I love being a missionary so much my testimony has grown leaps and bounds in the little time I have been out! The French is coming I am starting to get the sentence structure of it all and the different tenses of it until a French elder going to Tahiti said the prayer for gym and I guess it was in French but he could of fooled me.  It was the fastest prayer I have ever heard he spoke so fast I could not even kind of understand it! These French Elders that are going to Montreal with us but are learning Chinese here always make fun of the Canadian accent they said if we pick the accent up there they wont talk to us. I’m a little nervous I will though since they said it sounds like French with a hick accent. I already have the hick accent down so if I just learn French I would sound like a natural at Canadian French! 
I hope everyone is doing good! And has a great start in October.
I love you all so much and I am so thankful for the support.

Sincerely,

Soeur Dick



Tuesday, September 24, 2013

 Decorating the new sisters bedroom door
 Our acceptance letters to sing at the Relief Society Conference
 Group picture by the big map

Picture on our Sunday temple walk

Crazy Week 3


Bonjour,

This week has been soooo crazy with being a Sister Training Leader. On Tuesday, my companion and I had to go and pick up ten new international missionaries coming into our zone! They gave me this piece of paper that had all their names on it and I had to yell them out as loud as I could for them to hear me and come stand by me. Oh my, did I slaughter their names.  Half of there names had dots on letters that I have never seen before!  Some how they knew I was saying their name and they came over to us.  We got two missionaries from Germany, two from England, two from Denmark, two from Finland, one from Spain, and one from Brazil. We took them to dinner and then we walked them over to the Marriott center to watch the Tuesday devotional. It was so neat to talk to them all and switch from one accent to the other. I asked the British girl if she could please read Harry Potter to me in her British accent! She said she would! On Wednesday we received 26 new French missionaries all going to Paris or Leon, France mission. The zone leaders and my companion and I had to give them a welcome meeting on Wednesday to explain some rules, get to know them and share our testimony….. Of course in French. It was really good and I am excited to be able to help these 7 new sisters in our zone.
This week has been very stressful! We have been giving different lessons every day to investigators. On Thursday we got to do our first TRC session which is were you go in a room with your companion and a member of the church who can speak French and you have a “Get to know you conversation” and share a little spiritual thought. There are cameras in the room so your teacher can watch you on a computer outside. We started talking to this sister about who we were and I was talking and following pretty good, but the bad thing is my companion is from Mexico so she has a very strong Mexican accent, so when she speaks French I have the hardest time understanding what she was saying. I became very lost in what she was saying and none of it was in our notes. She kept asking me to share things but I honestly did not even know what she was talking about. When the member would speak I could answer back pretty good because I understood her. I became really frustrated and I had to hold my tears back pretty hard. When we finished with the meeting we walked out and my teacher, could tell I got frustrated because she was there at the door to give me a big hug as I cried. I was not mad about my French or sad, but I was so tired and frustrated that my emotions broke. I am so lucky I have such a great teacher. Later that day as I was still feeling pretty down on my self with my French. My teacher was having us quiz each other in French about different scriptures and then he randomly for our last scripture had us share our favorite scripture. I shared my favorite scripture with my partner which is 1 Nephi 3:7 and it pretty much says I will go and do the things which the lord has commanded for I know that the lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men that they can not accomplish. This really hit me hard that I wasn't believing in my favorite scripture! I shouldn’t be so down on my self I have to just keep being positive because Heavenly Father knows I can speak French so I have to believe I can speak French! On Friday my companion and I worked really hard on our lesson for our investigator we did a lot of role-play so I can better understand her French. We wrote the whole lesson in English and when we went in there we gave the whole lesson with out looking at our note books because it didn’t matter if we looked down because it was in English! The teacher was so impressed from our improvement from the first lesson to this one. We are really proud of our selves for stepping it up and being better.
 On Thursday all the girls in my district received in the mail a letter from the music department that we have been chosen to sing in the Relief Society Conference. They are having a sister missionary choir group sing because they thought it would be cool after a year later of the age change to have a sister missionary group! We were so excited to be picked we have already had three practices and it sounds so good! One of the songs we are singing is “Go forth in faith and As sisters in Zion. The Relief Society Presidency had Sally Deford mix the two songs together. I thought that was really neat because Sally is the lady who wrote the song Kyler sang at my farewell! On Friday mornings practice the entire Relief Society Presidency came and watched us practice. After our choir practice was over me, and my roommates went over and gave the Relief Society President a hug. When she gave me a hug she said here let me give you a mom hug and she gave me a big bear hug. She is such sweet lady I could feel the spirit in here when I just hugged her! Even though I’m in the MTC I knew that this weekend BYU was playing U of U.  Every teacher at the MTC had blue on it was crazy! Too bad they lost lol!   My councilor in my branch had a toilet tie on Sunday because he said that’s where BYU is right now. I finally saw people I know this week, but the funny this is I didn’t see them at the MTC. On Tuesday when I was walking to the devotional I was about to enter into the Marriott center when I looked over and Camille Kajar was walking down the road! I ran over and gave her a hug it was so crazy I haven not seen her since 5th grade!!!! She looked so good. Then on Sunday when I was going for our Sunday temple walked I ran into Jonsen Crandall and Carli Sorensen cool huh! It was so weird to see them but fun as well! This time at the MTC is flying by so fast and I’m trying to enjoy and soak in every bit of it! I’m so thankful that I have this opportunity to serve the lord! The thing that has touched me the most since I have been here at the MTC is the most important convert you have on your mission is yourself. That was so crazy for me to hear. When I came on this mission I was so excited to be able to convert other people, but I never thought that I would be converting my self! Every day we should wake up and try and better ourselves. How do we expect us as missionaries to be able to help non-members when us our selves’ don’t have the strongest testimonies we can possibly have! I hope everyone is doing great and getting ready for fall! I wish everyone good luck at rodeos, school, and everything else. Have a Fantastic Week!

Love,

Soeur Dick

Monday, September 16, 2013





Week Two in the MTC


Bonjour mes Amies!

Hello how is everyone doing? This week went by so fast, a lot faster then the first one by far. The week started off a little rough on Tuesday somebody didn’t want me to be happy because when I was putting my mascara on in the morning my mascara flipped up in the air, did a couple gymnastics moves and then landed on my brand new white shirt! In gym I landed wrong on my knee playing volleyball and couldn’t walk on it. They made me go to a clinic down the street on a shuttle and my companion and me couldn’t believe how fast we wanted to get back to the MTC, the feeling just wasn’t the same.  The MTC just has the best feeling ever. Plus people just couldn’t understand why I was saying “bonjour” to everyone, but what they didn’t know is if I didn’t use French I would be doing pushups in gym for my punishment. I was complaining a lot about my knee, but I thought of my dad’s wise old words and said to my self “just rub some dirt on it because it’s a long ways from your heart! “ At dinner that night I flipped my tray upside down and mustard and ketchup went everywhere on me, my watch still tastes like it. It was rough but it all didn’t matter later that night when we got to give our last lesson to our investigator; Francois and feel the spirit we were creating. This weekend we found out that our investigator who we have been teaching for a week and a half is actually another one of our teachers. I about died when he walked in.   I did not want to know what he had to say about my horrible French, but it actually went really well he told me and my companion that we work really well together and he appreciated our simple lessons because that’s what real investigators need is simple lessons! I’m excited for him to be our teacher he just got off his mission three months ago so he still has that enthusiastic personality about this amazing work! My French is getting better, I’m working really hard to figure it all out and you know you have been working really hard when you walk out of the class room and you read an elders shirt with a French accent when it’s clearly English words. There are a couple bad things though, for one I grew up in Oakley and so I went to South Summit High School, hence my native language English is not very good, so when you try and convert slang South Summit English into correct French it just doesn’t come out good. The other bad thing is I have a hard time pronouncing words right sometimes, so when I told my investigator I know that Joseph Smith is a true prophet I actually told him that I know Joseph Smith is a Green Prophet!! Everyone makes mistakes so you might as well laugh about them.  At least I did not tell the investigator to repent for his farts instead of his sins like a companionship did in my district =)  I really am loving the MTC I’m not actually sure why so many missionaries say they hate it?? I think that this is the happiest place on earth everyone had it wrong to say Disney Land was! The food is not bad at all and it’s all you can eat! Everyone of course says prayers before they eat which is great because when they are saying there prayers you snatch their cookie that you never saw to get when you were in line!! The best part is they Have POG, that is the juice that I could only ever find in Hawaii so I was so excited to see that. One of the coolest things here though is all the different cultures mixing you will have someone opening the door that says hello in Chinese and the one who went through saying thank you in Spanish. Its crazy I met four elders going to my mission this week and they can all speak French as their first language but they are learning Mandarin Chinese! Elder Jules a black elder going to my mission will be speaking French, Spanish, Chinese, Haitian, Creole and of course English all in one mission. I will be glad to just try French! One French elder tries to talk to me in French all the time because he sees my name tag but after I give him the I don’t know what your saying look he says it in English and then I still cant understand him with his strong French accent. It makes for a tough conversation. Days go by so fast here its creepy I never imagined being able to sit in a classroom that long and study French and the gospel but it is possible.  All I want to do is study and get as much information as possible. Pretty much our whole zone left today.  Thirty missionaries, they were all going to Paris France or Léon France.  I’m going to miss them a lot they helped us out a lot with starting our French. When lots of people go out though that means lots of French speakers are coming in and that’s the case for this Wednesday. We are getting a lot of new French speakers and six of them are sisters that my companion and me will be over to take care of as sister zone leaders. I’m really excited to welcome them in to this awesome place. Our district loves choir and we go to it every Sunday and Tuesday they informed us this past Sunday that the sisters will be singing at the Relief Society conference on September 28 I believe.  So you will have to watch out for me!! Sundays are still my favorite day! They bring the most spirit into this place. This last Sunday we had a devotional and Ron Tanner spoke.  He is the producer of 17 miracles, Only a Stone Cutter, John Tanner and his new movie Ephraim’s Rescue they are all amazing movies and his last one Ephraim’s Rescue was filmed a lot in Oakley which I thought was really cool! I still love my companion to death she taught me how to say my testimony in Spanish so I sound really cool. I’m not sure though if my dad didn’t contact her before coming here because you should see the way she gets me out of bed she has this little but BRIGHT flash light that she shines in my face at 5:30am and whispers... (Yells) in her soft voice “Sister Dick, Sister Dick, wake up Sister Dick, its time to get up. It’s too bad she is so sweet because I might accidentally kick her while getting up ha ha jk. The only person I have seen here that I know is Elder Goodwin and sadly I don’t know his first name but I talked to him and he looked really confused so I taped on my name tag and said remember me we went to high school together...he was like Carlee! I’m sad I haven’t seen anyone else but I still have four weeks! It has been pretty rainy here, which I’m sure it has been everywhere else it makes it a lot easier to study inside with that weather! I love you all and I’m so thankful for all the letters and packages it really does get me through my week I hope you all have a great week!! 

The scripture I have been relying on this week is 2 Nephi 32: 2-3

Love,

Seour Dick

Thank you for the chips and caso mom!

Monday, September 9, 2013




The girl in the red night gown is my mission presidents daughter she is in our zone and she is going to Leon, France she is so awesome and is telling us all the things we need to know to tease her dad!!!



My Companion!