Trio Companionship, Rules, Eating Everything, Earthquake, TRC

Here’s something from Paulette:

Week 1 at the MTC

I continue to see how the Lord´s hand is working in my life. I feel so blessed to be in an awesome trio companionship!!! Since we live together we are definitely going to be very involved in each other´s struggles, and I have to share how I feel and stuff. urrrgghh >.> haha. Hermana Dunkley and Ennis are so amazing. Hna Ennis and Hna Dunkley are good examples to me of honesty and communication. Having a close and supportive companionship is important to us, and every night we talk about stuff that happened during the day. They are soooo different. Hna. Dunkley talks A TON. She is not afraid to say anything and she is constantly talking her thoughts through outloud. Hna Ennis is more the deep thinker and prefers to be silent and listen. Hna Ennis´ is so inspired and always has advice and encouragement for Hna Dunkley and I. When Hna Ennis prays for our companionship, I feel like I am receiving a priesthood blessing.

Our companionship definitely will be a blessing. They are always asking how I feel and encouraging me... I already feel like they are doing so much more for me, than I for them. And it´s hard to accept help. We are all really different from each other so I think it will also be challenging. I feel like I´m giving myself permission to be my real self. Problem is I´ve been extremely hyper, weird and silly, and I often feel at times I am annoying my companions. It is okay though I suppose. :) I think I´ve just been a little too excited to be at the MTC.. I am senior companion for two weeks. I used to be kind of preachy with Marina and I think that tendency came back for the past few days.. I am realizing I don´t need to lead or talk the most at every planning session or study haha.

My companions already know my personality. They already know to give their extra food to me, tell me not to try to pick up birds walking around, and let me do weird dances in front of the mirror. The first few days they had already noticed I have a hard time relaxing, get flustered sometimes, and want to push us to work too much. I have chillaxed though and we make things fun. We have a great time with our district. There is us three sisters and 6 elders. And they are all awesome. Our district leader Elder Moss has blessed our district by sharing spiritual thoughts and prompting us to share feelings and thoughts about our missions and conversions. He is always look out for everyone. Our district has weird handshakes and a lot of inside jokes.

We had another district in our zone that showed us around a lot but they were only here our first four days. They were awesome and they have handed down a lot of zone traditions that we are supposed to pass on haha. We got a new district yesterday, and my companionship are sister training leaders so we are trying to look out for them. We are encouraged to interview the other sisters, and find ways to serve them. I think that is about all the responsibility we have. Our companionship will all speak at zone meeting today... I am talking about appropriate greetings between Sisters and Elders. Haha...

I am surprised at some of my feelings this week. I know there are a lot of differences and guidelines but I didnt realize i would be a little annoyed by the schedule and some of the rules. I am surprised by how much Spanish my district can understand just after a week. We talk our first investigator (in Spanish) the first day. Our lessons have been okay. It is kindaaa challenging and stressful to teach in Spanish. We have amazing teachers at the CCM (MTC). I feel so blessed to be here at the CCM.

I know that the Lord has called me here at this time for a specific purpose. I know He is pleased with my desires and efforts, and is helping me improve each day. I know that the Savior lives and loves each of us. :)

Week 2 at the MTC

So the CCM (MTC) campus is beautiful. Palm trees, lots of trees that normally have purple flowers but not at this time.... (it starts with a j, they have lots in argentina.......) All the little plants and shrubs are trimmed into lovely shapes squares triangles swirls and stuff. Our houses are mostly white but each house has a different color. We are in the peach house. Our house can have about 20 but there are 12 sisters in my house right now.

The food? Its fine, but you know I am a garbage disposal... One my comps eats nutella sandwhiches and cereal 2/3 of the meals, and the other often has tortillas with refried beans and lime which are almost always available in addition to the other food being served.. Lol. I eat everythingggg. Lots of different kind of tacos and stuff, but American food like hamburgers and pizza too. I try to only eat nutella sandwhiches for a treat sometimes.

My companionship prepared an a capella rendition of Love is Spoken here and sang for our new baby district at zone meeting on Thursday. i will try to send you a video of it. :)

On Friday I had a great birthday! My comps made me a "cake" of conchas/donuts with a paper drawing of a candle in it! Super sweet! The elders decorated the white board with a cake for my birthday too.. Two in one day ;) my comps also gave me another birthday present- they gave me a bunch of notes that began with "you are strong because"... They were very heartfelt and loving. My fave might be "you are strong because you run like a maniac" though.

My relationship with my companions is kind of funny. people say that I am motherly sometimes, but these girls are definitely mothering me. its because i act so silly. And I act a bit crazy and disoriented and hyper sometimes.. (im just so excited to be at the MTC!) So they are often asking me "Hna do you need to stop at the bathroom?" or "hun, our house is thattttt way...".. and often "WHAT are you doing.....?"

Monday I chose the hymns for class.. I chose Christmas songs.. it was wonderful. The DL decided we will sing Christmas songs on the day before Pday (wednesdays). Another tradition! We are always making new ones. During the day we always hear what sounds like cannon blasts so we all raise our hands and do the hunger games sign........ I think its firework??

There are big green circles all over the campus for earthquakes... Today the siren went off so we went and stood on one of the circles. It was a really minor one. I think I felt the ground move slightly? Our old zone said they had one or two alarms in the 4 weeks before we got there, one might have been a drill.

One of the biggest things for me this week was TRC- teaching resource center when we teach "real" investigators/volunteers... Here is what was intense.... Our teach Hna Faces said one of the other teachers that we probably didnt know has a twin brother who is less active now and we were going to teach him through skype.. We got on and whose face but HNO HERNANDEZ face shows up! Hna Ennis and I got kind of emotional. We love Hno Hernandez so much and we want him to think we are good teachers and it was super overwhelimg to have to teach his brother! .... It went fine but it was very emotional honestly... Thinking about I know that it must have been Hno Hernandez himself but we took it very seriously.

Some scriptures that really helped me this week:

Mosiah 4:24- Whatever I can give is enough.

1 Nephi 9:6 - The Lord knows ALL things, He understands me perfectly, and He makes it possible for all of His words concerning me to be accomplished.

I love you all. Thank you for being wonderful.

Love,
Hermana Barrus