Happy 11/11 day!

Greetings! This is my last email from the MTC, since p-day is Wednesday, and we ship out Tuesday morning. So that means I don't have a p-day next week. Bummer. Oh well. The next time I get to email, I'll have a whole hour instead of of 30 minutes, so that will be nice. And I'll be able to attach some photos.
Well, I wrote an outline this time, so hopefully this will be more coherent than last time.
Last Wednesday evening, we had a lesson in class about how the purpose of sending missionaries is to fill God's house. Our teacher showed us one face card in comparison to 2 decks of cards. We also talked about not counting down time. He dealt us each 5 cards and asked if it really made much of a difference in the remaining stack. We said not really, but then he had us look at our cards - we each had a full house. Pretty sneaky. I thought it was a good object lesson.
Thursday me and my companions started working better together. They were gaining more confidence, and I was learning to talk less and listen more (good advice from my friend Kori in high school). We got our flight plans that evening. It freaked Sis. Spindler out. We went to the TEC to get some evaluation on our teaching, and before we started the lesson, she freaked out. I joked that I might have to take her flight plans away from her so she won't think about it.
Friday was not a good focusing day for our district. We all like to be silly and make jokes and goof around, so we weren't very productive during our study time. However, we went to the Referral Center and had great success! Our goal was to teach 18 lessons as a district (meaning testifying of at least 2 principles from the 1st lesson). We were not confident that we could meet that goal (initially we said 5 lessons), but we started, and amazing things happened! Soon, we were at 16 lessons taught! Me and my companions each got a chat from someone on mormon.org. Great fun. Mine was a chat that someone had transferred to me for some reason. I was glad they did. The guy was wanting proof that God existed and that the Bible was true and that people weren't just on drugs. He was in to the science way of thinking (wanting physical evidence). I was able to talk to him about science and religion being 2 different avenues leading to truth, and then I shared 1 Cor. 2:9-16 with him. I love those verses. We had a meeting to go to, so I asked if we could set up a time to chat again, but he abruptly signed off. Sad day. I hope his heart is softened. I hope something I said touched his heart. It was such an adrenaline rush to talk to real people who are not members and teach them. I can't wait to get to Indiana! Later that night, 2 of our elders went back to the RC and picked up the last 2 lessons we needed to reach our goal. How amazing! I bet if we set our goal at 5 we would've only gotten that many.
The TRC (teaching fake investigators) was better this time around. Sis. Esplin and Spindler are both gaining more and more confidence. It's great to see hwo much they've grown. I feel like a proud parent almost. :)
The funniest thing happened at dinner that night. I had some cake that I ate a bite or two of, and as I was finishing my apple, Elder Harward asked if the cake was good, and when I consented, he took my cake and ate it. I sarcastically said "thanks for asking if I was done with it", and then he felt so horrible! He thought he had asked me if I was done with it, but instead he had asked if it was good. Oh man, I almost died laughing. He couldn't eat the rest of it because he felt so bad.
Saturday we started working on the 2nd lesson and we had to teach it in one minute or less! Ahh! Talk about talking a mile a minute! It was a good exercise to see what's most important and how the concepts lead from one to the next. Then we spent some time sharing with our district how we gained our personal testimony of the plan of salvation. it was a really touching class period.
Talk about keeping things interesting... Sister Summers came back from quarantine. I was excited to have her back, but kinda bummed because I had just started "clicking" with Esplin and Spindler and now I have to get used to Sis. Summers again. Definitely keeping me on my toes. She was gone a week, so she felt a little behind. We had a webcam for her while she was gone, but it cut out most of the time.
the 4 of us taught 3 sisters in our branch who are going to Albania. They've been here a week longer than we have. Sis. (Kelsey) Hall is our coordinating sister (like ZL). I really like her. I can't remember if I mentioned her last time. Mom/Dad, Bro. Meppen was her bishop in her student ward at USU. Tell him hi for her please.
That night at the RC I got to talk to Brenda who is trying to develop greater faith and get back into going to a church. Her bro-in-law shot and killed her sister and wounded her mother. At the funeral, the pastor and church members didn't give support when she needed it, so she left the church. She's really open to the gospel I believe. I sent missionaries to her as well as the Finding Faith in Christ DVD. How awesome! I also talked to Dorothy who ordered a Bible. She said she wanted to get closer to God, so that's why she ordered it. I told her about the BOM and the DVDs we have, but she wasn't interested. I told her about mormon.org, and the possibility of chatting with people, and she sounded interested in that.
I swear I have developed narcolepsy. Sitting in classes most of the day will do that to you.
Oh, I forgot to explain something funny from our first week. We played a game called Smurf. I was excited to see this on the "to do" list since that's my nickname. It's basically like the game psychiatrist, but "smurfing" is an action that the person has to figure out (i.e. reading scriptures, shaving, etc). Pretty funny. I took a picture of the to do list and will post it when I get to Indiana.
Monday we got another chat at the RC. Laura, from Barbados. She was doing a paper for school on Mormons. She ran out of library time, so she asked us to email her. We emailed her a version of the 1st lesson, and pointed her to where to find church and contact the missionaries (she has to interview a member). We haven't heard back from her, but we are praying for her each day that she'll be inspired to find out more.
All our roommates going to Russia left Monday/Tuesday. Sad. I only knew them for 2 weeks and got so close to them. One is going to St. Petersburg (her companion went home 3 days early to get married), and the other 2 are going to the yekatrinburg mission.
Bro. Mortensen taught us about how the Brother of Jared is a type of Christ. Read Ether 1:33-end with that in mind, and every time it says "Jared", put in your name. Pretty neat.
I got to teach physics Monday. We were talking about teaching simply, and Phipps gave the technical definition of Netwon's 3rd Law and no one really understood it and so he had me come up and teach it. Oh it was so fun. I love physics. And I love the gospel.
Yesterday Sis. Summers and I went to the TRC again. It was her first time. I did most of the talking because she was way nervous. I need to work on that though. Mortensen told us that we both have a "teacher aura" and explain things really well and concisely, but said we need to testify more. We've been trying to work on that.
I can't really think of much I've learned new from the MTC. Since I've had PMG since 2006, I've studied it a lot. The teaching skills that we practice all make sense. Teaching physics was good practice. It's great to be able to practice, practice, practice though. I've got the theory all in my head, but getting it out is sometimes difficult.
My district has discovered my scripture reference knowledge and they always turn to me when looking for a specific scripture. I've corrected my teachers a few times when they misquoted scriptures (in a kind way). Elder Harward said he doesn't know what he's going to do in Baltimore without me. Ha. He'll learn.
Well, I gotta run. Next update will be from Indiana in 2 weeks! Love you all