Week 2 at the MTC

September 22, 2016

Hi, everyone!

Thank you for all the support and prayers and Dear Elder letters the last few days. It has been a long and hard week, and your support has helped me get through. It is an immeasurable blessing to have such an amazing family behind me through this journey.

Before anything else can be said, I have an announcement to make. I am very excited about it, so forgive the excessive capitals and punctuation:

I HAVE BEEN INVITED TO SING WITH THE MTC CHOIR FOR GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOORAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!

That's right! I am going to conference! I can hardly wait. Our director Brother Eggert tells us that usually conference choirs have a few months to get ready, while we have ten days. It is going to be an intense regime of rehearsals, but I think it will be an amazing experience. I will let you know next week roughly where I'll be standing. I should be towards the front since I am short. Let's see who can win at "I Spy Sister Pullan!" :) Brother Eggert is very strict about where we can and can't breathe. He said we should write home and say "Dear Mom: They already tells us when to eat and sleep, now they're telling us when to breathe!"

Alright. Announcement over. We now return to our usual programming.

I have an amazing companion, Sister Gabler. She is 19 years old, a cheerleader/rock climber/wake boarder/sky diver/all around amazing person. She is my opposite in almost every respect, but she is the perfect companion for me. Her flexibility and energy compliment my organization and intensity. We do really well together. We are in district 37A. We are short one Elder (Elder Taysom's companion never turned up), so there are 11 of us. Elder Butler calls us "District 37, the eleven from heaven!" I LOVE my district. So much. SO much. They are quickly becoming family to me. The sisters are all going to North Dakota as well, and the elders to Washington. They all keep me laughing. The elders are so respectful of us. Every now and then we hear comments like, "Why are the sisters so much better than us?" and "What would we do without the sisters?" They make life fun and meaningful for me. We have already had some powerful spiritual experiences together. Elder Finley, our district leader, and Sister Lawrence will be in the conference choir with me. We've got some great teachers, too--Sister Spence and Sister Robinson. They are fantastic.

Every morning we get up at 6:30 in the morning and pray, then get ready for the day. We eat breakfast (and every meal, as it happens) as a district. It is easy to eat badly here when they have donuts every morning and chocolate milk (aka the nectar of the Gods) all the time. I've been eating pretty decent, though. After breakfast we go to our classroom and study as directed on our schedule. Sometimes we have exercise time first, which is always fun. I have never loved exercising so much! After so much time sitting and studying, it is so amazing to just move. We run, do exercise machines, stretch, and occasionally organize a volleyball or four-square game with the district. Then back to the classroom.We have our teachers come in throughout the day, usually one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Our teachers stand in as investigators for us, usually portraying investigators they have taught in the past. We teach several lessons throughout the day, to them and to our TRC investigator (so someone who comes to volunteer, maybe a member or maybe not--we don't know). We also go to workshops and bigger group meetings. We eat lunch and dinner together as a district as well. I enjoy wraps--they have a bar that makes them like at the Cougar Eat, and you can pick whatever you want on them. They also do ice cream on Sunday and Wednesday, and we all look forward to it. On Sunday we have church and a walk to the temple at 3, and on Sundays and Tuesdays there is devotional. On Tuesday this week we heard from L. Whitney Clayton of the presidency of the 70. He talked about how our church has a powerful position. We don't accept in-between ideas or compromise--either the church is true, or it isn't. That's it. It was a great talk. After evening things we study as a district (we're reading the Pearl of Great Price together) and sometimes have other lessons. We retire at 9:30.

We are teaching three investigators now. Heather and Meg are our teacher's characters. Meg is my favorite. She is from New Jersey and just makes us laugh. When asked if she knew Jesus, she said, "Oh yeah, I love Jesus. He's a really cool guy. Definitely someone you want on your squad." She feels like she has a great relationship with Jesus but not a great relationship with God, which I find fascinating. She feels that God doesn't love her anymore because she's made mistakes. We are teaching her about repentence and hope to commit her to baptism this week. We are teaching Lucia in the TRC. She is not very open and it's taken some coaxing to get her to confide in us. Amazingly enough, though, she agreed to pray with us the other day, and we were able to be with her when she talked to God for the first time. It went something like this:

Us: Would you be willing to pray with us?

Lucia: ....Sure. I could try that.

Us, externally: That's wonderful! Here's how you do it...

Us, internally: WOOOHOOOOOOOOO!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!! [Insert confetti, trumpet fanfare, balloons, dancing, etc.]

It reminded me of a verse from "Prayer is the Soul's Sincere Desire": "Prayer is the sinner's contrite voice returning from his ways / as angels in the heavens rejoice and cry 'Behold, he prays!'" Angels and missionaries, too. :)

That is all I have time for this week, I am afraid. Please email me and keep sending those Dear Elders! I love getting mail. :) I love and miss you all so much. Sister Gabler and I are going to go do our laundry and spend some time reading and taking a nap. P-day is the best! Thank you again for all your prayers. I feel our presence with me every minute of every day.

I will talk to you all soon. Hurrah for Israel!

Love,

Sister Pullan

My District - "The eleven sent from heaven"

Sis. Gabler in her hammock