Letters from the Mtc
6/10/2015
HELLO FAMILY!
Day 1 at the MTC was just lovely! The best way to describe it is . . . FIREHOSE!!!!! SO much information thrown at you all at once, but there was just a happy/joyful energy here – it was invigorating. I’ll have to tell you all about it in full detail on my P-day which I think is next Wednesday, but I could be wrong. What I DO need from you guys is this – my gray sweat pants. I FORGOT TO BRING THEM AND THEY ARE MY FAVORITE PANTS! Could you find them for me and send them my way? That’d be great! Also, sorry my handwriting is terrible. I don’t have a lot of time to write.
Anyway, I LOVE YOU ALL!!! I’m safe! I’m happy! And being here makes me realize that I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else (so far). I LOVE THE MTC!!!
xoxo,
Sista D
p.s. My companion’s name Sister Erickson
6/11/2015
Hello FAMILY!
I have ZERO time to write tonight, but I just wanted to say that today was incredible. All the lessons are SO POWERFUL. I love my district. They are all spiritual giants.
We met our branch presidency tonight: President Pickering, Brother May, Brother Laturner. I LOVE THEM! I just met them but I absolutely adore them. I found myself asking why they aren’t General Authorities.
They called district leaders and sister training leaders. Guess who the sister training leaders are? Me & Sister Erickson! I want to be like her. Before they called us, the two counselors (May & Lalturner) interviewed us one by one individually. Brother May interviewed me and his look and mannerisms would lead me to believe he is Jerry Elison’s brother. But he’s not. He and I walked to a different room for our interview. He asked me how I was and I replied. Then he said, “Why do I get the feeling you are going to be and already are an amazing missionary?”
In our interview, within minutes, I was crying. You cannot, CANNOT not feel the spirit here (double negative. You always feel the spirit here. It’s dedicated ground and you must hold a temple recommend to be here) and he spoke to me with so much love! He told me that there are angels assisting me, and they are my ancestors. Not only are they helping me, but the ancestors of the people I’m going to teach. So I’m not alone. J
6/12/2015
Dearest family—
I have just learned that my bag(s) CANNOT weigh more than 50 lbs. each. You CAN, but it is very costly – like upwards to $315.00. Well my bag is 84 pounds!!! So – somehow we need to get me another bag so that I can even out the weight OR get me 2 different bags and I’ll send my ginormous one home.
Thank you.
Xoxo
Sister Dymock
6/13/2015
I love love LOVE the MTC. That’s all!
Love you!!!
Xoxo
Sister Dymock
p.s. I’ll email on Wednesday
6/17/2015
Hello everyone!! (this is really long, I'm sorry. I just have so much to say!)
Can I just tell you how much I LOVE it here?!? If I spent my whole 18 months here I wouldn't even be mad! There's this incredibly strong feeling of the spirit here, so thick you could cut it with a knife! (or however that saying goes...) The first day of the MTC was great, you have this "dork dot" on your nametag, basically an orange sticker letting everyone know that today is your first day so then EVERYONE ( and when I say everyone I mean everyone) says "welcome to the MTC!" when you pass them. So pretty much all day I had this huge smile on my face because I felt so loved and was thrilled to finally be starting this journey.
My district is 8 elders and 4 sisters, which apparently is huge because anytime someone comes into our classroom they say "whoa. this district is huge" We can barely fit into our little room but I love it because we are just forced to be close to each other and love each other and I DO. I LOVE my sisters and elders, and luckily we are ALL going to Oklahoma City! We are also flying out with 4 other elders going to Canada, soooo with 20 missionaries that plane won't even know what hit them! Might as well just baptize them all. My district = my best friends.
Elders: Scott, Williams, Sheffield, Rader, Barton, Lindelof, Larson, Millett; Sisters: Dymock (me obviously) Erickson, Wedemeyer, Jackson
When I got here on June 10 there were 642 missionaries that arrived that same day, doubling the amount of missionaries in the MTC. Crazy, and they say next week (today) will double again! #hasteningthework
I find that people look A LOT like people I know, or remind me of them. Some examples:
President Burgess (MTC president) looks like William Turner's dad, or the bad guard/kingsmen guy in the new Cinderella
Elder Lindelof--looks like, acts like, and has the SAME haircut as Dr Young
Elder Larson--acts like (sometimes) reminds me of Dayson Deucher
Elder Rader--HANDS DOWN the grown up version of Zach Heaton
Sister Trost (wife of 1st counselor in MTC pres)-- Julie Andrews
Sister Jackson--her voice is JUST like Megan Payne's
and I KNOW there is more I just can't think, there's so much I want to say I just don't know how to say it all!
One of the rules here is no dancing and I AM DYING. Do you know how hard it is for me not to dance, like, ALL day?! It's been a real struggle for me. I can't wait until I get to the airport and just bust a move!
The first couple days they really drill you what your purpose is:
Invite other to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the holy ghost and enduring to the end. That being said in one of our beginning meeting/coombined new missionary lessons they asked what the relationship between us and the investigator is... I raised my hand and pointed out that the only thing WE have to do, our verbs are: invite and help. Everything else in the purpose is through Jesus Christ. So now all the elders, even ones I don't know say "hey it's the two verb sister" So that makes me feel pretty cool... thanks Brooke for teaching me that :)
I'm sporting a very nice ink splot on the side of my pinky knuckle from all the tons and tons of notes I'm taking. I don't think that's going to go away for a while...
There are miracles happening all around me, I just needed to open my eyes to see it! Being here at the MTC my eyes have definitely been opened! I am not a light sleeper at all and the other night Sis Jackson was having a nightmare and she was crying/screaming and I bolted out of bed and SO clearly, as if I had been up for hours, asked her if she was ok. She said she was and then some how I fell right back to sleep. But that just was really cool to me... especially since these beds ARE NOT comfortable in the slightest. Sleeping is hard because the beds are so uncomfortable. By the time you fall asleep you feel like you wake up 10 minutes later. And for the first couple nights I was a little peeved about it "Why aren't the beds more comfortable? why don't they give you more blankets?" But then I realized! If they were any more comfortable it would make getting out of bed SO much harder. Which I haven't really had a problem with yet, it's so easy to get out of bed! So my alarm goes off at 6:30 but the entire time I've been here my body naturally gets up at 6:15, a blessing? I don't know.
The elders started the first day complaining how hungry and tired they were all the time and I just didn't understand how that could be. Well I've been here a week and my body is starting to realize that this trend of waking up at 6:30 isn't going away. So I'm starting to feel tired but I won't let it effect me!
Whether you're hungry or not, YOU EAT. because you will be hungry later and you can't eat then.
My distrcit LOVES gym time. We all RUN to go to gym. We all play volleyball together and it's so fun! Definitely a nice break from being in our classroom for hours and hours on end.
In my patriarchal blessing it talks about me being a leader and it was NOT lying. I feel like we play follow the leader where ever we go, I l know the way and my little ducklings (my district) follow me.It's been humbing that's for sure.. I love to walk fast and my comp does not. Drives me alittle crazy someitmes but it's all for the best right? :)
Here's just some funny things that have happened during my week:
-My companion, Sis Erickson, the first night talked in her sleep "Go! Go! Go! Run faster!"
-There is ALWAYS a hymn stuck in my head. When I'm falling asleep or there's nothing else for my brain to be thinking about I'm singing a hymn! Which I guess is good right?
- I do squats every night while I'm brushing my teeth, and for a while people thought it was pretty funny. But I do believe I've started a trend... ;) Now a lot of sisters do it with me!
-There are announcements at 10:15 and 10:30 informing you that it's "quiet time" or "lights out" and I feel like I'm in hunger games because it's so loud and so informative I just keep waiting for a cannon to go off letting us know that someone died..
-while we are on the topic of hunger games, something wonderful happened. It is my life long dream to be katniss, I just really think she's pretty sweet. so I just want to be her. In the movie/book she has Rue right? Well my comp sis Erickson is black. So we braided my hair like Katniss and Sis E is Rue and BAM! My dreams of being katniss were fulfilled. *fist pump*
-I love to quote movies all the time, SO DO THE SISTERS IN MY DISTRICT! yes yes yes. The elders love it too. The movies we most quote are: Nacho Libre, She's the Man, aaand Mulan. Well and eery other disney movie too.
-Sister Wedemeyer after she showers wraps her towel around her head REALLY tight and she looks exactly like the tall stepsister in the Cinderella with Brandi. same pale face, same skinny neck/face. It's just uncanny. I find it hilarious.
-The elders took an interest in my nose itch, you all know the one. And they are all determined to learn how "how do you do that?? teach me!!!"
-Kellianne told me before my mission that I would sing to my companions and I thought that seemed silly and I would never do that.. but she was right! They like me to sing to them in the morning.
-The door to the room next to us when opened and closed sounds like Kevin, the bird, from Up. But a GIANT one. It's funny to listen to.
-I'm the "tooth expert" and all dental, ortho, mouth related questions get sent my way.
-The other day we couldn't go to the gym because they were setting up for the devotional so we had to do something else for gym. So what do we do? We have our own little yoga session outside on the grass and I wish, I WISH so badly I could've gotten pictures of it. Please just image all the elders (and sister too but they aren't as funny) on their neck/shoulders with legs up in the air doing bicycles. SO FUNNY!
All the floors here are cement with a very thin fake carpet. And I have a tesimony of prayer. Rather I have testimo-KNEES of prayer (mom you'll be proud me, I thought of that all by myeself) I have GIANT bruises on both knees from praying so much. I love it!! Prayer is the best and we really do it all the time!
I truly love the MTC and I think there hasn't been a day where I haven't cried. Not because I've been sad or homesick but because the spirit is SO strong here. Teaching the investigators have been eyeopening, scary, and exhilarating all at once. but I absolutely love our investigators. I wish I had the time to write it all down but I can't just know we have a very hard and humbling(to us) investigaotr and one that makes me want to shout hallelujah because she is SO pumped about the gospel. I got to teach her about Jospeh Smith and she soaked it all in. It was great! Being here without my phone, music, or any distractions from the world has been awesome. I realized that I wasted SO much time before the MTC, there's so many hours in the day and I love devoting every minute of them to the Lord.
I love this work, I love that it's hard and I love the tag I get to wear. I LOVE being a disciple of Christ. Choosing to serve a mission was the greatest decision I've made and I know I will not regret it. The other night sis Erickson prayed "thank you that it was hard" and I love that!! I really am grateful that this is hard! The hardest things in life are the most worth while.
We got to watch a devotional given my Bednar called the Characteristics of Christ and I wish that you guys could see it. It's an amazing talk focusing on turning outward instead of inward.
Anyway I am out of time, but I love you all! Know that I am happy and you can send letters whenever ;)
XOXO,
Sister Dymock
p.s. I want to share this cool experience with you! So in class my teacher was showing us how to properly role play and asked to use me as the investigator, I said yes. So she gave me a brief run though then invited me to pray to know if the church was true. I said yes but she actually wanted to me to do it right then and there. so in front of my whole district I offered a small and simple prayer, as the investigator, asking if the church was true. I asked as the investigator but I got an answer as Sister Dymock. My whole body felt like it was on fire, not a painful fire but a warmth that covered my whole body and I KNEW that the church was true. Not that I didn't before but that was an awesome witness that it was. I cried, of course haha and said that I can't wait to let others experience that or something like that. This church is true and that's why I'm going out to share it.
6/20/2015
Mom & Dad & Matthew –
I got your letters today and I’d just like to say THANK YOU!!! Getting letters is probably the most exciting/best part of the day. I got THREE tonight (the district leader, Elder Sheffield, hands them out at night) – one from Mom, one from Dad, and one from Sister Lewis! I feel so loved. :)
I have seen Sister Powell AND Gerardo (Elder Acosta). He came and found ME today. It was so fun talking to him. :)
As far as treats go: I would LOVE some red velvet cake bites from The Sweet Tooth Fairy and I’ve definitely been craving some chips and salsa. BUT by the time you get this letter, I’LL BE IN OKLAHOMA!!! How crazy is that??? I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. It’ll be hard to leave the MTC and don’t even get me started on how much I’ll miss my sisters and elders. L But I truly am excited for the adventure that lies ahead of me!
I love you and can’t wait to talk to you on Tuesday!!!
Sorry, I barely sent any pictures on Wednesday. I couldn’t figure out how to get them to load onto the computer until there was only 5 minutes left. So I promise to send more this week. If I get a p-day.
LOVE YOU!!!!
The book is blue. The church is true!
xoxo
Sister Dymock
NOTE: Amy flew out to Oklahoma on Tuesday, June 23, 2015. Their flight was early, so they had to get up at 2:15 a.m. to get ready.