The life of a sister in the MTC

Hi everyone,

Our District

This week hasn't been the best week I have had here at the MTC. But another week down, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. My MTC stay is almost over!! Yahoo!! Don't get me wrong, I love the MTC, but I am just ready to go roam the streets of Spain searching for those who haven't been blessed with the gospel yet. The only thing that worries me is the language... I was about to tell you all how it is coming, but since Spanish drives me freaking nuts, I just won't even go there. To put it simply, Spanish hates me, and I really,  really,  really am trying so hard to learn to love it. But it will come. I know it will. I wouldn't be here if the Lord didn't think I could learn the language. 

My sick day and by the way, I'm learning to play the ukulele 

Well last weekend was conference weekend, and it was incredible. Conference in the mission field is amplified. It has been one of my favorite experiences out here. But other than conference, my week was rough. A stomach bug decided to make its rounds with some of the missionaries here, and apparently I was the perfect candidate for it. I woke up Tuesday morning puking my guts out with a sky high fever... it was disgusting. So I was locked in my room all day to be deprived of food and human communication. But it was definitely a blessing in disguise. Because I got sick I was able to get some decent sleep and give my body a chance to relax. I was able to study, so that's always a plus. Fortunately my sickness only lasted a day, and no worries I am fully functional now. 



Me and My Best Friend Sister Lee

I know last week I complained about sister missionaries not playing sports passionately enough, but this week I realized that the elders take the game a little too seriously. We have some Russian Elders here that we get to play sports with, so brilliant me decided to play in a game of soccer with them. Well Russians are ruthless and mean. They don't care if you are a girl or a guy, they will play you like a true enemy. So in the midst of a friendly game, I had the ball kicked to me, when out of nowhere a Russian Elder the size of Taeten body slammed me out of nowhere, shoving me to the ground... well I wasn't very happy. He didn't even say sorry! So me being the sweet innocent girl that I am, jumped up, chased the guy down, kicked the ball away from him then proceeded to grab him by the shirt and throw him to the ground. I then ever so politely said, oops, I am so sorry, that was an accident. Everyone was laughing and I was awarded MVP of the game. It was pretty intense, but never again will I play against the Russians. They terrify me! 

The second soccer incident happened yesterday when I was playing with all American missionaries. Me and this other sister, who knows how to play sports right, were on the same team and we went for the ball that one of the elders had. Well all three of us collided pretty hard, and ended up in a pile on the ground. Now imagine this elders reaction when he realized he was on top of two sister missionaries... that was his first physical contact with a girl since he was set apart other than handshakes, and he was completely on top of me and this other sister. The confusion, distress, and pure panic that he experience was hilarious. Me and the sister laughed our hearts out as the poor elder frantically tried to extract himself. Not going to lie, it was the funniest thing I have ever seen. He felt so bad, and felt like the biggest sinner and rule breaker ever. It was great. 



Me & my companion Sister McWhorter

 

 I will encircle thee in the arms of my love

Other than that my week was boring and the same as it usually is here at the MTC. The same routine every day. But I am slowly becoming a stronger missionary because of it. Well, really quickly I want to share a spiritual thought with you all that I came across this week and it is the Saviors loving arms. In D&C 6:20 we read be faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments of God, and I will encircle thee in the arms of my love. There are all kinds of hugs. We have hugs from friends or loved ones. Hugs from your dad that make us feel safe, important and loved beyond description. But the most wonderful hug that we might ever receive is from our loving Heavenly Father. This is an embrace that we should desire above all others. It is a hug that caresses encouragement and eternal love, reminding us that He knows our potential and that He will do everything in his power to help us reach it. His hug is once of pure comfort. In John 14:18 we read that He will not leave us comfortless, He will come to us. He will heal the broken hearted and never leave or forget us. Even though I can't hug my dad, or any of my loved ones out here in Spain, I know that I can always turn to my Heavenly Father for the warm embrace that I desire, and He will comfort my troubled heart and worried mind. 
 

I love and miss you all! Thanks to those of you who continue to send me letters and emails. I apologize for not responding to those who have sent me emails. I have no time to email here in the MTC, but that doesn't mean that I am not reading what you send to me. I promise that once I am in the field and have more time, I will respond to each and every one of you. Thank you for the support, it means the world to me. until next time.

Love, Hermana Stilson

 

 
 

 

I Am Not Alone In This Journey

Oh my goodness where is the time going?? The days are passing in a blink of an eye and the weeks are flying by .I am desperately trying to stop the clock. I thought that 6 weeks was going to be way too long of a stay at the MTC but after realizing just how slow I am at learning the language, I am clinging onto every second that I have here. These next 3 and a half weeks are my life line. When the time runs out, I will be thrown into the country with only a few Spanish words to my name. But hey, what's life without a Little adventure?? What's a mission without a few challenges?? I will prepare myself over the next 3 and a half weeks to be ready to hit the ground running.              

This week was different. So much happens in just one day that it is hard to pick and choose the things I want to tell you all about. Maybe I'll just give you all a rundown of a typical day at the MTC and tell you the good stuff as I go. Well my days start at 6 in the morning. I wake up and have to try to remember that I sleep on a top bunk bed, and there is quite a ways to get to the floor… sadly I forget that bit of information in the wee hours of the morning and I more often than not drop from my bed and crumple to the floor. But it wakes me up nicely!! We then pray study and get ready and rush off to breakfast. Next we go to grammar lessons, teaching lessons, study, and preparing to teach 30 min long lessons to fake investigators. In the middle of all that, we get lunch, but its straight back to the classrooms until gym and sports. I CRAVE that short time. It is the only time where I get to leave my prison cell, see the sunlight, and breathe fresh air. It is a time for me to work out and let the stress and frustration go. I'm used to playing sports, but when you play sports with sisters who play like a bunch of girls, it gets boring really fast. I like to take the games seriously and play hard but the other sister would rather run from the balls and go smell flowers or gossip about boyfriends instead…. So now I just work out with Hermana Lee, who by the way is probably my favorite sister out here.

After sports we come back and shower, go to dinner then back to the cell for 2 and a half more hours of lessons. When it's done, I hit the showers one last time, do what I need to do, and lights out by 10:30. There is hardly time in the day to breathe. Fridays we get to do service projects, and Saturdays we get to proselyte at this huge gigantic park for 2 hours and it is a blast. You heard me right, we are set loose with testimonies blazing and Books of Mormon in hand ready to find and teach as many people as we can in our broken Spanish. Last week at the park we started talking to this lady in Spanish and when she saw the book we were carrying and our name tags she was ready to peace out. After I greeted her in Spanish, she said sorry I don't speak any Spanish, so I immediately said, "That's great, NEITHER DO I!!" and then I sat down on the bench next to her put an English Book of Mormon in her lap and said now you are stuck with me for the next ten minutes, let's talk. The poor lady thought that she could get out of talking with us but too bad for her I speak English fairly well. I love going to the park. Thursdays of course are my p-day. They start off with an early morning temple session, emailing time, and then off to explore Madrid. This is my life now, and I love it.

I have one last thing I want to share before I run out of time. The mission is hard. Even at the MTC. You face exhaustion, frustration, stress and a million other emotions in the space of one day. You get beaten down and kicked around every day, and when the day is finally over and you think that you are safe, you have to wake up the next morning to go through it all over again. And anyone who knows me knows that I get extremely frustrated when things get hard for me. So imagine my feelings when I am not learning Spanish as quickly as my companion. It drives me nuts and it is hard. Frustrations on the mission is amplified 10 fold. You start to question yourself and your self motivation and determination disappears quickly. When it gets hard, you learn what it is to doubt, and to be afraid. You feel inadequate , inexperienced and just not good enough, as if you are being set up to fail. These feelings are the storms of life in the mission. When you reach that soaking wet and windblown state, you learn to fall to your knees and approach the Lord. In these moments of my mission where I feel as if I am going to drown, I turn to the Lord and beg him to save me. (Matthew 14: 30) When we have done all that we can, God picks us up and he does all that we can't. I am not alone in this journey. I know I can do hard things. I can overcome ANYTHING because His son overcame EVERYTHING. I will let Christ guide my life and allow him to change me because I know that he will be there to help me. He won't do it for me, and he won't make me do in alone either. But he will do it with me to lighten my load.

The mission is rough, but sometimes the Lord lets the storm rage so that he can comfort His children. I love you all and hope to hear from some of you soon. Talk to you next week!!!

Love,

Hermana Stilson

 

The MTC is great!

Hello everyone…. Guess what?!? I am in SPAIN!! I am literally in another country right now!!!!! It is absolutely beautiful out here. The people are amazing and the language is beautiful, yes even with the heavy lisp accent. It is amazing. Well so much has happened in the last week and a half, I don’t even know where to begin. I should have written things down so that I could remember easier what to tell you guys. And to make matters worse I only have 20 minutes to try and cram a week and a half's worth of my life into that small period of time…. Well were to begin…. Let's start with my companion. To make it short, she is basically another me. We are almost the same person. We say the same things, we have the same clothes, we think alike… I am serious we are so in sync!!! She is amazing. She is so strong in the gospel and I am learning so much from her. She definitely keeps me on track because of how head strong and determined she is. We are the first ones up in the morning, we say comp prayer, and then get ready as fast as we can, head to breakfast, and are the first to leave so that we can get to the classroom and start studying. I LOVE MY COMP!!!!
Uhhh the language is totally kicking my butt…. We go and teach fake investigators in Spanish and I feel ridiculously impressed with myself when I understand and pick up like 15 words. I mostly sit there, listen to gibberish, smile, nod and occasionally say SI. Hahaha it really will take me quite a bit to pick up on this beautiful language. The food here is… interesting. Its either good or super nasty. But thanks to my comp Hermana McWhorter I at least try everything on my plate before spitting it out and chugging down a glass of water. My favorite meal so far has been Chicken nuggets and fries… AMERICAN FOOD!!!! I am sorry for not sending any pictures, we aren’t allowed to take pictures in the MTC, and we can only take pictures on Thursday, but we haven’t gone out yet today to take pictures. My MTC president is an incredible speaker, and is honestly so nice. His wife is my favorite though. She is just like my mom. I went in to her office the other night just to see how she was doing and I felt like I was back home sitting on my bed with my mom. But no worries mom, she will never replace you.

The MTC is great…. Except it feels like a jail. We are literally confined to only 3 floors, we need a key to get in or out of anything, there are bars on our windows, and even when we go to some of the soccer fields for gym times they are surrounded by fences and gates. BUT it is my home. My comp is my sister and my district is my family. We all depend on each other so much. Haha its funny to watch all the other sisters around me break down in tears about being homesick. I mean don’t get me wrong I miss my family more than anything, but I am not homesick. If you read in D&C 100 it says Your families are well; they are in mine hands, and I will do with them as seemeth me good; for in me there is all power. I do not need to worry about my family out here, the lord is taking care of them while I serve him.

Last night was one of the best moments of my life. On the floor where all the missionaries rooms are there is the forbidden door that separates the sisters from the elders and we me and a few girls from my district heard the elders singing let it go on the other side of the door, so we ran into our room pulled out my ipod grabbed my speakers and set it next to the door and basically had a sing along to a variety of Disney classics with the elders and sisters between a door. Hahaha not the most spiritual experience, but it was definitely a good way to feel like a normal human being again vs a broken robot trying to learn a language. It was great.

Really quick I need to make a shout out to my AMAZING missionary Elder Ryan Morgan and my very BEST friend Syd Spackman for the letters that they have sent me. I am the only one in my district who has gotten any mail and it really makes a world of difference hearing from home.
I am learning so much and my testimony is growing every day. It is amazing the things you can learn and accomplish with the spirit as a constant companion. I love this church and the amazing gospel that I have been blessed with. I can´t wait until I get to leave the prison walls of the MTC and go out and dedicate myself to searching for the lost souls of the world to bring them the happiness that the gospel brings each of us. I love you all and hope to hear from you all soon. I apologize for being brief and not explain more, I know I left a lot of things out like teaching in the park, singing on the temple steps and going to the temple, but I will explain more next week!!! OH BY THE WAY the MTC is cool in the fact that there are only 26 people here. 12 sister missionaries serving in Spain, 3 elders serving in Spain, 1 elder who is going to France, 3 Russian elders, 3 Russian sisters, and 4 elders from Africa. It's pretty cool to see the sisters dominating the mission field. I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Hermana Stilson 

Our First Email

Mom!!!! I made it!! I am so sorry for not calling in London or Madrid the calling card did not work very well. I am so sorry. But the MTC is absolutely amazing!!! My flights were awesome.... and long and exhausting. I tried to do what Lisa told me and sleep, buuuut that didn't work out very well. It was terrible trying to sleep haha but at least I was able to sit by other missionaries on all the flights.<my luggage made it and everything, but there was one sister who's luggage got lost. Like every piece of it haha. I felt bad but sadly it was the rude sister so I honestly didn´t feel too bad... I am terrible. I need to more Christ like hahaha oh man. Oh my goodness, guess what??? Sister Mcwhorter is my companion!! I couldn´t be happier!!! ahh I am so excited. and my mission President and  his wife are so sweet and kind. haha I had a meeting with them the second I got here and they were all excited because they had a letter waiting for me here... it was from Ryan haha so they were super curious to know about him and they were very impressed with him and told me that I should probably keep him around as long as he continues to be a good example to me. But mom it is amazing here!! ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!!! Everyone is nice and encouraging. I am a million times more confident about being here now because of the support of all the other sisters here. Sorry I am jumping around a lot, but the London airport was amazing!!! We navigated the airports perfectly with no problems other than the sister losing her luggage. Oh my goodness, I am a missionary!! this is so real now!!! this is my home for the next year and a half, and a have an amazing family here with me for the next 6 weeks. This is where I am supposed to be. Oh, I am supposed to tell you that we won't be able to email again until next week. so don't freak out when I don't email you this week. But be waiting for me next Thursday. We can only be on for 30 min. but that is ok. I will be soooo busy that it won't bother me too much. Shoot, I am trying think of what else to tell you.... airplane food is straight up nasty. I couldn't eat it. and then I am 99% sure that I am getting strep so that is kind of lame, but they will take care of me, I am not too concerned. well, I am sorry that this is short, but we are jumping right in. haha my Spanish is nonexistent and it isn't helping me in the slightest but it will come. We are going to work so I have to go. But I am safe and I love you. Please tell dad I love and miss him already; and the rest of the fam of course. I will talk to you next Thursday!! keep me in your prayers, because wishing me luck won´t do much to help
I love you all!!!!

Leavin' on a Jet Plane...

Ready Or Not Here She Goes...

Look Who We Ran Into, Shawn Bradley



He Makes My Guys Look Short!

Sister Stilson & Sister Ward ready to serve in Barcelona Spain

 

Sister Ward, Sister Marsh & Sister Stilson

18 Months Better Go By Fast! We Love you Shealeigh!





After Shealeig's Setting Apart

Shealeigh is FINALLY a Missionary!!!

 

I Love my Nan & Bomp

So grateful that Gary & Carolyn could be there

Nice Shirttails Fellows!







Sisters at Heart!

 



We LOVE this Family MWAH!!!

What would we do without Nan & Bomp!

Proud Papa!