Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Meanwhile at the MTC

February 4, 2015
Hello Y'all!
It has been a FANTASTIC week here in the MTC. I got a picture with Sister Popham, and I got to see Sister Smith!
The other day we were playing basketball, and I was trying to get the ball from Elder Keck, and I cam up from underneath and popped it out of his hand and the ball smacked him in the jaw. Immediately, a ball came out of nowhere and smacked ME in the face, and smashing my lip against my teeth. Elder Keck said it was karma, but I think karma brought too many friends. I was glad to see that by the end the of the day that the swelling went down and my lips was normal again.
This week we got to teach real-life people! It's called TRC, and it means that members come into the MTC and get 20 minutes lessons with the missionaries. It was a really cool experience.
I got to see Patrik on Friday! It was such a blessing to get to see him. The Lord surely knew that I needed to see him, and that it would deepen my desire to serve an honorable mission.
So during one of our lessons, Sister Carroll needed a question that we had written down. I gave it to her, and then she mispronounced it. Later come to find out, it is because she could not read my handwriting. So now I and writing most thing with my left hand, because that is more legible than my right hand! I will be returning from my mission basically ambidextrous. :)
I got a mystery package from Amazon yesterday, and it didn't say who it was from. But thank you, thank you, thank you! The contents have been thoroughly enjoyed by myself and my entire district. May you get extra blessings for cheering up a bunch of missionaries. :)
So my two favorite service jobs are power-washing the showers and ghost busting the stairs. We get to wear these backpack vacuums and vacuum the stairs, so we always yell "Who ya gunna call?" For the showers, Sister Carroll sprays the showers down with a chemical gun, and I scrub the walls down. We have to hook up a hose to the sink, and as I was unhooking the hose, I got sprayed down too. It was like a cartoon. Sister Carroll just laughed at me. :)
So the sisters have left some gifts for the Elders, like Sister Nielsen's mothers send German Choose The Right rings for the whole district! So the elders decided to repay us, and got us all German scripture ribbons. They are so thoughtful!!
I have been thinking a lot about why we compare, and why we judge each other. I wanted to better understand how and why that was a fundamental part of the human psyche. This week I finally felt like I found an answer. It has to do with time. We act, think, and define ourselves by a finite, mortal sense of time. So when we look at a person, and we think that they are better at German than we are, it is because of time. The timing of when I started vs. when you started. And so on. But to the Lord, timing is irrelevant in the way.  To Him, timing is in proportion to our eternal exaltation, and that is extremely personal and individual. The next time we feel tempted to compare, I would encourage all of us to remember that the Lord has a much better timing for us, we just need to show a little trust.
Sister Carroll and I were released as Sister Training Leaders last night, because we have hit the HALFWAY POINT!!!! Germany, we are coming!! Sister Helmick and Sister Peterson (who is from Hyrum) have been called. They will be so fabulous!
Every Sunday night we get to watch a film, either Meet the Mormons, Legacy, The Mountain of the Lord, The Character of Christ (an Elder Bednar talk). We get to choose each week what we want to see. This last Sunday, we went to Legacy. Oh. My. Toadstool. It was so funny. I love this movie, but with a bunch of missionaries, there was too much kissing, and too little acting. It was hilarious. We're convinced that they will stop showing it now, because we were laughing too hard. We learned some great pick-up lines for after the mission, though.
Well, my time for emailing is almost over, but I wanted to challenge any one who reads this to prove God like it says in Mormon 9:25 and ask Him if He really loves you. He wants to give you the evidence of His reality, and He cares about us more than we could possibly imagine.
All my love to all of you!
Sister Roderer
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The Best Missions in the World!




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