The Returned Mallory: No Visa Problem! Going Straight to Argentina!

Hello all!

Ok, so I'm starting to freak out just a little bit that I leave the MTC in a week and a half. WHAT!? Its sooo cool to see your pictures Kyrst and hear stories from the real mission field. Its true that the MTC kind of feels like EFY at a prison sometimes. An extremely fun, amazing, spiritual prison, but a prison none the less. I just heard back from one of my old MTC roomates that got to Canada and she said she is opening a new area for her first transfer and she and another brand new missionary are training each other. Soooo....crazy stuff happens in the mission but I'm sooooo excited to just get out there and have an adventure no matter what happens.

Kyrst - Soooo Elder Holland! (Kyrst has been praying since the first week of her mission that Pres Holland would visit her mission and now he is) Thats amazing! Also, I have a random story to tell you that might mean nothing at all but might end up being cool so I'll just tell you. We did a live chat with a woman from chile (we basically had to have the guy in charge of our pilot program over our shoulder the whole time because we don't understand chilean spanish at all and he served in Santiago so he translated) Anyway, she told us that she has a friend she has been talking to about the church and he is in a position to be open to the gospel. He lives in Utah right now but will be heading back to his home in Santiago in November and wants to find a way to start over in life. His name is Adian and she wanted me to tell you his name, but we told her to give his name and address to the missionaries in Salt Lake because that would be easier but if for some crazy reason you run into some random guy named Adian who has lived in Utah that would be cool.

Dad - I see Elder Pagett (A family Troy grew up with) just about every day and Mike and Penney are his aunt and uncle. He told me that Mike died of a heart attack about twelve years ago though. I didn't know if you knew that, but its weird how many crazy connections you can make with random people at the MTC! Also when Elder Anderson talked about your mission companion I almost yelled "That's my dad's mission companion!" in a room of thousands of missionaries, but I held it in and just told my companion. I thought it was cool that I recognized his name though!

Mom - Muy bien hecho with that last package. The pumpkin pie almonds are making me excited for Thanksgiving and make it feel more like fall and the toffee reminds me of Grammy's toffee at Christmas. Yum!

Yes mom, conference in the MTC was like Christmas. The entire west campus came up and hung out at the main campus all day and we watched all the sessions as an entire MTC in the gym. They rebroadcasted the relief society broadcast during priesthood and we got to do whatever we wanted between sessions which was a big change from our usually overly scheduled days. We took temple walks and naps and talked to a lot of west campus missionaries. It was very fun! I got to sit next to Sister Scott(my BYU roommate of two years) for all the Saturday sessions! At one moment we just kind of sat in shock that a year ago, we were sitting next to each other on our couch in Glenwood not even considering a mission and now we were sitting next to each other as missionaries at the MTC. I get to see her just about every day and I love it! I also went into to conference with three very distinct and specific questions and then there was a talk that was just PERFECT for each of the questions. I especially loved Elder Uchdorfs from Saturday and Elder Scotts. I felt like I got more out of one session of conference than I usually get out of the whole weekend. Maybe its because we are used to sitting and listening to speakers all day every day, or maybe its just because we are missionaries and the atmosphere was right, but whatever it was, it was cool. The most amazing part was that whenever they prayed for the missionaries I could feel those prayers so strongly. Its soo amazing to get to be one of those missionaries in this day and age! I love every day that I get to be here.

One of my good friends told a story about conference during a BYU FHE once that has always stuck with me. I don't remember it exactly, but you will get the point. He said that there were a bunch of ducks getting together for a meeting about how to be better. They walked from far distances to get to the meeting, and in the meeting one of the ducks said, "I've learned a better way to travel!" and he taught them all how to fly. The ducks were amazed and they all spent time learning how to fly, and then they all walked home. He applied it to the fact that we can learn a lot at conference, but unless we use what we've learned and act on it, our knowledge won't do much good for us. I've been thinking a lot about how to use the knowledge I gained and hopefully you will too!

Anyway, Sunday's are the best at the MTC! We get a lot of down time and then we hear from a speaker and get to watch a church movie. This week we were a little "devotional-ed out' after sitting in the same room for all of conference so we were so excited to see that our devotional would be by BYU's Vocal point! Oh my gosh it was amazing. I think most of the sister missionaries got a little distracted from the message of the meeting seeing as this was the first contact we had had with normal twenty one year old BYU students for weeks. Its crazy what living with only fresh out of high school eighteen year olds who still think they are the top of the world will do to you. Oh well. We decided that we would watch Testaments in Spanish for our Sunday night movie. We were feeling pretty good about our Spanish now that we can understand just about everything our teachers and investigators say to us and hold our ground in conversation. Haha joke. The movie brought us down from that cloud real quick. Half way through I resulted to reading the actors lips because it was only dubbed over with Spanish. Soo...Argentina will be interesting but I'm excited to just get out there and not know anything and just have to trust in the Lord and watch for miracles. I know I am in his care and I can do anything with him. We are still working hard and we will hit the field with our best even if it isn't great. Also just a little MTC chisme (gossip), we've heard that maybe an apostle will be speaking to us this upcoming Tuesday? Our choir director told us that they are broadcasting the devotional to all the MTC's in the world and soo...that should be fun! We are supposed to spread the rumor so we get a full choir this week.

Also, I've decided that my very favorite thing to do here at the MTC is to host new missionaries. This was my third week doing it and I can't wait to do it next week to! It just reminds me how exciting it really is to be here. Its also fun to see the deer in the head lights look on so many faces and realize I really have come so far already. Its fun to be one of the older missionaries who knows what's up. Part of my duties as a Sister Training Leader is to teach MTC orientation with the zone leaders for our new districts each week. Afterwards we get to take them around a tour of the MTC. My favorite part is that there is a tree the smells like cream soda. No Joke. We always have to take our missionaries to smell the tree! I'll send a picture next week. I guess the whole government shutting down thing has had an impact on missionaries getting their visas to MTC's outside of the U.S. We got tons of missionaries this week that were supposed to go to other MTC's but couldn't. That means the newest district to our zone has TWELVE ELDERS in it. My district has seven people and only five elders and we were considered pretty big. Crazy stuff!

We still have no clue about the visa situation but we should be hearing any day now. I might get to email about it when I know, but I'm not sure. Either way, next week will have a lot of information about sending extra stuff home, figuring out the airport phone call, and figuring out where I'm going! I'm happy with whatever happens. It would be fun to be in the states for Christmas and Thanksgiving (I'll answer your Christmas question when I know next week mom) and to have another mission experience, but I would also love to skip this upcoming winter and go straight to Argentina! We will see.

Some random funny stories - I got pretty sick from drinking overdue milk that I got out of the vending machine here. Not fun, but funny to think back on. Also, my district has had a hard time not laughing during prayers because sometimes Spanish doesn't come out right. Our teacher told us that there will be many times that investigators do weird things during their first prayers and you have to hold the laughter in. He taught us to plug our nose when it happens so that we can be respectful. That night in our district prayer, someone accidentally said something ridiculous. Just so you know, plugging your nose doesn't work. It turned the laughter into snorting. Oh well. We are slowly but surely learning!

Love you all!

Hermana Millett

Ok so right after I sent that last email, OUR TRAVEL PLANS CAME!!!!! WE ARE GOING STRAIGHT TO ARGENTINA!!!!!! I'm assuming we are going on travel visa's because our entire district is going, but the flight has been booked and our mission president will be waiting to pick us up on the 22nd! That means I leave the MTC at 6 am on the 21st of October. Only ten more days! Ah!!! I really feel so blessed to be at the MTC at this time. I know this is exactly when and where I needed to be at the MTC!