Week 4: A couple of bad decisions later and we will never eat frosted flakes ever again

WHAT UP FAM!!!! HOW IS EVERYONE??!!! I miss y'all lots and lots and lots but this week at the CTM has been STELLAR and I absolutely LOVE being a missionary!! The people here at the best, the Spirit is so strong, and the work is EVERYTHING!

Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers over my health this week! I promise it sounded worse than it was, I was really just nauseous for a solid 4 or 5 days. We got to go to the GI doctor this week and it was horribly sad how excited Sister Selk and I were that we got to leave the Provo State Penitentiary for a solid 2-3 hours... To go to the doctor.... Yeah, we have spent too much time here! Anyway, as it turns out there's medication I'm taking that apparently kills peoples digestive systems. Huh. Good to know, eh? As the doctor said, "this stuff is enough to kill a horse, let alone damage a little girl". The more you know..... He still had to do a full body check just to be safe. Yay for another experience of wearing nothing but a napkin in a doctors office.

Also I'm still feeling ALL of the love this week!! My district is constantly annoyed at my growing number of packages and letters. Sorry 7B, I guess your fam just doesn't love you as much as they love me :) but seriously, thanks to all who have sent emails or letters or PACKAGES you are all too kind and it absolutely lifts my spirits so much. Much love!!

Now to explain the subject line. Somewhere in the course of our Portuguese learning Irmao Belchoir mentioned that he once had a district that took the tower challenge... They have these massive towers of cereal in the cafeteria that districts occasionally try to clear. Well, to the good elders and sisters of 7B, this sounded like a challenge, and we prepared ourselves to take on the Frosted Flakes on Saturday night. This included finding ties for the sisters to tie around their heads, having cereal-themed debates to decide which of our elders would be our top cereal challenger, the works. 

And then it happened. Saturday night, 60 + cereal bowls later, WE CLEARED THE FROSTED FLAKES. Us females each ate 7 bowls, and our elders came in clutch with 10, 11, etc. CEREAL CHALLENGE 2015 WAS COMPLETE. And oh how glorious it was!! For a solid 15 minutes. And then we spent the rest of the evening laying on the floor wanting to die. Seriously, I wish y'all could have walking into our district's room that night and seen all 10 of us literally lying all over the floor, moaning and fanning ourselves. But it was worth it???!!! For the memories???!! Maybe??! 

VICTORY LAP!

Anyway, that, sadly, was the majority of everything exciting that happened this week. We're still teaching Claudia and Abrao, who are both progressing pretty well. The other night we had a lesson with Abrao who, for some reason, didn't feel like letting us in? And we didn't know how to say "can you let us in" in Portuguese so we just awkwardly stood outside the room for a solid 5 minutes or so while people walked passed us and laughed. Later Sister Selk and I were doing service and we heard some English-speaking missionaries giving a door approach, and they were just like "hi how are you can we come share a message??!!!" and Sister Selk and I both shed a few tears because it sounded so nice and so easy. Remind me why I wanted to speak another language???

No but really, the Portuguese is coming. I'm constantly surprised by how much I can talk in lessons considering I've been at this for only 4 weeks. CRAZY. This week we have to Skype actual members in Portugal for TRC and we're all terrified... The Continental accent is some crazy stuff. But we'll just pray a lot, I guess. And hope we learn tons and tons within the next 2 weeks before we actually hit the streets of Portugal!

As for fun spiritual insights this week, there are TONS. On Tuesday our devotional was Bishop Causse from the presiding bishopric and it was INCREDIBLE. He talked about how the best way to be a bold missionary was through humility, and that we're not trying to become better missionaries, but better instruments for the Lord to work through. Love that! We also got to watch Meet the Mormons and the Restoration the last 2 Sundays and they were INSANELY uplifting. If you haven't seen either, watch them! Seriously! I was weeping through both. Also if you ever have a question in life, legit write it down, pray, and then start reading anything from the Book of Mormon. This has literally never ceased to work for me, my questions are always answered. CHURCH IS TRUE FAM!!!!

Also, when the new missionaries come in this week, we will have MORE SISTERS THAN ELDERS AT THE MTC!!!! WHAT WHATTTTTTTTTTTT. Apparently this is the first time this has ever happened???? Isn't that just the best thing ever???? SISTER POWER MAN.

Funny moments of the week:

   - In TRC Sister Selk and I were teaching about service, so we were going to read Mosiah 2:17. We'd had Mosiah 2:41 marked for a lesson earlier with Claudia, so when Sister Selk opened her scriptures she accidentally had the member we were teaching read Mosiah 2:41. Whoops. We realized about halfway through  it was totally the wrong scripture and afterwords our member was like "I thought y'all were teaching about service??" and we all just DIED laughing about it. Good thing we get the chance to practice on members and not real-life investigators, eh?

   - One of the elders have an investigator who's a little tough. As in, he's a gangster, he's addicted to weed, he is living with his "partner" and a whole host of other challenges... On the first lesson, Elder Mills and Hinkey asked him to pray, which he did.... and in the prayer literally said "Obrigada por G lyfe..." all nonchalantly. D Y I N G. 

Quotes of the week:

   - "If I hear one more beautiful daughter of God soulfully singing primary songs in the shower, we're going to have a problem" - yours truly. Seriously though, why are there ALWAYS people singing Love is Spoken Here in the shower. Why.

   - "What do you think manna from heaven was??? You think it was bread? No. It was BREAKFAST. CEREAL." - Elder Peterson in the first of our great cereal debates

   - "RICE KRISPIES ARE THE WHEELS THAT TURN HISTORYYYYYYY" - Elder Hinkey in the second of our great cereal debates. Seriously y'all, we went hard on the tower challenge. 

Anyway, I've rambled on and I have about negative 4 minutes. Basically I love you all, I'm having a hard but amazing and wonderful time here at the MTC, I adore all the people I've met and I love love love being able to preach and study the gospel of Jesus Christ for a solid 18 months. Love it here!!

LOVE Y'ALL!!!!

Sister Parkinson