February 16, 2017-Otis, Foyer Friends, and "Because of Him"

Hey Fam,

Sister Emery and Sister Smith

This week at the MTC has gone by crazy fast. On Thursday last week, on our way to the temple, we saw this couple out walking their pet pig!! A PIG!!! His name was Otis and he was only like 4 or 5 inches tall. It was the cutest thing I've ever seen and honestly made my day. After P-day it was hard to get back in the groove of go, go, going all the time. I forgot to mention that Sister Jung and I were called as branch music coordinators and as Relief Society teachers (why we have two callings and some people have none, I'm not sure). So we choose the hymns for sacrament meeting and President Hall always wants a special musical number. Sister Jung and I are the only people in our whole zone currently that play the piano, and after searching for ages we couldn't find anyone who wanted to sing. Eventually a sister named Sister Dejong said she wanted to sing on her last Sunday here. She's been at the MTC for maybe 6 weeks instead of 3 because she has been having problems with her feet. We were so glad she offered to sing but she didn't want to sing alone, so Sister Emery to the rescue I guess. We sang A Child's Prayer, which means I sang the second verse all by myself in front of the entire branch presidency and the MTC president who decided to just drop by. It was kind of a train wreck, but it's all finished now, so we are all good. Classes have been good this week. Our investigators right now are named Ashley and Kristen. They are both the cutest ever. They are both married to LDS guys. Ashley is a lot more open to the gospel, but kind of has a hard time understanding the Book of Mormon when she reads it.  (And so did I sometimes, so that's understandable). She loves pizza and just got married like 3 weeks ago. She's going to BYU and majoring in Psychology. She's kinda scary cause when we teach her, she makes such deep eye contact it almost makes me uncomfortable. But we like her a lot. And then there's Kristen. Kristen is a devout Southern Baptist and has a hard time understanding why it isn't good enough that she's a Christian and so is her husband. She always says, "I've already been baptized." The hard thing with her is she kinda argues (she's a sassy one:), so it's hard for us to keep it as a lesson rather than an argument. Anyways. We love our investigators this week. We got a new district of 5 sisters and 6 elders and they're all going to Australia. They're the cutest. One of the girls was bawling at exercise time yesterday and felt so dumb and I just laughed and told her that I had my first breakdown at exercise time so it's all good. We had a good chat. We have these sisters we call our "foyer friends", because at night when we are out in the foyer writing in our journals (just a few of the Salem sisters), we will always talk with this trio of sisters. Two of them are going to Sweden and one is going to Norway.  And their roommates, who we don't know are going to Finland. So holy cow, pray for them all. They're the cutest. One of the best parts of the MTC is that we are all in the same boat. We all can relate and sympathize with each other. We are literally surrounded by hundreds of friends who love Jesus and the gospel and we all love each other.  I'm seriously SO SAD we are leaving the MTC soon. I'm going to miss my companions and a sister named Sister Smith. They're the only reason I've survived and been able to laugh through it all. And we laugh a lot. Our Sister Training leaders call us the three little pigs because Sister Smith snorts every single time she laughs without fail and it's starting to rub off on Sister Jung and me.  We laugh tons and tons here at the MTC. I love it here. I'm praying I love the field even more and praying for a good trainer. I love being a missionary! If you all have a second go watch the video "Because of Him". It's my sad day video and it brings the spirit like a ton of bricks. I have probably watched it 40 times since being here and it still doesn't fail to make me cry every time. I love it. Anyways, I love you all and miss you. Hope you're doing well.

Love, Sister Emery
PS.  I don't have any pictures this week.  I will try and be better. :)

*A side note from #jamie-Hannah sent me a couple of pictures as she was doing laundry while we communicating back and forth on Thursday morning.

Sister Emery and goofy Sister Smith

Sister Emery and 2 Austrailian sisters
doing laundry on P-day