Week 3: Quarantine!

Remember this red headed Sister in the front row?  She provided some excitement for Samuel's District.  The Saturday after they arrived at the MTC, she came down with a cold, so she went to the information desk to get some Benadryl.  MTC policy is to test everyone for Covid if they feel sick.  Her test came back positive.  That meant that she and the rest of her District had to be quarantined from the rest of the missionaries.  The MTC actually has a building that they save for this purpose.  Sister Yardley had to be quarantined away from everyone else, but all the Elders got to be on one floor, and the other three Sisters got to be together on a higher floor.  They were all shipped off to the hospital to be tested for Covid Saturday night and didn't get their results back until Monday morning.  They were all negative, but had to stay quarantined until they got a second negative test on Wednesday.  To pass the time, the Elders got creative.

Orange bowling!  Every day they received an orange and a pop in their lunch, but the oranges weren't very good, so they found a better use for them.

Everyone loves a good fort!

Samuel also was given permission to call home whenever he wanted to.  The MTC didn't want the missionaries getting depressed while they were quarantined.  It was fun to video call with him.  We communicated through the Facebook messenger app. 

Words from Samuel's letter:  It's been amazing to recognize how much I have changed during my MTC experience! I feel like my testimony of Christ was already strong but it has gotten even stronger. Before the MTC I had a little bit of a temper and would get really annoyed by the smallest things. Now I feel like I have mellowed out and it takes a lot more to get to me! One of my goals that I had when I entered the MTC was to become Doctrinally knowledgeable or in other words be able to pull up scriptures to an unexpected question that an investigator asks. I definitely gotten a lot better at that but I haven't quite gotten to the point that I'd like to reach. I have a terrible time remembering scriptures so I've started to make the 'Kerns topical guide'. In it I just write down common questions that I would be asked and have scripture references attached to those questions. That has been really helpful.

My Visa came in yesterday!!! Which is super exciting because that means I can go straight to Africa Wednesday morning. We got our travel itineraries as well so I am leaving Wednesday morning at 3:50am. I am NOT excited about waking up that early but I suppose I'll survive. I believe that our flight is 21 hours long (or something like that) and during it we aren't able to watch any of the movies the airline provides and we won't have a phone to kill time on. So I think I'm in for a ton of studying. We got our Malaria training yesterday and now I know for a surety that I do NOT want to get malaria. From the symptoms that they present it looks like it would be a terrible experience. I'm super excited to go to Liberia but at the same time I'm super nervous. It'll be such a big change and at first I'm sure I'll have no idea of how to do anything but eventually I'll get it down and things will work out. My teacher made a comment this week that has really stuck with me. He said that at some point during his mission the reason he went out into the field wasn't enough to keep him there. So he had to find the reason to stay on the mission. Once he had found the answer he really got into the flow of missionary work and had a lot more fun. I want to reach that point as soon as possible so I can be the most efficient missionary I can be!

  My district is Awesome! We all get along so well and they are all amazing people! My companion is the coolest guy! He and I get along so well and we have similar interests and humor. I've completed several teaching appointments to members so far and we make a good team! Elder Thomas(my companion) does a really good job at remembering to ask questions and bringing in scriptures. I have a problem with preaching/talking to the investigator too much so it's good to have him there to help me out. I have a lot to learn from him! We have a solid group of Missionaries in our district. Everyone of them is talented and can really bring the spirit in when they are teaching. It's been fun learning from them. It's depressing to see that we are all starting to get Missionary humor. Things that would have been really dumb comments have become really funny. I think I've laughed more in the last 2 weeks than I have in my entire life which has been super fun.

The thought of the week this week is: How come Satan keeps doing things that play right into the plan of our Heavenly Father? I think there are several answers but the one that I like the most is that Satan is short sighted. He is angry and goes for the short little victories instead of having an eternal perspective like God teaches us to have. That's just what I think and I haven't really found any doctrine to back it up so don't quote me on it. :)