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Apple Splits and Clean Rooms

To my people:

I leave at 5:45 tomorrow morning to go to the grand ole state of Oregon.

One of the coolest things of this last week was that I got to accompany my companion to sing in the new missionary devotional. It was really fun, but the best part was the next couple days when we would be walking around campus and all these new missionaries would come up and stop us and ask us if we were the people that performed. It was like miniature celebrity status.

I also get to accompany another sister from our zone tonight at the MTC presidency dinner. I’m super pumped we’re going to get a sneak peek of whoever is speaking at the devotional. 

I actually think I’ve been playing the piano more than I ever practiced in my life. Sometimes when we don’t have anything to do for companion study, Sister Miller and I just find a piano and improv off hymns it’s a party and a half because Sister Miller is studying vocal performance at SUU so she has a freaking amazing voice.

On Thursday morning I just about had a heart attack. We were sitting outside our room eating our sack lunches and all of a sudden, Sister Miller turns to us and goes “I think they’re doing room inspections right now!” We looked around the corner and sure enough, they were making their rounds. We all sprinted into the room (Gary would be proud) and were screaming “Go Go Go!!” We threw things under beds and in closets and in bags that we threw under beds and in closets and we sprinted out slapping the light off and locking the door, collapsing in a semi-reasonable looking study position trying to catch our breath as we watched the inspection ladies come around the corner and proceed to walk right past our door.

At least we enjoyed a haphazardly clean room for the next couple hours. 

The other funny thing that happened this week was when we were sitting at lunch and out of the corner of our eyes, we see an elder in our district bang his head on the table. Shocked, we turned to see what happened only to see another elder take an apple from the table place his finger on the middle of it raise his head back and crash his head onto the apple. As a result two perfectly sliced apple halves went flying to either end of the table.

Things you learn at the MTC: you can break an apple in half with your head. 

Someone gave the Amish elder caffeine this week… that was hilarious. Imagine when you look at a stopwatch and there’s the minute timer then the second timer and then the millisecond timer. Yeah now imagine someone talking as fast as the millisecond timer in half Pennsylvanian Dutch and half English. 

Devotional this week was AMAZING! We came in from the departure devotional and sat down, (we got seats in the third row 🙌) and then looked up to see who was speaking and it was Matthew Richardson! Immediately I turned to my compadres and freaked out because Matthew Richardson gave my absolute favorite BYU devotional ever “Stand Up Straight, smile, and remember who you Are” if you haven’t seen it I would ten out of ten recommend watching it. It is so powerful! In his devotional this week he talked about becoming a REAL missionary a REAL missionary is a Christlike missionary in order to be a Christlike missionary we must

first: learn of Him 
second: know Him
third: see like Him
fourth: BE like Christ

Wow it was so good! God is good! God is real! The gospel is true! 

I love you all!!

-Sister Cook

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/matthew-o-richardson_brigham-young-university-visionary-house/?M=V
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/matthew-o-richardson_brigham-young-university-visionary-house/?M=V

(One of the best devotionals ever given at BYU)

1. Our zone sisters
2. Our district plus Brother Draper (he’s the one four to the right of me)
3. Our district plus sister Koener (She’s the one directly to the left of me)
4. Roo (one of my Brighton roomies) and me
5. Me, Sister Cheddar, and Sister Specs
6. One more picture of our district

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Fizzing Yogurt and Fizzing Lotion

y’allpeopleonmymissionemail,

I’ll have you all know that I have not dropped a single green bean on myself since last week! 

I also haven’t had any green beans after last week…

What a week! It literally feels like it’s only been a day! Last week for devotional we had Elder Soares come speak to us which was super awesome!! 

Every week before devotional we have choir practice.  Sunday is one of our busiest days we don’t really have any breaks. And add on top of that, Saturday night we kinda stayed up late talking with some other sisters.  So when choir rolled around, it was after lunch and we’d just watched a video and there were all these heavenly voices around me and even though we were sitting in the most uncomfortable seats ever, somehow I nodded off. I guess I got a lot of practice at sleeping in uncomfortable places in college. Luckily I woke up just in time for the final run through. 🙂 

So for Christmas this year, we got that fizzy lotion from bath and body works so this week I showed my roommates and they flipped out.  Before our teachers walked in our classroom, we sprayed the fizzling lotion in our hands and then greeted them with handshakes. Sister Koener freaked out and refused to touch it. Brother Draper was rather low-key he didn’t really bat an eye, but he did get rather distressed about the glittery residue left over however.

This last week sister Miller and I came down with a little bit of a cold so we got some of those EmergenC packets that you put in your water except sister miller left her water bottle in the classroom so naturally the next best option was her strawberry yogurt that she got with her sack breakfast. I wouldn’t recommend it, but it was definitely innovative. Just picture a mixture of orange pop rocks and strawberry yogurt… it was interesting…

We had a really cool experience with one of the people we’ve been teaching. She was one of our referrals so we were given her bio and then we taught her twice. The first time we met with her we invited her to pray so when we met with her again we asked her how that went, and she expressed concerns about how she didn’t know why God would ever want to hear from someone like her who doesn’t feel worthy or like she has anything good to tell him. So in the lesson we just bore testimony about how much God loves each and every one of his children and we shared a video of the lost sheep. And it was just so seriously powerful, we were all in tears (except for me because I don’t cry) and afterwards it was just so amazing! At the end of the lesson we invited her to pray and she said yes and said one of the literal sweetest prayers I’ve ever heard. After every lesson we take a survey about how we feel the lesson went and how impactful it was for the person and they take the same survey and then we compare the survey results. And literally all the results were the same or better whoah I wish I could just share that feeling with all of you through email. But just know that this gospel is good and true!

Anywho, hope y’allpeople are having a fantastic life and loving everything!

I have loads of pictures and videos from this week so be prepared..

-Sister Cook

1. our branch sisters, we all are in the same hall and our doors are just sort of revolving doors, we are all bffs its so much fun!
2. more pictures from our branch meeting on Sunday
3. Sister Delfino (my roomie) sister Kime (she’s 5’1″ 3/4) Sister Taylor (she leaves tomorrow to go to Florida) and ME! 4 &5. Me and sister Kime (she’s 5’1″ 3/4)

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Dead Fish and the Happiest Place on Earth

Location: MTC
Companion: Sister Miller
Week 1

Hallo y’elders and y’allpeople,

We’ve been striving to be creative in our title calling using terms such as y’elders and y’allmissionaries as our vocabulary has become more limited. I feel like I’ve been in the MTC for 3 months but at the same time it all feels like one day. Our daily schedule has been pretty straightforward

6:30- we wake up get dressed and ready for the day
7:45- gym time
9:30- personal study/ companion study
12:30- lunch
1:30- class
4:30- blank time, or Book of Mormon study
5:30- dinner
6:15- class
9:15- back to dorms
10:30- sleep time

One of the surefire highlights of this week, was when we were walking back to our classroom after dinner and we got stuck behind this long group of elders and sisters in a single-file line. All of a sudden, the elder in the lead says” caaaards out!” and in sync, all the missionaries pulled out their swipey cards holding them straight out to the side and one by one, they each swiped into the building.  I got a video but it’s too big to attach so I’ll just share a picture for now.

One morning on the way to the gym it was freezing cold outside and we were trying to warm up so I introduced my sisters to the dead fish jump, which is basically just jumping up with your hands in your pockets to keep them warm and arching your back to move forward while yelling “dead fish”. I’m sure it was very entertaining for anyone looking out their window to see a group of sisters in the wee hours of the morning jumping up and down like dead fish. Thennn later that day, we were sitting in class, and Elder Hochstetler gave a very serious analogy about something and he compared how he felt before being converted as “dead fish” just kind of flopping around and all of us sisters just looked at each other and started laughing. It took us a good 10 minutes to calm down. Sorry Elder, wrong choice of words. On second thought, it’s not so much a dead fish jump as a fish-out-of-water jump but…

In our district we have 6 elders and 4 sisters, out of these 10 at least 5 are converts to the church, including Elder Hochstetler (who actually grew up Amish on Ohio), and all the sisters besides me. It’s really interesting to have discussions with them, because they often have different backgrounds, and the strongest testimonies of missionary work. It’s just super cool. All of us sisters in the district are also roommates, which makes bonding super easy and fun especially because we only have 4 sisters in a room with 6 beds.

The food in the cafeteria is good… when it actually makes it in our mouths… there was one meal where I dropped 4 consecutive green beans on my skirt without any of them making it into my mouth… It’s kind of been a running joke for us sisters.

Whoah sorry Disneyland but I’m pretty sure the MTC trumps as actually being the happiest place on Earth. Literally everyone is so joyful and positive here it is so contagious! Everyone says hello and they are super sweet and even if you are having a miserable awful no good day I’d imagine it’d be pretty hard to go a whole day without cracking a smile once. There is just such a beautiful, positive, happy attitude about being enlisted in the Lord’s work.

I love y’allmissionariesandnonmissionaries

The gospel is true and I love it!

-Sister Cook

  1. “caaaaards out”
  2. Our classroom and nanny’s Valentine’s day card
  3. Our district from left to right : Elder Hochstetler (serving in Orem); Elder Thomson (Eugene); Elder Cowdell (Orem); Elder Thorson (Eugene)(he’s 6’6″); Elder Richens (Eugene); Elder Russel (Salt Lake City West); Sister Hernandez (Salt Lake South); Sister Miller (Eugene); Sister Delfino (Salt Lake South); ME.
  4. My companion and I accidentally coordinated on the first day: yellow and black with matching Preach My Gospel covers
  5. 6. our district sisters and roommates

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