[1] First Email. Life at the MTC!

Hello All!  After checking my email all day and hitting 'refresh' too many times to count... :) Our first letter from our Missionary daughter is here! Sounds like she is keeping her spirits up, (so good for a parent to hear.)  Hope you all enjoy it as much as we did!   

-Faithann K.

Subject - (#1) First Email! Life at the MTC!

Hello family and friends! 

I have almost been in the MTC for a whole week now! I'm sorry to those I told that my P-Day (Prepare Day) was on Monday, it is actually today. It has been so crazy here and I have learned so much. In the welcome orientation one of the speakers said "The MTC is the happiest place on Earth". I mean, it's not exactly Disney, but it is a very happy and special place and I would say in many ways a lot better:)

ARRIVING AT THE MTC

I arrived on Wednesday June 11th, at 1:30pm, said goodbye to everyone, and off I went! The girl (or Sister I should say) that helped me with my bags was so nice. She is going to be serving in Hungary! She led me to all the different rooms to pick up my materials. When they gave me my badge, I just stared at it for a second. I have wanted this my whole life. It was an amazing feeling. We then went to my room, or residents hall as they call it. There are three bunk beds, but only three sisters staying in the room. Yes it's true, I'M IN A TRIO! I was so excited when I went to class and met them. Secretly I was hoping I would get to be in a trio companionship and it happened!  

MY COMPANIONS

My two companions are named Sister Beatty and Sister Evans. They are both from Utah. We have a lot in common too which is especially great :)

Sister Beatty

She is from Hurricane, Utah and she went to Utah State University. She is majoring in Computer Science. She also ran in a marathon this year, which is amazing! It's good too, because she is the one who keeps us in shape. Here's an example of one of our gym night experiences. We jogged a mile and then we did 100 sit ups, 20 (girl) push-ups, and then 20 burpees. So you might be proud of me, because the most physical activity I do at home is get up to walk to the fridge. I'm slightly kidding, but I was seriously kind of proud of myself :)

Sister Evans

It's her birthday today!! What a perfect day for it. We got to go to the Provo temple this morning and now we get to write to our families. Hurray for P-day! Sister Evans is so sweet and kind. She always keeps us positive with her 'jokes of the day'. She is from Payson, Utah and she went to Snow College for Engineering. 

As I was saying, we have many similarities. We all like to read a lot of books and color. (We've been making our scriptures colorful, in a reverent way of course :) We like to 'people watch' during meals. We like things organized so our room is very clean. We work really well when we teach too. Sister Beatty is the personable one and is good at asking questions and learning about the investigators, I'm the happy one who smiles a lot and tries to keep thing positive, and Sister Evans is the 'scriptorian'. It's great. We are such a good team. I like to think of us as the Three Caballeros :)

CLASSES

My teachers are so nice! And they are really young too which was surprising. Most of them have just gotten home from their missions within the past two years!

Sister White 

She served in Canada and she is a pastry chef! Sadly, she's not allowed to bring us anything though. She is leaving this week to go to a friend's wedding where she is going to be a bridesmaid and is also making the wedding cake. She is a good teacher and you can tell how much she loves the gospel.

Sister Wells

She served in LA, which is right next to my mission! She said she loved it. She has only been home three months and has already gone back to visit. She is so sweet. She's one of the nicest people I've met here. She has such a beautiful strong testimony.

THE DISTRICT

Each classroom is a District. There is us, the three Sisters going to Ventura, California, and then four Elders going to Jacksonville Florida. We've become closer as the week went on. The Elders are funny, but sometimes have a hard time focusing. The teachers keep them in line though :) All the Elders try to match their ties everyday and it's pretty cute and cool. They try to get us on it too. Today is black and white day if you were wondering :) 

OUR ZONE

Our Zone is two other classrooms. In one there are four other sisters going to Ventura too! They all seem nice. Our Zone has church all together on Sundays. There are two speakers (we had two very good speakers and you could just feel the spirit as they spoke) and then they randomly choose missionaries to talk. Thankfully I wasn't picked last week,  but we'll see what happens next Sunday... ;) 

THE FOOD

The food is actually really good here. One selection is usually a meat with gravy and different sides. There's always gravy. Everyday. Which is fine, but all I could think of was the line from Emperor's New Groove, "Is there anything on this menu that is not swimming in gravy?!".  :D  I don't have to make waffles for some of the meal like I used to at college when I didn't like the main course :) I heard not to drink the orange juice so I have stayed away from that. Not sure if that is just a rumor?  Instead I drink POG. I was so excited when I found it! It is basically all I drank at BYUH. It's passion orange guava juice. SO. GOOD. 

FRIENDLY FACES

I've seen three friends here so far! It is so exciting to see familiar faces. I saw Sister Gunn at the beginning orientation when we stood up based on where we were from. We proudly represented Pennsylvania :) I also saw two friends from college. Sister Brockbank was in my Book of Mormon class. She leaves tomorrow! Sister Wilson was in my Mission Preparations class. It's so cool to see her again at the MTC.

Story time! 

When I was flying out of Pittsburgh it was cloudy and rainy. I was mostly 'people watching' since I had been set apart as a Missionary and I couldn't use electronics. Everyone was in a bad mood because our flight was delayed by hours. When we finally took off everything went smoothly and we soared above the clouds. Up there the sun was shining bright and everything looked so beautiful. It made me think of one of the Mormon Message posters. It has a bunch on blue balloons at the bottom and one yellow one at the top and the caption reads "rise above the blues". I hope you all can do the same thing. I think it helps to try and stay positive.  One of my favorite Scripture Mastery's Nephi 2:25.  Everything will be ok. All we need to do is trust in the Lord  :) My flight above the clouds also made me think of a quote by C.S. Lewis "I believe in God like I believe in the sun, not because I can see it, but because of it all things are seen."

I have so much more to tell you, but my time is running out. If any of you want to write me something while I am in the MTC you can use DearElder. com. You can write me a message and they will print it out and deliver it to me the next day. I leave next Monday (June 23rd) so feel free to write! I love getting mail :)

I love you all and pray for you everyday!

With love,

Sister Skinner-Karatassos

PS   Sorry there's no pictures. I don't have an adapter to get them off my SD card. I'll try to find a way next week! Thank you for the mail mom! It made me so happy. I will share the yummy food from the care box with my district :) And I'm saving the letters to read each day. I love you a lot!