La Vie D'Ivee: February 2016

Halfway through the MTC!

I can not even believe that in 18 days I will be on the plane to Montréal! Not that I'm counting down until I am released from this place or anything...Well this week actually went by really fast! When the new frenchies from last week were cheering about how they'd been here a week I thought they were lying!

This past Sunday my comp and I had to teach the lesson. It was on enduring to the end which was way nice because I feel like on a mission there's lots of ends that you need to endure through. For example, the MTC, first transfer, final transfer. Currently I am enduring through the MTC. There are times when I really love it, and there are also times when I want to just dig myself out of here. Nothing like being confined to the same brown room every day to give you a nice case of cabin fever. But my district tries super hard to just make the best of it and have a lot of fun. We goof around a lot because it's the only way to get through the day.

Tuesday was devotional! We heard from Rosemary M. Wixom, the primary general president. It was awesome! But my absolute favorite part was choir. During choir rehearsals we practiced the primary song 'a child's prayer' with the grandchildren of the MTC presidency. They were so cute! The children were like beams of sunshine here. All the sisters were like drooling over them because seeing kids is like seeing a unicorn, it just doesn't happen.

My favorite part of sister Wixom's talk was when she shared a story about a village in Africa. They don't get missionaries because they don't have enough member support. However, after hearing about the church and the gospel they wrote a letter to the first presidency. They told them that they needed the gospel the way that they needed air. It just made me realize that I am so lucky to have the gospel in my life and to live where I live. I don't even think I desire the gospel that much in my life currently, but I really hope to get to that point.

Wednesday was CHRISTMAS. Not real Christmas, it's only February silly's. But we got to host new missionaries! It was so much fun. Mainly because I got to skip all my classes for like 4 hours! I got chosen as a "special host" which basically means I got to help all the early arrivals. Most of them were international and didn't get dropped off by family. I was the first face to be able to welcome them to the MTC. Lucky them, am I right? I loved it! They were so scared and sad and nervous and I basically just had to let them know that everything was going to be alright and people actually do survive this place believe it or not.

When I hosted the normal arrivals, that was fun. It's seriously the most hectic crazy thing. A ton of cars pull up and then a ton of missionaries just approach the cars. Then we have to unload luggage while the parents hop on out. They are allowed 3 minutes to say goodbye and get a picture. And normally there are tons of tears from the mom and some serious dad jokes before they get a "goodbye kiddo, I'll miss you" and then I take their luggage and escort them to get their tags, books, drop off their luggage, and then straight to class. It's pretty great. And then repeat until no more missionaries show up!

We taught another TRC lesson this week. Which is where we teach actual members. But the nice thing was that we actually knew about it this time! My comp and I got to teach a father/daughter duo and then some best friends. The dad and daughter are from Paris and they moved to Utah 5 months ago. They are so sweet and so cute! and then the friends one is from Paris and the other is from Singapore but served his mission in Paris. They just giggled every time we messed up. But we did really well! I was able to share some personal experiences along with the message which is a huge step up from where I used to be.

All in all, I am progressing, and I'm sure my time here at the MTC will be up before I know it! Everything is good. My zone is pretty much amazing, I love them! It'll be super sad to say goodbye, but it will be more exciting to get out into the field.

P.S. In french there is a phrase equivalent to "See ya later, alligator" and its " A plus sous la bus" Which means later under the bus. Hahaha oh French is fun.

Until next week! Love you all!

-Sœur Garcia

Temple on Sunday

All the sistas of district 21-B

Cute companion pics

After hosting!

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, by Amanda

Another week down!

Hello everyone!

It is actually P-day again, I can't even believe it! This week honestly went by pretty quickly so that's really great. It means I am one week closer to Canada. The more time I spend in the MTC, the more it feels like the MTC is my whole mission haha. I know it's not, but it sure feels like it.

This week was really good! So much happened. We lost 29 members of our zone on Monday. They finally headed out to the field, most to France, and some to Tahiti. Church on Sunday was the best. Normally they will pick 2 random missionaries from the crowd and they have to go up and give a talk. However, the missionaries that were leaving did not want to give a talk so they got the branch presidency to let them do a musical program. Oh. My. Goodness. It was amazing. They performed so many wonderful pieces but the absolute best was how they ended it. The Tahitian zone went up and sang "God be with you till we meet again" but they sang it in Tahitian, French, and English. Not a single dry eye in the audience. The spirit was so strong even though we couldn't understand half of what they were saying. It was so cool, the Tahitians are the best!

On Tuesday, we had the greatest surprise for devotional. ELDER RONALD A. RASBAND of the quorum of the 12 apostles came and spoke to us. Before the devotional, they had all the missionaries read his talk, 'The Divine Call of a Missionary'. In there, he explains how the process of deciding where a missionary is going to serve works. It's really so interesting how much time is put into every single assignment. The whole throwing a dart at a map theory? That's not true! Elder Rasband didn't prepare a talk for the meeting. Instead, he just did a Q&A with all the missionaries. I mean when does that ever happen? It was so great! He said before they do the assignments they fast and say a prayer to know perfectly where a missionary is to be sent. And if he assigns a missionary and realizes later that it was wrong, he will go back and fix it. As a prophet, seer, and revelator, he is entitled to the revelation of where to send a missionary. He basically just really confirmed to me that I am going where the Lord wants me to go. There are people in Canada that have been prepared to receive me. At the end he said to "go forward with faith, never again doubting where you are going." And I just love that!

On Wednesday, we got 20 new missionaries! 19 are going to France, and 1 is going to Vanauatu. I got to teach all of them how to use the computers because I am now the online coordinator. I know, moving up in the world. They logged onto their e-mails after a solid 4 hours of being here and were like, "we get to communicate with the outside world! This is so weird..." Oh, just you wait little ones. Just you wait.

Our teacher Frère Davis left us! He got an internship and they wanted him way sooner than expected. It was so sad. He told us on Wednesday, and then Thursday was his last day. It seriously felt like saying goodbye to a family member. We have spent so much time with him as a district and he has taught me so much in such a short amount of time. He gave me confidence and let me know that I need to stop being so hard on myself and stop feeling so inadequate. I am called of God, I can do this. He shared all of his mission stories from Paris, and it was the best. He struggled really badly with the language, but he honestly speaks like a native now. Apparently we are going to be getting a Tahitian as our new teacher. So we will have 2 native French speakers, yikes.

So one thing they do in the MTC is called TRC where we get to teach members in French. Well, it sounds great if they would have told us we were doing it. Instead, one of the instructors runs up to our class, dying (because 5th floor) he says, "Are you the French district!?" "Ah, oui," "Great, grab all your stuff you're teaching 2 20-min lessons right now!" HUH. WHAT. NOOO! We were so unprepared. But I told my comp, pick a topic and we're going to go with it. So we did restoration and it went awesome! My French is really coming along! I definitely feel more confident and people I talk to are really starting to understand what I'm saying. Yaaayyy!

Also, my comp and I got another investigator! Her name is Adriana and she moved to Utah about 8 months ago. She's doing this English language program through BYU and is super interested in our church. She was saying how she walks around and notices how we own everything, haha. But she doesn't drink or smoke (solid.) And she said what has made her the most interested is the missionaries. She loves that we are willing to give 18 months-2 years of our lives to go and serve complete strangers. Awesome awesome. She promised to start reading the book of Mormon and we are meeting with her tonight! Can't wait, she's super cute. And she loves to practice her English with us, and I love to practice my Spanish with her, win win.

Wow. Okay. Longest e-mail ever. Sorry. I just have so much to say! This was such a good week. I am really happy! French is awesome, missions are awesome, the gospel is the best.

Keep writing me!

Love you all!

Until next week,

Sœur Ivonne Garcia

Me with Sœur Sanchez who peaced out to Tahiti this week.

The sisters from my district with our sister training leaders who left for Lyon. (Don't mind our photobomber.)

Packages are the best!

Weekly companion temple pics

Our district with Frère Davis!

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, by Amanda

Survived a week-ish...

Hello!

I have officially survived one full week at the MTC. 9 days to be exact but I mean, who's counting? YOU ALL BETTER BE. jokes jokes

Well, lets see...I was going to be really smart and bring my journal so that I could tell you everything that has happened this week, but...I forgot. Woops. Its hard because all the days just mesh into one and all of a sudden a week just feels like one really really long day.

I made it to Sunday, the day that everyone rumors if you make it to you can survive the rest of the MTC/ Mission. Only problem was that my first Sunday happened to be a fast Sunday. Which meant a 24 hour fast, and lots of different meetings in place of meals. It was very very long. But it was still good. We had a mission conference, and a branch conference, and a fireside, and lots of classes. The fireside was way good! Jenny Oaks Baker preformed, if you don't know who that is, don't worry neither did I! She is some super amazing violinist who's played all around the world and her father also happens to be Dallin H. Oaks, so that's pretty neat.

Tuesday we had a devotional by Edward Dube of the 70. He's from Zimbabwe so that was really cool! He talked about the Book of Mormon a lot, and how we need to learn it so that we can share it on the silver platter of our faith. He also talked a ton about families which hit me hard, because it's no secret that I miss them. It even made me cry. Something that I was trying very hard to avoid doing. Surprise, I am human!

I received a ton of letters from family and friends this week and it was the absolute best! Thank you all so so much. I know some missionaries don't like letters because they want to focus on the work and blah blah blah. That's a bunch of ridiculousness because letters are the best thing in the world. This work is hard and knowing that I have people supporting me back home makes a world of difference. It seriously gives me the motivation I need to make it through the 12 hours of French class. Speaking about French, why did no one tell me that I couldn't be fluent in a week!? I thought that's what the gift of tongues was, but apparently not. Haha, I am so bad at French, it's pretty funny really. The other day my comp and I taught a lesson and we told him that the atonement would cleanse him of his peaches. PEACHES. Sin and peach are spelled the same but the e has an accent when its a sin. Cool, go me! Also, people in Montreal don't speak French, they speak quebecois. Which is French with a weird accent. So basically how they speak english in the south but it sounds way different. We had a sub who served in Montreal and he spoke to us in quebecois and I understood very little. Haha, pray for me.

This week we taught 5 lessons to our investigator (teacher) Charles. The first lesson was...awful. Haha my comp and I bombed it. We struggled with the language so badly. Everytime he asked us a question we would just look at each other and say, "Did you get that?" "No." "Same." How fun! But as time went on, we learned how to better prepare and were able to teach lessons that he actually understood! And by the end I was able to bear testimony to him without sounding like a complete bing bong. Gift of tongues ç'est vrai. And he committed to baptism. HUZZAAHH.

My comp and I had such an amazing experience this week! We met this couple who likes to come to the MTC to get answers to some of the questions they have about the church. Their names are Jose and Hely and they are from Guatemala. They originally were supposed to meet with 2 English elders who never showed. We got to talking and they asked if it would be okay if they talked with us about the questions they had. And my comp and I were like, "YES." So we talked with them for about 45 minutes just answering all the questions they had like, "Why are mormons hypocrites" and "Why doesn't God love everyone equally?" hahaha. Super fun. I even got to speak with them in Spanish! Then at the end, they were like, "We loved speaking with you! Could we come again tomorrow?" YES. OF COURSE. AND EVERY DAY AFTER THAT PLEASE. Hahaha but today we taught Hely about the word of wisdom. She didn't get the whole coffee thing and thought we couldn't have chocolate! What? If that were a rule I would be in some serious trouble folks. But it went super well, and we are meeting with them again next week! Can't believe we get to teach real life people, it's so cool.

That's pretty much it...I hope you all have a really good valentine's day! I will just be eating some emergency chocolate with my comps, it's fine. Enjoy time with your loved ones for me! Really, you don't understand how important people are in your life until you can only talk to them once a week through e-mail. But all is well, I am doing great, haven't died of food poising or anything, so I'm pretty grateful.

Love you all!

-Sœur Garcia.

DEAR ELDER LETTERS THANK YOU

Sister Prince and I after a million hours of class

Temple with the district!

Our new classroom has these fake skies in them to make it feel like less of a prison, neat.

I ran into Maddy Koller who flew out to the Adriatic North mission on Monday!

We worked together over the summer.

Sœur Zobrist and I after actually teaching a successful lesson in French.

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, by Amanda

Greetings from the MTC!

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, by Amanda

Farewell Talk

Good morning brothers and sisters, I would like to thank everyone who has come to support me today, it truly means a lot. I have been called to serve in the Canada, Montréal mission. I will be speaking Spanish and French, and I enter the MTC this coming Wednesday, February 3^rd.

Today, I have the amazing opportunity to speak with you on the topic of missionary work. Our dear prophet president Monson once said, “Missionary work is an identifying feature of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Always has it been; ever shall it be. As the Prophet Joseph Smith declared, 'After all that has been said, the greatest and most important duty is to preach the Gospel.”

As a missionary, it will be my full time duty to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with everyone I encounter. In preach my gospel, there is a purpose statement that every missionary is required to learn. In there it states, the purpose of every missionary is to, “invite others to come unto Christ”. However, as members, proclaiming the gospel should not be an activity in which we occasionally and temporarily engage. Neil L. Anderson said, “If you’re not a full-time missionary with a missionary badge pinned on your coat, now is the time to paint one on your heart.” Brothers and sisters, we should not confine missionary work to the 18 or 24 months that many of us serve in our youth. Rather, we should eagerly accept our responsibility as members to constantly declare the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

Mark 16:15 states, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” One of the most unique things about a mission is that the person does not have the ability to choose where they will be serving. I remember when I received my call, there was an immense amount of anticipation leading up to the opening. Everyone would approach me and ask me where I thought I would be serving, or where I wanted to serve. I would always respond with, “I would love to learn a new language that’s not Spanish, but of course I’ll go where I am needed.” In my heart, I knew I was going Spanish speaking, and that there was absolutely no way that I would be able to avoid it. When I finally opened it, I was so nervous. I could not believe that my time had finally come, and that one piece of paper was going to determine my future. For those of you who weren’t able to attend, I will recap how it went.

“Dear Sister Garcia…”

Wow that’s me.

“You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- Day Saints.”
Okay, where where?

“You are assigned to labor in the Canada, Montréal mission!”

Wait. What? Canada? Is this the right call?

“You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Spanish language”

Haha, saw that coming.

“But.”

But what?

“You will learn French at the MTC”

Huh? Can they do that?

Whether a missionary is called to serve in Canada, Tokyo, or even Salt Lake City, their purpose will never change, and as members, our purpose should be unwavering.

Elder Oaks stressed two essential things that every missionary understand. However, I would like to apply this to every member. The first is you must come to know who you are. It is important that we recognize that we are sons and daughters of God! Everything else you and I are is subordinate to that. The second is, to comprehend the work that missionaries are called to do. He states, “you are not called to preach what is politically correct or personally comfortable. You are not called to invite people to join a social club whose rules are made by its members. You are called to testify of Jesus Christ and to invite people to do what He has required to come unto Him and walk the path He has defined by His doctrine to reach exaltation in the celestial kingdom.”

As a missionary, and as a member, we will often have opinions and views that are not popular with the world. It is our duty to stand firmly in our faith and defend it to the end. Do as president Uchtdorf advised and “doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith”

The atonement of Jesus Christ is a gift that offers redeeming and enabling power to all mankind to overcome all trials and obstacles in this life. The atonement allows our pain to transition to joy, anguish to become peace, and captivity to become freedom. Although, for us to fully receive the blessings of the atonement we must do our part. Elder Holland asked several missionaries what they wanted their investigators to do as a result of discussions with them. Clearly everyone in the room chimed in that baptism was the ultimate goal. However, prior to baptism, there are two fundamental things that investigators must do. They must have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and repent of their sins.

A convert’s new life is should be built upon faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His redeeming sacrifice—a belief that He really is the Son of God, that He lives, that He alone holds the key to our salvation and exaltation. Once they have that conviction, it must be followed by true repentance. This shows that they have the desire to be clean and renewed and whole, repentance is the only way to fully claim the blessings of the atonement.

Missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. It was never easy for our savior; it will not be easy for us.

The decision to serve a mission was a very difficult one for me. In my mind, sister missionaries were always the ones who loved going to church, read their scriptures daily, never forgot a prayer, and certainly never had to be dragged out of bed to attend seminary. I was nowhere near this idea of perfection that I had always associated with the sisters. I made mistakes, and was very lazy with the gospel. However, as time went on, I found myself attending church and church activities because I wanted to. I was saying my prayers on a daily basis, and I would read my scriptures. I was progressing, but still certainly not to the point of wanting to serve a mission. When the age changed, the idea definitely came into my head but then shortly fizzled out. A couple years ago, my family moved to Utah and that was quite the culture change. In other places where I lived we were lucky to have one missionary serving at a time. However, here there would be wards that had over 10 missionaries serving at one time. Never before had I lived in a place where it was automatically expected that if you were a boy, LDS, and graduating from high school that you would be serving a mission. However, what really blew my mind was that it was starting to become the cultural norm for sisters to go. I remember senior year people constantly approached me asking me if I was going to serve. Me? Have you met me? No. Stop asking.

And then college came around. College is amazing because you have so much freedom. You no longer have to do things just because your parents expect it of you. It was up to me to go to church, and to attend institute and FHE. As the year went on, I made several friends who were going on a mission. I watched as they all prepared and anxiously received their calls. Then the thought of a mission came back into my mind. I thought, maybe I do want to do this. However, I wanted to do it for the right reasons. I didn’t want to go just because everyone else was going or because as a 19-year-old LDS female it was what I should be doing. No, I wanted to go knowing that it was the right decision for me, and that the Lord needed me on a mission. At that point I turned to every reference I could. I took mission prep, read my scriptures, prayed, looked to my patriarchal blessing, and even spoke with my bishop. I so badly wanted Heavenly Father to give me a confirmation saying, “Yes, Ivonne a mission is for you!”. But sadly, time passed on and nothing. Things were not working out for me to leave, and little by little I started to become comfortable with the idea of staying. I thought to myself, “perhaps I’m meant to stay, progress in school, do an internship, maybe study abroad,”. Then one day I was reading one of my favorite blogs and the title of her post was, “You know.” And in that post, she discussed missionary work and said everything that I needed to hear. She literally wrote, “We need not be commanded in all things, so go, stop doubting, start trusting, you know your answer.” And as bizarre as it may seem to have gotten my answer from a blog post, that was exactly what I needed. It was so straightforward and so simple. Frequently, we are delaying our eternity waiting around for a big spiritual revelation. However, we often forget that Heavenly Father trusts us to make the decision for ourselves.

I know that a mission will not be easy. One of my favorite talks of all time is ‘The Miracle of a Mission’ by elder Jeffery R. Holland. In there he share this about missionary work, “This is hard work. It is the hardest work you will ever do. That’s why I say this is the most important work you will ever do. I think those two go together. It’s hard work, but every day, in every way, it will get better, and you will feel the Spirit of the Lord. You’ll know He loves you, and the language will come, and baptisms will come, and you will make new friendships, both with your companions and with investigators and with ward members and branch members and people with whom you serve”

Let us not forget that this is the work of eternity.

I would like to end by saying thank you to everyone who has gotten me to where I am today. Without the support and love that I have received, I would not be in this position. I am so grateful to be a member of this church, and I am so excited for the opportunity that has been given unto me to be able to wear the name of my beloved savior and to share this gospel with the people of Montreal. I am thankful for the trials that have been given to me in this life, because without them I wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate all of the blessings I have been given. I do not have a perfect knowledge of all things, but I know enough. I know that my Heavenly Father loves me. I know that Jesus Christ is my redeemer, the only begotten son of God. I know that this gospel has the power to heal and the power to save. I know that I will be an instrument in the hands of the Lord. I trust Heavenly Father knows me better than I know myself. I am allowing my faith to be bigger than my fears as I begin this new adventure. I know without a doubt that this is what I need to be doing, and that I will be blessed as a result. I pray that all of you will come to know of the Love the savior has for you, and to have the strength to trust in him, and yourselves. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

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, by Unknown

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