Oh Bats!

HOLA HERMANA!

This has been a CRAZY week. Like seriously, CRAZY. This is my second week at the MTC and I am leaving tonight! We leave at 3 am tonight and I am super excited, but I am also kind of sad because I love the MTC! These have been some of the best couple of weeks of my life! 

I so love my district and I am sad to see some of them go to other missions, but I know that they are going where they are meant to go. We have had some amazing experiences together and it has made my MTC experience one that I will never forget!

This is our district in front of the temple!

Left to right: Elder Miller, Elder Madsen, Elder Corless, Elder Bosen, Elder Wilkey and Elder Norman

Left to right: Sister Eckley, Sister Farr, Sister Robinson, Sister Willis, and Sister Milller

As a district we have been reading the Book of Mormon out loud together. It is really cool because we started on the first page and we read verse by verse and after each verse, we stop and talk about it. It is really really cool because we discuss our thoughts and feelings and I have learned so much than I ever had before. It took us an hour to read 6 verses in 1st Nephi, if that gives you an idea on how long it took. I has helped me thought, to really understand the meaning of the words.

With all the spiritual goodness we have felt, we have also felt lots and lots of laughter! Since we are spending the whole day together with our districts we have become better friends and we laugh... alot. One of the Elders in our district, Elder Wilkey makes me and one of my companions laugh pretty much all day. He says the weirdest things, but he has like attitude that is just funny!! One day he walks up to us and says, "Hola Hermana!" just randomly, and we are not spanish so were like what? And we just started laughing so hard! Sister Robinson and I spend most of our time laughing at him. 

We have gym time and it is so fun!! We always play sports with our district and one day we were outside playing beach volleyball and Sister Robinson and Elder Wilkey and I were talking about the plane, because he is going to West Virginia too and Elder Wilkey says "Every one is going to be so annoyed with us on the plane, there going to say, 'those Mormons are so annoying! They were so loud, and after they were annoying, they had the audacity to offer me to read some book?!" It was so funny, Sister Robinson and I could barley breathe. 

We have been practicing a lot with investigators here at the MTC. We are sure that all of them are just actors but they don' ever tell us. We had one who was from Tennessee and she had a friend who was Mormon. Teaching her was hard because she had so many questions that we ouldn't answer. We had to learn how to really listen and teach by the spirit. We had to just invite her to read the Book of Mormon and to pray, so that she can find the answers for herself, it was hard and kind of frustrating, but we all learned a lot.

So if any of you have watched the District 1 and 2 movie that the church made of missionaries, I met Brother Reis and Brother Christensen from those movies! They both teach here at the MTC and they are so cool. Elder Madsen from my district told us that he thought about asking them to sign his district DVD! I laughed so hard! 

Okay okay okay. You are all probably wondering why I put my subject line as 'oh bats'....

REALLY FUNNY STORY. So this week at the MTC there as been a lot of new mission presidents here to train to be mission presidents. There has been alot of security too because the mission presidents are taught by the general authority of the church. The apostles have been here to, and even the prophet has been here one day! They have all been in a blocked off building so we haven't seen any of them, but it is still really cool. So one day we are in class and a voice comes on the intercom and says all Sisters come to the gym immediately. And so we are like what? We are guided in and there are even like security guards. We we joking that maybe we would be like meeting the prophet because we have been so good and faithful. So we sit down and we sing a few hymns and then we say a prayer. So we are thinking that it was going to be like a spiritual meeting or something. Then one of the counselors in the MTC presidency starts talking to us and says, "We are going to change your lives for a little while" we are all holding our breath. Then he says, "There has been a bat sited in your building so we need you all to pack up and move." That is NOT what we were expecting!! We raced back to our room packed everything up and moved. It was fun because our suitcases were not distributed with the weight and so they were really heaving carrying them up and down four flights of stairs! It was so fun though we were mostly laughing through most of it. 

I am going to miss the MTC but I am grateful for all of the experiences I have had here and for everything I have learned. 

WEST VIRGINIA HERE I COME.

LOVE YOU ALL 

-Sister Willis

p.s. every one really enjoys my sassy black woman attitude, at least that's what everyone calls it. hahahaha oh my.

First Week in the MTC

Hello peeps, 

I am officially a missionary!!

It is crazy, when I am wearing my name tag and I have Christ's name on my chest I just feel so good! It is an amazing feeling. The MTC is amazing I LOVE THE MTC. I am learning so much and I feel like everyday is a new amazing experience. Its like being on a spiritual high all the time! 

Something awesome that I have learned this week that I wanted to share with you all is that the times that you feel like you don't need to talk to God, or that you don't feel worthy, is when you need to talk to him the most.

So after I got settled in on the first day, got my name tag and everything I needed, I met my companion. Or should I say companions..... I HAVE TWO COMPANIONS!! I am one of the very few missionaries in a trio. It is so fun! Both of my companions are going to West Virginia as well. There names are Sister Robinson and Sister Miller! They are both from Utah, and Sister Robinson and I actually went to High School together! Its crazy but we never knew each other but she is awesome! Sister Miller is from Lehi and she is really sweet. They are the best companions ever!

Second day as companions!
Sister Miller is on the left and Sister Robinson is on the right! They are too cute.​

Our District is really awesome too. There are two other sisters, Sister Farr and Sister Eckley. They are going to Little Rock. Arkansas. They sleep in the same room as us too and it is so much fun! Sister Eckley is from California and she has this really yummy chocolate that she shares with us! And Sister Farr kills us when we play volleyball at gym time! I love them all!

There are 6 elders in our district and they are all really cool. 4 of them are going to West Virginia like us! The other 2 are going to Des Moines, Iowa. One of them Elder Corless, he is from California, and he is so good at beat boxing! He showed us yesterday and it was crazy! All the elders are so funny and so spiritual I love having district discussions and devotionals. I always learn so much from them!

​Our Sister Training Leaders in our zone decorated our door for us!!

Left to right: Sister Miller, Sister Willis, Sister Robinson, Sister Farr, and Sister Eckley!

Something that we try to do as missionaries is to call each other by Sisters and Elders. It is really hard for me to not call people 'guys'. As missionaries we need to be more professional and not use casual language or slang. As a district we have been working on that specifically and one of the elders, Elder Miller said, "No more slanguage!" And I thought it was the funniest thing, so every time I accidentally say, 'you guys' or 'ladies' I think to myself, "No slanguage!" Sometimes to stop saying 'you guys' we have to say 'yall' so we already sound like we are from the south! 

The elders in our district also love to sing "Ye Elders Of Israel" and so in turn we sing "As sisters in Zion" together. It is so much fun! They also like to refer to themselves as 'Ye Elders Of Israel' so the sisters in our district now call ourselves 'Sisters In Zion'. I love it! And it is great because right now my district is my family, and even though we have only known each other a few days, we have grown close like a family. I LOVE MY DISTRICT.

I learned that there are 25 other missionaries going to West Virginia on the same day as us! We leave on June 30 at like 3 in the morning, I'm not looking forward to that part, but that isn't until next week.

​

I am learning so much and I am trying to be a better servant and disciple of Christ TODAY than I was YESTERDAY. Following God's will is so important and we need to always be continuing to learn and to progress spiritually so that we can become more like our Savior.

Sunday has been by far my favorite day. We have been mostly sitting in classrooms all day learning and practicing teaching and studying but on Sunday we were able to have Sacrament meeting which was AMAZING. We also went to a choir practice in the evening so we can sing in the devotional on Tuesday! It was really spiritually uplifting and it was nice to just sing and relax a little bit. We sang "Precious Savoir Dear Redeemer" Then we got to watch the video of Elder Bednar talking at an MTC devotional. It was so great.

​I also ran into SISTER BOWSER! I LOVE HER. She is so sweet. Seeing her was great!

It's kind of weird but its hard to sleep here because after a long day I have a million things going through my mind!! And also every night as I am laying in my bed, I always have little hymns going through my head, which has never happened before! I can't sleep because I am singing church songs in my head. I think its kind of funny, but I know that the Lord has helped me to not be singing other songs that I shouldn't be singing. Its a funny blessing. 

I hope that all of you have been having a good week, and remember this. Have and attitude of obedience seek to do the things that please Heavenly Father.

Also read Moroni 7:13 

I LOVE YOU ALL

-Sister Willis
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P.S. Letters are really cool. 

WRITE ME HERE IN THE MTC

Sister Kayla Marie Willis

JUN30 WV-CHAR

2009 N 900 E Unit 106

Provo UT 84602

Sisters in her district

Temple Day

The Drop Off...

We had been warned about the drop off and how quick it would go.  We actually had to wait a little while they got a sister hostess to help Kayla with her things.  You can see that Savannah is still a little worried.  Kayla is totally excited.

Goodbyes

We said our goodbyes at the Provo Temple.  Brendan picked Kayla up and swung her around. Sami squeezed Kayla really hard.

Family Temple Shots

After Brick Oven, we took a bunch of family pictures in front of the Provo Temple.