News from MTC Provo West

     This week has been so crazy. I don't even know how to describe it!! The days are very long here, and the first few were especially!! I have learned so, so much though. And I think that I learned more in the first two days than I thought I would the entire time. There is SO much to learn and to study that sometimes it's a little discouraging because I am so far away from the point that I want to be at. I just have to remember to be patient with myself and The Lord, and to trust that I will learn, and gain the ability to teach how I need to. 

       My companion's name is Sister P. and I really love her! We mesh suuuper well and are pretty much always on the same page, which is so nice!! We are at the West MTC, so we're living in Raintree and we have a whole apartment to ourselves, which is great! I also am in a district of all Sisters. It's pretty cool, but sometimes we wish we had Elders too. But I love them all (the Sisters in my District), and we get along very well! A lot of the day is spent in class, either studying, role-playing, or being taught by our teachers.  We also have gym time, which is pretty much the best. Our district usually walks up to the field, and runs and stuff together, which is nice after sitting so much! Today we also got to go to the Provo temple. And do laundry yayyyy!

     I also have my flight plans. We leave next Monday (Labor Day 2013) very early. The food here is... OK. It's better some days than others, but it's not too bad. I also love my Branch President. I have learned so much from him, and every time he speaks I pretty much end up crying! Also, I've learned a lot through role play. We do that a TON here, either in companionships, with our teachers in class, or sometimes our teachers take on the role of fake investigators and we go "teach" them. This definitely has been one of the hardest parts. It's heartbreaking sometimes to care so much about something, to think about it and learn about it almost 24/7 and have people who don't see it as all that important, or who are only mildly interested. But I've learned that the center of our purpose as missionaries is to bring people to Christ. He truly is the center of our church, and His Atonement is incredibly powerful,  in not only forgiving us of sin, but changing our hearts and desires. It enables us to overcome weaknesses that we couldn't possibly hope to otherwise. It applies to every aspect of life! 

Me & my companion. I love her so much!

(Ashlyn is truly loving her first few days at the MTC. Every sentence in this 1st letter home ended in a ! or !!. I took the liberty to make them many of them statements and thus changed the punctuation to periods in instead of the exclamation points. ♥♥)