Camrie's Last Week in the MTC!

This weeks was pretty crazy. I can't even remember what happened, but it was crazy.

2 really cool things. First, this French Ambassador lady is coming to talk to my class. I think her actual title is Consul General, or we can address her as your excellency...

What does that even mean? I guess she's coming to do a tour of the MTC and learn more about our purpose because it's been hard to get visas lately and she is the head of French visas. Or something. All I know is it really cool, and how could it not be, her name is your excellency. It's like she's the queen of Sheba or something.

Second, Elder Ballard came for our devotional! He's such a cute old man, just like a grandpa. He talked about what our purpose is as missionaries and things that we need to be doing to "raise the bar" kind of idea. It was really good. I hope one more apostle comes this week. that would be SO cool.

Something really sad that happened this week is one of the elders in our zone went home. I didn't know him super well, but it was a really hard, but very special experience. I don't think I'll every forget that afternoon. We were in our class building crowded all together in the hall, saying good bye, then the Fijian district walked in and he knew quite a few of them. All of that district started singing these songs, in Tongan and I think Samoan. It was beautiful!!!!!! (I have more to add about the singing later) and then all the elders did the Hakka, as a good bye sort of thing. That was really cool. Then everyone kind of dispersed, except our district, and we sang a few songs, then that was it. It was sad, but what I realized was that we were sad because we all just genuinely cared about him, and what really hit me was that there was absolutely no judging, none. It was amazing. I always felt that when missionaries go home there are always so many questions and people making judgements on why and what kind of person the missionary is, things like that, that when I realized that one of our elders was going home I though oh no, what are people going to think, but that wasn't how it was at all. All we could say was how much we cared about him, and that we wanted him to come back, when he could. It was really amazing. 

Anyway, about the singing. The songs were so beautiful. I had never heard the melody before but for the next couples days it kept going through my head. Then yesterday or the day before the same district and a bunch of others were in the foyer singing the songs!! And they came to our class and asked us if we wanted to sing with them, UH is that even a question>??????

IT WAS SO COOL!! I had no idea what we were singing, but it was amazing!! I'm going to try and get the music, it was in their hymn books so maybe I can photo copy the page or get it from lds.org or something. I don't know.

It was really fun.

What else happened this week. 

Something funny that happened in one of our lessons, my companion was trying to say that we have souls or something, I can't remember the context exactly, but in French she was trying to say Nous avons les ames avec nous (we have souls, and I think she said avec nous meaning with us, or dans nous, in us) but it sounded like she said nous avon les hommes...  which means men. And so me and the ami (our teacher Brother Ritchie) just looked at each other and burst out laughing. It was another good moment. Did I tell you about the fry vs. fruit one??

Oh ya and thanks for the letters and the packages! I loved those doughnuts!! So good! Thanks!

Okay so in all seriousness, Do I cut my hair????????????? I have an appointment on Saturday, so people. Dear elder me before Friday or I wont receive them before I leave. What about bangs? I don't know. Don't let me make this decision on my own, I have missionary brain, I can't think straight when it comes to these sorts of things, because every decision is pretty much based on the fact that no one is going to see me for a year and a half, hens the doughnuts, and cheesecake... Save me from a potentially horrible decision! unless I really should cut my hair... I don't know!

Also, this is my last few days at the MTC that I will be able receive dear elders, so send them in if you want. That last day I'll be able to receive mail is Saturday morning, so the last day to really be able to send any is Friday! 

Well, I'm almost there! Wish me luck!

Love you all :)

More Pictures

You obviously haven't been to the MTC if you haven't done the world map picture. Right?

MTC Email 4: January 20, 2015

Another week has gone by! And is it just me or are everyone else's weeks merging together. I have absolutely no idea what happened this week and what happened last week, but I do know that I leave for France in 12 days!!!!!! And I'm kinda freaking out about it Really freaking out... But in a good way, I think.

My french is passable, and I can listen better than speak, but stage fright is real, and sometimes I just get super tongue tied. But I have time, no need to worry. Right?

 OH! Wait, I remember what happened this week. THERE WERE STAWBERRIES!!!!!! It was the best day! I was in heaven! They've only had them once and when I saw someone walking by with some on their tray I, no lie, gasped.. loudly.. and twirled a 360 because I needed to find where they had gotten them from. I felt like a crazy person, but I was SOOOO excited. Needless to say, I had a very good day. They also had fresh blueberries, so also delicious and my favorite fruit combo.

 Hmmm, now that I got the out of the way everything else is going to sound so mundane, I mean what is better than strawberries? That's right, nothing. Well, Elder Nelson came again, so it's a tough call on what's more exciting. We have a new MTC presidency so on their last week we had a special devotional and he came. He told us to thank our families again for all they did in helping us missionaries become missionaries. So THANK YOU! From me and Elder Nelson. :)

 This week choir was again super awesome. We sang Joseph Smith's first prayer, it was really powerful for me, and yes, I cried, of course... We were joking around with the other girls in my district and trying to figure out how to say crying or something, I can't remember, and so we just kept joking around about how my eyes are always raining, because the verb for crying and raining in french is really similar, I think when you say its raining you always say il fait pleut, and crying is je pleur, or something like that, so we had a good laugh about that. And the other day we didn't know how the word for sweating, so we just said that our skin was raining.. oh the things we make up.. it kills me.

 So we had this zone conference, and the teacher, Soeur Hawkes gave the lesson, it was about french fashion. Kidding, haha, it was about being a missionary, obviously, and she had us do some practicing, and for some reason what she said really resonated with me and I cried, a lot, not just a few tears, it was almost an hour long, and after the meeting, my teacher brought up what we had learned and of course, I started crying again. This is a problem, yes a few tears are acceptable, it happens, but I looked like I had died. I would have fit in really well with the cast of the walking dead. The zombies though, not the people. Some people can cry and they really don't look any different, ya, I am not one of them. My eyes were so red I looked like I had been sprayed with pepper spray, and my face was this weird blotchy red and white everywhere. Augh, just gross. Super spiritual for me! But gross.

 Anyways.. enough talk of me being such a baby. Instead of 4 square we've been playing volleyball, which is super fun, but I think I do almost as much standing around. Today Soeur Hurd and I went to alterations because we both had a skirt that we wanted them to take out because they were a bit to tight... ya the lady said that they really couldn't do anything to help, and then told us that we should really lay off the lucky charms at breakfast... So you know that thing about only eating celery... ya, not a joke. :)

 Oh and this week, if the crying wasn't enough, my district now knows how much I blush. I thought I had gotten over that, but no. I was wearing my red Russia scarf and my face turned the same color, for forever!! I really need to work on that. I can't cry AAAND blush. it's too much. :)

 For everyone who hasn't experienced missionary life, some thing you need to realize is that anything semi normal in life, literally anything, becomes so cool and so funny. To really emphasize this, and how pathetic we all kind of are when it comes to entertainment, my district and the other district in my zone (the 6 elders) have started a game of tag. Ya, we're five years old. Basically someone is it, and they have to tag someone, that's obvious, but then the tagged person has to wait an hour and then tag someone else, secretively so no one knows who is it. And we are only playing for the month of January, so the last person to be it is it for a whole year. I don't think a sillier game has ever been invented. EVER. but it is super fun, which is so embarrassing! But what can you do :) I really feel so blessed that none of the girls in my district are crazy, all the girls and most of the guys I would totally be friends with as not as a missionary (did that make sense, that just sounds weird). The other day these girls walked by and they were having a passive aggressive argument, and one of the sisters said, "no, I'm right and I know a lot more than you, because I went to college" AH CRAAAZY! So now the joke is that when ever someone is saying something, we just say, oh and you know because you went to college... Oh our humour here! Well, out of time. Thanks again for letters! I got the one from Auntie Wendy this week! Thanks!!

 Love you all!

MTC Email Three

Okay, so this week, what cool things have happened?

Well we got to go to the temple, not as cleaners, and it was so nice! I really enjoyed it, but to be honest I'm pretty sure I slept through A LOT of it... I was so hard not to, I was in a comfortable chair, and didn't have anything to be worrying about, or planning or anything, so ya, my eyes may have been closed for a large majority of it. 

Hm, what else, okay, don't hate me but I'm going to go super missionary right now, (I told my self I wouldn't do that, but I can't help it)

The lessons we taught this week were AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously I don't know what is happening. We have 2 "investigators", the first is Muriel (and also her boyfriend Luc), nothing particularly life changing happened, but the Spirit was there so strongly. It isn't really, it's just practice time, but it was amazing. The fact that it was practice time didn't change that the Spirit was there to testify to us that what we were saying was true. AH I loved it. Our other ami is Hospice, we had two really good lessons with him, and it was the same thing. This last time, we were talking about church, because he went on Sunday, and we were talking about the sacrament. And the whole time I could feel the Spirit telling me this wasn't quite it, it wasn't quite what he needed to hear, so as we talked I just kind of went with what the Spirit was pushing me towards, ( it isn't a real investigator, Hopsice isn't real) and as I spoke I just was overwhelmed with the feeling of YES, this is it,, this is what you need to be saying, and my french is still pretty bad, and my vocab is not good enough for all the things I want to say, but I can't even explain it, I just really realized how important the Holy Ghost is when teaching. The lesson was okay, but as soon as we started really following the Spirit, that was when the changes started happening and the really missionary stuff started. 

Also, I though I was just going to give up trying to explain this, but I have one more story , that isn't really a story, because it probably wont make any sense what so ever. But we did this thing called TRC, basically you have lessons with members (in french), so you can't really prepare anything, and you just meet them in the lesson and go with it. We meet with this RM, I can't remember his name, but again, I don't know how it happened, but somehow we taught something that he really needed to hear. at least I think so, I'm not 100% sure what he said, because of  the whole he only spoke french thing, but, we shared this scripture, I really had no idea why i was sharing it, it was just the only thing that I could think of and with out even thinking I was sharing it, 1 Nephi 7:12, (I had memorized it in french a few days before, Oui, et comment se fait-il, que vous ayez oublie que le Seigneur est capable de tout faire, selon sa volonte, pour les enfants des hommes, si'ls font preuve de foi on lui. Soyons- lui donc fidele.) At least I think that's it.. Basically he said that right now he has to make a hard decision and he needed this reminder or something. I don't know exactly, and I didn't know. I didn't really know why I was sharing that scripture, but God knew what he needed, and the Spirit led me to it. I can't really explain it, but everything the scriptures promise, about having the words that we need to say come to us in the moment of need, and everything about the Spirit. It is just so true!

Guys, the church is true! The gospel is just so true!

I don't think that made any sense, at all, but it was really cool for me to experience that. 

Anyways, this week was just really spiritual and I am so excited about being a missionary. I'm also kinda freaking out about it because I'm half way done the MTC stay and that much closer to actually being in France. AH, it's CRAZY!

So one of the counsellors in my branch presidency Brother Markham, has this vineyard thing, and he makes grape juice. So the other night his wife came over and all the girls in the zone came to our room and we had some of the grape juice, "chateau Markham". It was with out a doubt the yummiest thing I have ever tasted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was so good!

And the best part was, it was juice, so I could drink sooooo much and not have to worry about anything. She said that they would bring it to parties and there would be wine there, but when they brought their juice, none of the wine would even get opened that other people had brought because the grape juice was just that good! 

Also, something cool is we are getting a new MTC presidency. So tonight at our devotional apparently there will be "a whole flock" of apostles. I am so excited.

This is embarrassing but I seriously almost started crying hear it and just thinking about it. My throat got all closed up and weird and my eyes got a bit glossy and watery. 

ya, embarrassing,

I'm such a baby, I cry all the time. not sad crying. Don't worry there. But in every lesson and every other thing where I bear my testimony and such I just cry. 

It's embarrassing. 

Everyone makes fun of me about it.

I hate crying, and blushing. AH . seriously. Who thought either of these things are good?

Hmm, I can't think of anything funny that happened this week...

ya, I cried to much to laugh...jokes, but not, but kind of.

LOve love love love!

MTC Email Two! Tuesday January 6, 2015.

WOW, have I really been here for 3 full weeks already?

It doesn't seem real, at all. 

This last week was pretty crazy, some hard days, but some great days.

Our teachers both went on vacation, so we had a lot of subs, which meant

our "amis de l'eglise" investigators, weren't avaiable.

So we taught all these new amis that our teachers made up. It was hard!!!

We did door to door lessons of athiests, that was hard but not as hard as the lesson 

we did with a less active member named Sarah. That was so hard! 

She had "called" us to have us come over, so we planned a lesson about how Christ

cares, and will comfort her if she needs him, and she literaly sat there the whole time, not saying anything, telling us that she didn't think God cared about her and that she prayed everyday and he never cared, and she never felt his love. and of course I started crying because even though it was just practice, and not real, it was so sad! We left the lesson feeling so bad because she literally just sat there, no matter what we said she just didn't agree, and there really wasn't anything we could say. But at the end of the day, the teacher told us that we did a good job, but I just can't see how. It was so hard.

But our teachers are back now so we have our normal investigators, and those lesssons are good.

Let's see. What has happened this last week...

Well. NOTHING!!! I literally do the same thing every single day. I love it, but it's very routine now.

Oh ya, HAPPY NEW YEAR!! except, we werent allowed to celebrate. We didn't get to see fire works or anyting like that, it was just a nowmal day for us, except we had a chips and dip party at 10:00.. haha. it was extravagant. 

I've been bad, gym time literally all we do is play 4 square, and so many people play it now that we spend the greater majority of time just standing around doing nothing! And there is someting about the dessert here that I just can not resist. and also they have doughnuts every morning!1 every morning. Who does that?? Seriously? Who? every morning! I can't resist! 

But I weighed my self the other day... ya. That happened. Doesn't change anything. I still love doughnuts, and cookies which they also have practically every day. Oh ya and ice cream, every wednesday and sunday. Oh and the brownies and cakes every other day. 

Let's just say that I am disciplining myself to celery.. only celery. and dessert.

Okay, maybe i'll add some carrots in there to. and grape fruit. but that is it!

Soeur Hurd and I are sister training leaders now. So ya, I'm a bit nervous about that. I hope I can do the job well. I think there are a few sisters that could really use some help, but I don't really know. That's really the only new thing.  

This sunday we had the main media man guy person for the church come and speak to us, I though it was going to be boring, but it was actually really  interesting. He showed us some new videos that are in the making and gave some interesting stats on video views and such. Very cool. Use church media it is awesome and it can really spark interest!! Go missionary work!! 

I don''t know what else to talk about... Thanks for the Dear elders, really it is amazing and definitly the most exciting part of the day! Also one of the elders in my district looks like an older version of Ben (Gibb), I spent the first few days thinking what the heck, this guy.. I swear I know him. Then I realized that he just really looked like Ben, but older. 

Oh I guess some of the funny things that have been happening this week, they probably wont be funny to anyone else, but for me its hilarious, because I'ma missionary and everything is hilarious. So in another france bound district there are 3 elders that are tiny! They are really short, and so we all call them the hobbits. I really don't have a story to go along with this, but it's just funny. One day as soeur Hurd and I were studying in the hall a few elders walked by and sad to one another, "hey, where are the hobbits at?" we did not recognize them at all, but they knew about the hobbits. It was funny.

Also we've started to only speak french in the class room for morning and after noons, and sometimes the most random things come out of our mouths. I was trying to say that someones comments was exactly what was in my head, so I started with sa c'est exactement, but then then instead of saying in my head, I just quoted the first vision.. exactement au dessus de ma tete... It was so funny. Not for you guys, but for us. HILARIOUS! we died laughing. And now we do alot of fanglish, and I was trying to say i wanted a hand full of mints. In stead I just said je veut un main full. (main = hand, and is pronounced just like man) So I just said I wanted a man full. Does that make sense, no. Is it funny? no. But we killed ourselves, we could not stop laughing.

Any ways. That's it for today. I hope the last week has been good. Sister Lowry left this morning. We got a picture tpgether so i'll send that next week. 

Love every one lots!!!!!!!!!!!

Soeur Camrie

or whatever, I dont know how to sign off. Christensen? Camrie? I dont know. they all sound weird. 

Love, from me. 

No that's weird to.

Some Pictures from Soeur Christensen

Soeur Hurd (Camrie's Companion), Soeur Christensen, Soeur Anderson, Soeur Nef
I love Camrie's bright yellow umbrella. She is her mother's daughter!

Camrie's District! 

Christensen, Hurd, Nef, Anderson

Some of the Elders.

These pictures are from Soeur Nef, she had uploaded them to send to her family and let Camrie send them as well. Hopefully we get some more pictures!