MTC Week 3: TRC's and Hosting

Kia ora friends and family!!

I'm beginning to question just how exciting I can make my weeks sound in emails. This last Wednesday started my 3rd week in the MTC, and it went by super quickly.

One fun note is that my companion can sometimes feel in her elbow when a storm is coming because after she broke her arm, she can feel the pressure change. It gets tingly a couple hours beforehand- pretty cool.

We hosted incoming missionaries on a day this week, meaning I had the opportunity to be the first face somebody saw as a missionary here- scary right? I was hoping the girl I helped wasn't too shaken up, but the sweet Sister was definitely overwhelmed. I kind of just talked to make sure she didn't focus too much on her family she just said goodbye to. It's a hard transition here for the first couple days! Regardless, I was grateful for the opportunity and really excited for the work all of us here are doing.

Sister Cummings and I had our first TRC (Teaching's Real Cool-- or something like that) this Saturday and it went pretty well! We basically teach a lesson in Mandarin to volunteers for 20 minutes. We were relatively nervous about it but it turned out to be better than I imagined. It also really motivated me to learn the language better so I could understand their questions or comments more easily.

Upsides:

1. They announced this Sunday that they are switching up the Sabbath Day schedule. We used to have 3 hours of self-directed time (including mandatory meals) along with many back-to-back meetings. Now we will have 7 hours of self-directed time to ponder, read in our journal, study scripture, etc.
2. Sister Cummings and I were called to be greeters for the next few weeks, meaning we get to welcome everybody as they walk into sacrament meeting- so we aren't STLs (Sister Training Leaders)... for now
3. The MTC campus has a cat named Sister Mittens and she always brightens my day
4. We were shown President Nelson's devotional from when he spoke at BYU a few weeks ago- it was very insightful. I love hearing from the prophet!
5. General Conference this week! For anyone who doesn't know, General Conference is our opportunity to hear from prophets and apostles, so basically, we are hearing counsel from God. I hope everyone else is as excited as I am- and if you are interested in hearing what they have to say, go ahead and go onto the trending page on YouTube on Saturday and Sunday.  They will be streaming the conference online, on the channel "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints"
6. I sung with the choir for our Tuesday devotional- it was a beautiful song made for the missionary featured in "The Other Side of Heaven", who attended the devotional that night

Downsides:

• The food here is so-so, and no tapioca pudding this week
• Soon the oldest people in our Zone are leaving the MTC- but they are staying an extra week because of the political unrest in Hong Kong. They may or may not be sent there after the recent communist celebration- which is sad for them as that is where they all prepared to go. It is also sad to see them leave because I love all those Cantonese speakers. And also because somehow we will be the oldest in our Zone- I do not feel ready to lead.

Spiritual Thoughts:

We recently committed ourselves to be "District Joy". Getting caught up in the trouble of the language, we realized that we aren't conveying the message of Christ's gospel well, we weren't delivering the message of joy that it really is. Through Christ we can overcome our sins, mistakes, injuries, weaknesses, pains and afflictions. We can live with our family in heaven forever! We have a Heavenly Father who loves us!! Those are such blessings that we as missionaries want to share with other people. So, I'm striving to have more joy and to communicate that as we practice teaching and speaking.

Also, from our Sunday Devotional, the speakers asked us to ponder 2 questions:

• What are the greatest desires of my heart?
• What is of the most worth to me?

I realized I haven't been focused on the greatest desires of my heart, I've been focusing on little selfish distractions. So I ask you all to think of what you're greatest desires are. Have a happy family? Come closer to God? Contribute to society? Do well in school? These are great desires and we will be blessed and happier as we focus on them with hope and joy, step by step.

Sorry for the long update, but hopefully it'll make up for weeks in New Zealand I might not have time to write a lot. I pray for you all often!

Sending love,

Ma JieMei 

🐎 姐妹

Sister Martinez

Sister Chou, Me, Sister Hoe, and Sister Cummings as hosts

My district!

My MTC Adress:

Sister Carly Chase Martinez

NOV11  NZE-AUC
2005 N 900 E Unit 169
Provo UT 84602

Pictures:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/sgY95kdCHMzp7BqHA

MTC Week 2 -Cha Cha and Zealous Korean guy

Kia ora!

Saturday my district was so tired the teacher had us stand up for about an hour as we had our lesson, but before we started, she showed us how Taiwanese people like to relax/stretch- they basically slap up and down their arms and tummies ahhah. And then in the middle of class I turned and saw our district leader cha cha-ing which I thought was hilarious.

Then, earlier this morning Sister Cummings and I went to do baptisms at the temple, and the man doing them was speaking suuuper fast. We weren't sure if he was speaking English or what, but we were a little nervous to be baptized by him (as proxies for the dead) since we didn't want whiplash from going under so fast. Turns out he was speaking some English, some Korean, and he went particularly fast with the boys who went before us.

Okay everyone, week 2 was alright. I feel a little lost still in class since we are ONLY learning church vocab, but nothing conversational or basic such as forming a question or expressing what our hobbies are.  It's picking up though!

My life now:

• I love playing volleyball at gym, though despite what the rules say about avoiding competitiveness it can get SO Intense.  I usually avoid those games

• 6:30 to 10:30 is the grind! We have lots of class with some breaks and meal times. We're always learning though, as we are meant to, so I'm not complaining

• My district is in the Zone 1 of the MTC, which I just think is cool. My district is fun to be a part of.  There are lots of goofballs in it.

• I CHERISH moments when I can watch Safety Zone Videos, Listen to (church appropriate) Music, and watch "The District". The videos are all instructional but they try their best to be entertaining for us.

Ups:

• Sister Cummings and I taught in District Council yesterday and it went really well!

• I've seen a lot of familiar faces from BYU since being here. Talking to Elder Campbell for example, is always a fun time. 

• We got to the laundry room earlier than everyone else today, so we had first pick at computers and washing machines.

• I met an Elder from New Zealand and he was so nice! I am so excited to serve there, and meet more people who will be serving with me.

• Tapioca pudding

Downs:

• On Sundays we are asked to prepare a talk in Mandarin.  They pick us randomly and at the meeting they let us know if we're speaking,  We  (the new people) were told we wouldn't be called on the first two weeks so I didn't prepare, but I was called on. I went up and shared a song in Chinese I had studied earlier in the week, and then spoke in English. It went pretty well, but I was upset I wasn't prepared, as I would've wanted to do well in Mandarin.

Spiritual Moments:

• This last Tuesday President Nelson went to BYU, and everyone was hoping he'd make a pit-stop here for our devotional too, but alas, he is a very busy man. Our devotional was needed though, and if I could share anything from it with you all, it's for you to trust in God's love! He loves us all, no matter what that might look like in our lives right now. As we lean on his love and rely on Christ we'll be brought closer to him.

• In order to better understand what I'll be asking interested people to learn about, I've been studying the topic of Faith. I can testify to you all that unless we have Faith IN JESUS CHRIST, our faith will be fruitless. We need to believe Christ exists and loves us, and therefore rely on him in order to truly exercise our faith in him

• We had an Elder in our District fall ill, and so all the Sisters in our zone fasted for him to get better. We've seen blessings from the incident already and a great love for each other, which I'm grateful for the opportunity to witness.

I love you all and I know the Lord loves you more!

Ma JieMei 

🐎 姐妹

（My name means horse in Chinese and it won't insert the character, so here we are)

Sister Martinez

(Elder Campbell and I)

((Still no pictures with the whole district- one day!)))

My MTC Address:

Sister Carly Chase Martinez

NOV11  NZE-AUC

2005 N 900 E Unit 169

Provo UT 84602

 Pictures:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/sgY95kdCHMzp7BqHA

MTC Week 1 - Arrived at the MTC

你好你们! (Hey Y'all!)

Since this is my first email, forgive me if its jumbled or lengthy! It's been so crazy here and I'm only on my 6th day.

I'm planning to send emails as frequent as possible- meaning maybe every week...maybe every couple weeks. I can only send emails on my preparation day (P-day) which will be Monday here at the MTC. BUT, I can read any messages or emails you send me any day of the week, so thank you all for the kind messages and pictures you've sent me so far!

I was set apart as a missionary on Saturday morning, drove down to Utah- spent some days seeing friends and family and then entered the Missionary Training Center (MTC) on Wednesday afternoon.

I met my district (group of missionaries I'll be trained with/missionaries serving in the same area as me) that first day- all of us are Mandarin speaking but serving in all different areas. We have 8 Elders (title for male missionaries) and 4 Sisters (female missionaries) total. All of us Sisters are rooming together. My companion, whom I will be serving alongside, is Sister Cummings and she's serving in Canada, Vancouver. She's a really sweet soul.

Adjustments as a missionary:

• I am ALWAYS with my sweet companion
• The schedule for us here is really busy, especially as we needed to take extra time for orientation.
• There are missionaries speaking a lot of different languages here so I get to hear them all around me
• I wear nice clothes most of the day, including some walking shoes that aren't quite broken in
• We call each other exclusively by Sister or Elder
• Elders and Sisters can only handshake with each other-- you have no idea how many awkward almost high-fives I've had to swerve
• There's only 1 other missionary here who is going to New Zealand Mandarin speaking- supposedly there needs to be 4 Sisters and Elders assigned to each mission so maybe I'll be going in as the 4th Sister in the Mission, I'm not sure.

Positives:

• I've only been here for 6 days and I already know how to introduce myself, say a prayer and my purpose as a missionary in Chinese
• Our district is full of missionaries with great testimonies which is really inspiring
• The food here is just like the stuff at BYU, so I'm used to it
• I'm really growing in my testimony while here
• We were able to watch the devotional with Elder Soares last night and I cried! It was so inspiring. I would recommend all of you to watch it if you can.

Not-so-positives:

• Chinese is hard and they set language goals very high here! There's been a couple brief moments of internal sobbing while in class, but I would always be encouraged again when I needed it
• The computer/phone situation is a little frustrating as I really need to mess with settings to get them to work how I want them to. Even in this email you can see some typos I just don't have the time to fix because it deletes text as you type.

I'm still figuring out P-day schedule as it tends to be more free-form, but I'll try my best to communicate to you all as I can.

Photos:

1&2: Sister Cummings and I matched by accident twice! The second time we had Sister Ho and Sister Cho join in

3: We have the opportunity to go to the temple on P-days-- the lighting is horrible but it was a great morning!

See more photos:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/sgY95kdCHMzp7BqHA

Love you all!

-Sister Martinez

Checked In

Sister Martinez is officially checked in to the MTC!

We were directed to an underground parking garage, where the line of vehicles that were dropping off new missionaries lined up. There are many helpers to greet each one at the car, assist in taking a family picture, then departs with your dearest daughter! Actually, it was very comforting, and I felt Carly was in great hands.

Can’t wait to hear all about her first day at the MTC!

Ready to enter the Provo, UT Missionary Training Center

Our daughter enters the MTC tomorrow! We attended a temple session today at the Provo City Center Temple, and it was beautiful. We feel very blessed to spend this time with her before her mission officially starts.

This blog will be a place for us to post her letters and photos so we can easily re-read them when we need to feel close to her. Our hope is that her family and friends will also find this site helpful and inspiring!

Sister Carly Martinez- we love you, we pray for you, we are proud of you, and we are excited for you to do the Lord’s work in New Zealand!

Love, Mom and Dad