Allison Jo Glanzer: Typical Day in the MTC

General Conference. The first time I stayed awake for the majority, only fell asleep twice. But also the first time I actually enjoyed watching it. And the first time I was watching it surrounded by people my age, which made it much more enjoyable. All 2,100 missionaries crammed into one space. It was pretty grand. The trend we all had noticed was about the Atonement of Jesus, repentance, and faith. There were other topics, yes, but those ones stood out the most.

I also have a very good record of the ties each of the brethren wore that spoke. Elder Manly and Sister Foote were a great help at times on determining what colors and what patterns there were. I also get to be the fake weather director in Elder Manly's wedding. All of us sisters have different jobs. S. Smith is the best man who has to wear a red leather suit. S. Richey, my comp, gets the wedding bouquet, S. Zeller mans the food bar, S. Foote mans the punch, and S. Blocker gets to be the minister at the reception. At first, when the note was passed, S. Zeller, Foote, Blocker, and I were going to end up his wives, but we don't practice polygamy. So he had to change it. I passed out all of the mints that mom had sent me during conference. I enjoy sharing! For those of you that watched, I was not in the choir. Sad, I know, but two of the elders, E. Nettesheim (net-tes-hime) and E. Morin were. Our teachers took pictures of them on the TV screen and showed us.

Our typical schedule is wake up at 6:30, either eat, exercise, or do personal or comp study. For the past while it has been exercise then breakfast. We then go and teach at the TRC (Teaching Resource Center) at 11. We have and "investigator," we don’t know whether they are a non-member or a member, and we teach the gospel to their needs for about 25 minutes. Very enjoyable, I have always gotten nice, open people to teach. The elders in our district seem to have more challenging people.

After TRC, we go to our classroom in a different building and we read and discuss things as a class that is on our schedules. That is with no teacher. We eat lunch, then return to class where we have a teacher. Either S. Davis or S. Seegmiller. S. Seegmiller is out of town currently, so Bro. Lovell is our sub. Every one that works at the MTC has served a mission before. Bro. Lovell is from Washington, closer to Olympia.

Our Elders leave us Monday at 4am! :’( Then us sisters move to the 5th floor for our visitor center training. We have to climb so many stairs.

Our original dorm was Elder’s dorm. Sisters were moved into there because there was a bat infestation in the dorm we were supposed to be in. Today we moved into those dorms, all nice, clean, and bat free! You can really tell the difference between the two dorms. Sister’s rooms are bigger, a ladder on each bunk bed, and closer to our classroom building. We were in the furthest building away. Our walking time is cut down a lot, and we are away from all the construction.

So at about 2:30 we go to the referral center and make calls and contacts to people who may have requested a free Bible or Book or Mormon. Wednesday, a contact I had found, who S. Richey had called, called us back! It was amazing to listen to her teach him over the phone. She taught him how to pray. She also talked to him about why he was interested in receiving a Book of Mormon. He is too shy to meet with the missionaries in his area just yet, but I sent them an email about him, hoping soon he would contact them on his own. We gave him their number.

After the referral center, we return to our classroom for a bit, are taught, then left alone for study and planning, then dinner, then straight back to the classroom to be taught again by our other teacher until 9:30. We teach the teacher, a role-play where they are an investigator or a less active member. S. Richey is an excellent teacher, and I am great moral support! My goals have always been to talk/teach more and testify more. Some days are better than others.

We then head back to our dorms. Sometimes our elders will walk all the way back with us, and sometimes they wont. But they do every time now because our building is so much closer! Closer than theirs even! But they have fewer and fewer days with us, just twoish more. We are supposed to have quiet time at 10:15 and lights off at 10:30. We try, but six people in one room, who have a lot to talk about, it is hard at times.

On our p-days, we sisters go and play four square with our whole branch. Just today, the elders were having lots of fun. But S. Richey stayed in for a long while, in the queen square.

I won’t be getting my electronic device until I am in my mission. Which will be fantastic. I will be able to take pictures on that and upload them, instead of going to three different computer rooms to find one computer out of 50 that works well to upload pictures. I know of one that is perfect, but my comp doesn’t want to go there and she doesn’t really let me make those kinds of decisions. I may be Sr. comp, but I am just too much of a push over in this sense. Bothersome at times, but oh well. I still enjoy her.

We sisters in 13m, our dorm, have been moved to a true sisters' dorm, 18m. They had put sisters' in an elders' dorm because there was a bat infestation. But now it is clean and we don’t have to walk the whole length of the campus to get to class. I'll take a picture of the map to explain later. I got agitated and just wanted to move everything in one go, but it took two long trips. I also helped sisters bring their luggage down the stairs while I waited for my comp to finish up her last packing. I was just ready to get a move on, literally!

I took a lot of pictures of Elder Lip! Elder Lip is tube of Vaseline lip stuff that my two-year-old nephew, Gus, just loves and is obsessed with. He is dressed in his missionary attire. Gus can see his grand adventure, but I am running out of time and my comp is getting antsy with me. I feel like I am missing so much to tell.

Peace out y’all

Sister Glanzer

Adventures of Elder Lip at the MTC