Caytee, my dear sister, and I, the older and generous sister
willing to sort through her emails and dole out the information, would love to
tell you all about her mission. For those that receive her emails, it’ll
basically be a review of how Caytee’s time is going each week. For those who
don’t, do not fear! I will not only copy and paste a good portion of her
emails, but I will also explain a small portion of what she writes. [Some of it
is just plain unintelligible. I’m not a miracle worker, people.]
Therefore, without further ado, I give you Caytee’s own
words pierced with my own commentary and hopefully helpful comments.
-
Bonjour!!
Can you believe my first week is almost over? I can’t.
However, it feels like I have already been here for eternity! They weren’t
kidding when they said that the days will be long and the weeks short. I did
the math the other day, and my district is in class for 11 and a half hours a
day.
Holy. Poop.
Good news is they split our day into blocks. Some of our
blocks are Personnal, collegue, and language study. Another is with Frere Adams
where we get the language grilling. And then one block is when me and ma
collegue, Soeur Ulrich teach our investigator, Murielle…all in French. It’s so
awesome.
-
Already, Soeur Sheesolm [you’ll understand by the end of the
email, trust me] is working well with her “collegue” from Ogden, Soeur Ulrich.
And as we can all tell from her email, she’s begun writing in Franglish. Her
journal is completely made up of it. Apparently, “IT’S AWESOME!” And who could
disagree? That’s some quick French learning.
-
So, what have I done this week?
Wednesday, Grandma and Grandpa got me safely to the MTC. We
started learning the language and fun stuff like that. The French classrooms
are the nicest classrooms in the MTC [Missionary Training Center], so that’s
fun. Also, our floor is right above the senior missionaries. J’adore senior
missionaries! They are the cutest, sweetest, and most loving people ever.
Thursday, we met our zone and branch president. One of the
counselors was a make-up artist in Hollywood. How cool is that?! Also, in my
zone I have Soeur Bond, the sister from Tupelo, and Soeur Proudfoot who I went
to EFY with my first year. SMALL WORLD.
[I’m just going to break in here and discuss the idea of
districts and zones because I had no idea what exactly these were until my
hubby explained it to me (ignoring the fact that I’ve heard these words
casually a million times). In the world of MTC, districts and zones organize
the place into small and smaller groups to help people learn and grow
efficiently. Districts are the smallest groups, and these people are the ones
you go to classes with, eat lunch with, explore the world with. Basically,
everything they do is done in districts.
Zones gather a bunch of districts for church, but are also
used if they have big meetings throughout the week.
According to my sports fanatic husband, districts are like
schools, and zones are conferences.
For those who speak Mormon lingo, we’re looking at districts
as wards and zones as stakes.
Back to Caytee.]
I should probably tell you about my district. Me and Soeur
Ulrich are both going to Paris. Soeur Higgins (who is from New Zealand) is going
to Paris. Her collegue is going to Montreal Spanish speaking, but her call said
she would learn French in the MTC.
[I’ll just leave this picture here. From context clues, and
another picture, I am going to assume the ladies on the left are the Sisters Higgins
and her collegue. On the right, we probably have Sisters Ulrich and Chisholm. I
could be wrong though. Maybe Soeur Sheesolm is all the way on the left. *sigh*]
 |
| Les souer at the temple |
Elder Carman and Elder Bracken are going to Montreal aussi [too].
Elder Landry, Elder Martin, and Elder Brown (our Trio) are all going to Lyon.
Toulousse is no longer a mission. Lyon covers the entire south part of France
and some of Switzerland. However, Switzerland no longer allows American visas,
so they will only be allowed in part time.
[And here’s the other picture she sent out. Don’t even ask
me who is who. That will just have to be a mystery, explained only by the girl
herself.]
 |
| District Selfie Sunday |
Friday, my district taught our first lesson to Murielle. And
it did NOT go as planned. We planned to talk about how Pere Celeste [Heavenly
Father] and Jesus-Christ love us and stuff. Nope! We ended up talking about how
Pere Celeste and Jesus-Christ are two separate people. How we did that all in
French, Je ne said pas. (My favorite French phrase right there, “I don’t know.”
I use it tout le temps. [I don’t know about you guys, but I giggled when I read
that. My sweet, Franglish speaking sister. It means “All the time.”]) Since
Friday, we have taught Murielle two more lessons.
SUNDAY WAS THE BEST DAY EVER!
Since it was Fast Sunday, we had a missionary conference,
which is like a huge stake conference. The entire MTC presidency talked to us.
That lasted two hours. Then, we had a combined district meeting where I had my
first ever deep doctrine class. My head literally exploded. I still don’t
exactly know what happened… Then we had testimony meeting, which was bon
[good], of course.
Then, we had Sunday night devotional. Holy. Cow. That was
incredible. Sister Nelson (Russell M. Nelson’s wife) spoke. She talked to us
about why we are on missions—that in the premortal life we signed our premortal
commitment sheet that we were going to serve a mission. We are here because we
are supposed to be here. We need to stop comparing ourselves to others and ask
for angels to help us.
Then, we got to go watch a movie! Crazy, right?
[Missionaries do not watch movies. Thus we have a missionary joke, people. No
cause for alarm. It will pass.] We watched a talk by Elder Bednar that he gave
Christmas Sunday in the MTC a while ago. It is only shown in the MTC. The
biggest thing I got from his talk is this mission is not about me or what I
want.
I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO SPIRITUALLY UPLIFTED IN MY WHOLE LIFE!
I wish every day could be Sunday.
So, other things I have done or learned… Oh yeah! We have
some native Parisians on our floor learning Tahitian. Frere Adams called them
in one day so that we could figure out how they would say my name in French. It
is literally impossible to say Chisholm in French. They do not have a “ch”
sound. We ended up agreeing on “Sheesolm.” I am now Soeur Sheesolm.
[I told you, you’d get it.]
Basically, the MTC is the bomb.
[As is my sister. Tune in next week for adventures in the
MTC round 2. And have a lovely week.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact any of the
Chisholms. You can also turn to any Mormon in your area, especially those good
ole’ Mormon missionaries. They’re always willing and happy to help.]
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