SeRviCe & RooM inSpecTIons...

Service:

Every Thursday morning at 630am we had Service. Because my companions and I were 'solo' we were never actually assigned anywhere to clean - so we could have technically not done it, slept in, or just went to breakfast earlier - BUT, we didn't. We would always get up at 620am, pray and then go to our service - we always headed down stairs and asked what could be done in our building - we always had the SAME job - cleaning the BATHROOMS!! We got a litte trolly with loo papers and paper towels on it, we had to make sure everything was stocked up, and clean out all the bins - had to do every bathroom on every floor of our building, we had 5 floors and there were two bathrooms on every floor - in every bathroom there were maybe 5-6 dunnies! Once we cleaned out the bins, we took the garbage down stairs and put it in one of those massive wheelie bins - you know the ones with FOUR wheels - yep, one of those. Then we had to roll that wheelie bin out to another HUGER steel bin- then empty all of our rubbish into that!

Sister Hynynen with the trolly - I think we named it, Rosy or something - I don't remember, it was always so early we probably even changed it every week...

This is me - I am the 'key' holder - and I found a very helpful 'Key holder' on my pants!! This key opened up the toilet and paper towel dispenser - no wonder I got to be the 'key holder'.

(and you can tell from this photo that it was 630 in the morning as I look like I just rolled out of bed - and literally, I did!)

Room inspection:

Every Tuesday someone came around and check our rooms to make sure they were spick and span - we got marked on it, and then our mark went to our branch president at the MTC. Every Monday night we vacuumed, made sure our towels were folded perfectly, that EVERYTHING was put away - seriously, if you had your eye glasses sitting next to the mirror then you got marked down!! 

So here is us, cleaning our room..

This is a typical picture actually - Sister Prusse cleans, Sister Hynynen stuffs her face, and I was taking photos (well usually i was just watching, but this was an exception)..

Mission Impossible.. escaping from MTC

Like I said before, you would do anything to get out of the MTC!

My two companions and I tried escaping, but we didn't get very far. We got busted, and because we took photo's of ourselves we even had evidence (yes, we were busted on our own evidence!)

Ok, so what is really funny about this p-day adventure in the MTC is that when we decided to do this 'photo shoot' there was another MTC class (who were NOT on p-day) in the court yard just over from us and saw us sneaking in to the bushes - the missionaried wondered what we were doing, but didn't really care either way. But, we heard along the grapevine (from a friend of one of my compies who was actually IN the MTC class) that the teacher from that MTC class thought we were getting 'secret packages' from over the fence - Yes, thats right, he though we were smuggling in some goods! - Now you should know that everything that comes into the MTC has to be passed by the office, or it has to be posted in (if you want to post something in Provo to the MTC no matter how BIG or small it is, it will only cost you TWO BUCKS) so.. there you go, the teacher from the class thought we were smuggling in 'secret packages'... of what?? Chocolate?? hmm... it was VERY funny when we found out (and we were a little mad that we didn't actually think of smuggling in packages while doing that.. darn it!)

My MTC companions

I had 3 companions in the MTC. My first 2 were Sister Prusse and Sister Hynynen. 

Sister Prusse entered the MTC 6 weeks before me, I was supposed to enter the same day as her but my Visa was delayed, so I left her as a solo sister with 5 Elders - she said she got to the MTC and was told that 'her companion wasn't coming anymore'... and she replied with 'what do you mean she's not coming? Who's my companion?'.

Little did I know that there was a long wait for me to come into the MTC - they had heard that an Australian was coming and they were all very excited, and then they heard that she wasn't coming anymore - so they all guessed that I had gotten engaged and changed my mind (this would be the reason why one of the first questions I was asked was: Have you ever been engaged Sister Carmichael? - of course my reply was 'yeah, twice, but then I decided to come on a mission' the elder looked really shocked and almost fell off his chair, so I thought I had better fix up my sarcasm with 'no, not really, I am just kidding'. Anyway, back to the companions.

I was in the MTC with Sister Prusse for 6 weeks - Sister Prusse was heading to Finland also. 

My second companion was Sister Hynynen (hoonoonen) she was from the states but had Finnish background, so could speak a little finnish - she was serving in Estonia - we were companions for 9 weeks.

Sister Erin Prusse, me, Sister Vilja Hynynen

Then, I had my MTC Elders. These were the two I spent my 'class time' with. I was only with the Sisters for breakfast, P.E, and sometimes lunch and dinner when we were all together anyway, and after 930pm when we would all head back to our dorm rooms - for the rest of the time, I was with these two blokes. They came into the MTC the same day as me, and left for Finland the same day. We studied together, fought and pretty much got on each others nerves - BUT we also had a hell of a lot of fun together!

Elder Michael Yacktman, me, Elder Landon Deru

(I'm not sure what was up with the pose - but I guess back in the day we thought we were cool)

Finally, when Sister Prusse left for Finland, we had another intake of missionaries heading to Finland - in the group - much to my relief was a Sister - Sister Bethany Beckwith. We were companions for 6 weeks, 3 of those were with Sister Hynynen. When sister beckwith came, sister hynynen and I thought we would make her welcome and make her a sign for our bedroom door - someone on our floor knew Sister Beckwith (well, they were in the same ward anyway). At this stage we weren't completel sure on her name, so we asked her friend 'is the new sisters name bethwick? 'yeah, she replied... 

So.. we made a sign that said Tervetuloa Sisar Bethwick (Welcome Sister Bethwick).. now if you look closely at the name - we got it WRONG!! her name isn't beTHwiCK it's beCKwiTH - DOH! So, we had her name wrong, and we felt like IDIOOOTS - but she thought it was funny, so thats ok! - oh, and we KNEW her first name was Bethany - so when we found out her last name was bethwick, we wondered who the hell would call there kid Bethany Bethwick!!! (apparently they DID NOT)

Sister Vilja Hynynen, me, Sister Bethany Beckwith

My MTC Elders

In the MTC my intake took only 3 missionaries. Me, Elder Yacktman and Elder Deru (both from USA). So I spent 3 months, everyday from 730am until 930pm with these two Elders. I don't think I have to explain that being around someone for that long does kinda of get old after a while. Most of the time we got along fairly well, as for other times.... well.... we argued, we got on each others nerves and I just wanted to kill them basically. 

Being in the MTC with two Elders and only one sister meant that, they (the two elders) were my companion. I was a 'solo' sister, which mean I didn't need a companion as in a sister, but I had to have at least two Elders with me at all times. 

this made the times when having no teacher in the classroom very difficult..

If one of the Elders wanted to go to the bathroom, the other would have to go to because he wasn't allowed to stay in the classroom alone with a Sister, so he had to go, but so did I because I wasn't allowed to stay in the classroom by myself... so, off we went to the bathroom (i stood in the hall of course).. Then, if I wanted to go to the bathroom, i had to ask them to come with me, I wasn't allowed to go on my own, and just one of them couldn't come, so we ALL had to go. It was an experience and a half if I do say so myself!!

This photo couldn't sum all three of us more perfectly.

Theres me... I always got mad and threatened to throw stuff - especially on Thursdays (will get to the reason why later).

Elder Yacktman, he's the one studying his cards - he pretty much knew fluent finnish by the time we left MTC, he was the smart one, and loved to study (hard). He was VERY good to have around and helped me alot (but I will also admit that we did used to have quite a few arguments from time to time....).

Then theres Elder Deru - he's the one swinging from the door frame. He was always out to have a good time, make us laugh and keep us entertained. He didn't always stuff around though, he knew when to be 'normal'.

I guess you could say that our we gave our MTC teachers a fairly hard time... and also we were all at completel different learning levels we were probably near impossible to teach.

there was me who still couldn't figure out how to say 'I HAVE something'

Then there was Elder Yacktman who was onto all sorts of Crazy grammar before any of us could say.... what? We don't get it..

And then there was Elder Deru, he was smack bang in the middle, he could say "I HAVE something' but he wasn't quite up to where Elder Yacktman was on his grammar. 

I guess you could say we gave our teachers are fairly hard time. We made sure they earnt the 'small' amount of pay they recieved and we certainly made sure to tell them what we thought of them from time to time. 

We played a few tricks here and there, one included putting a banana on top of the door and then have it land on our teacher when he walked in, I think another time we didn't show up to class on time and I am sure there are many more memories I should probably not 'blog' about.

MTC - day one

Tuesday July 25th I entered the MTC. There was no turning back now. 

Because the all the foreigners arrive a day earlier than the Americans, there wasn't so many people standing around, most people 

don't come with Family 

members as they have already said good bye in their own countries. There were a few other Elders who arrived  around the same time as me. But pretty much, I was it. 

Mark, Laura and I said our goodbyes and then I was left to fend for myself - no more ski lifts, no more wearing shorts, no more caramel apples, no more driving or jumping off bridges, from here on out it was MTC time, which meant STUDY time all day, every day!

Laura says Goodbye my dear sister - Goodluck out there - don't do anything I wouldn't do (so that pretty much left me with the option to do whatever the hell I wanted to do)

When Mark and Laura departed, I shed a tear, ok not really. When they left this nice old lady took me and showed me where I needed to go. They usuall

y find some Elder running around somewhere an

d make them carry your suitcase for you. She took me into a little office and made sure I was who I said I was, and the two other Elder arrived (from Canada I think). they took us into a room, gave us our badges and these little green dots we had to wear and then showed us to our dorm rooms. The lady put me in a room - where there was NO ONE, and said, there you go.. and I said, so.... what do I do? and she said... just wait here. So I waited, and I only had to wait for a few minutes when the door opened and a Sister from Canada had arrived. Sister Pierson, she was heading to Salt Lake South and was learning S

panish. Sister Pierson was my first unofficial companion. We had an hour or so to wait until we were to be in meeting. So we took a wonder around MTC to see what was about and to see if we could find a few things. We then headed to

 the meeting where we meet about 15 other missionaries, from about 10 different countries - it was really awesome. Some of them couldn't speak english so they were given interpretors for the day. 

We all introduced ourselfs and said

 we were going 

on our missions. There were Elders from Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Canada and I don

't even remember where else. But we spent most of the day together and got to know each other well and would often see each other around the MTC during our time there - so that was nice.

Every Tuesday night in the MTC we have a devotional where someone for the Quorum of the 70 usually comes to speak, or sometimes even one of the 12. So it

 was exciting to see who was going to show up from week to week. I got to hear from President Hinckley's son, Elder Ballard and heaps heaps more. 

The next day we were to meet all the 'other' missionaries, meaning all the American missionaries. I don't know how many there were coming in, but I think it was about 200 or maybe even 

more.

Sister Pierson and I

Notice the massive orange and green d

ots on our badges..? 

The orange was to tell everyone that were 'new missionaries' and the green was to tell everyone we were 'foreign'...yeah good way to make poeple laugh at you!! - At least I used to laugh at the new missionaries and their orange dots every Wednesday!

So this is tha massive world map in the MTC. I had to stand on a chair to reach Finland, and there was NO WAY I was going to be able to touch Finland and Australia at the same time - check out how far away they are from each other. In fact, the furthest away you can get from Finland is New Zealand - YIKES! I was literally on the other side of the world!!

temple sqaure

I was blessed to be able to visit Temple Square twice while in Utah. The first time I went with Mark and Laura and the second was in the MTC - for those of you that don't know, in the MTC if you are a forgeiner i.e not American, then you enter the MTC a day earlier and then at some point throughout your stay there they take you to Temple Square with some other 'foreigners' it was great - All you want to do in the MTC is get out of there and you will do almost anything to leave - my MTC companions were VERY upset tha

t I got to leave... not once, but twice - but we'll get to that story soon enough!

When Mark, Laura and I visited Temple square I planned to meet up with Sister Reiljan- Dillon who took me on my own personal tour (of course her companion came too). 

We were also asked to have 'Quiet Dignity' in the MTC..... hmm....

Two Sister missionaries - and man, don't we look like it!!

It was awesome to see sister maz at work, and to also be able to see her at such a special place - temple square!

and then, there's Laura and me, looking so happy to be there - together!! LOL

Kicking it in Utah

Before entering the MTC I spent a week with Mark and Laura in 

Utah. We had a blast. Mark took me (Laura came too) to the mountains to see the awesome View.

This is Me.. with some other people in the background.. oh and some of the awesome Valley in Utah

We did heaps of cool stuff, but of course we were v

ery limited as I was a missionary and there were 'rules' we needed to obey - so of course I obeyed all the rules like:

Always wearing 'Missionary clothes' (i.e Skirt and Shirt etc) when in public

Not driving any cars unless having permission from your mission President..

Always having a companion and NEVER being alone..

Not climbing over and jumping off any bridges into the water.... I 

also didn't break the no swimming rule either!!

When doing some of these things you should never look back - Why? Because you find someone is ALWAYS watching.. 'Damn it - Busted!

I didn't visit the 'General Store' and buy myself a drink....

And..... I definetly DID NOT play with fireworks....