First few days doing great!

Mauri!

Before I get into my MTC experience, I want to share a miracle that happened before I even got into the MTC. As some of you may know, I flew out with my Dad on Tuesday to Utah. That afternoon, we were checking into a hotel for the night. Wearing a short-sleeve white shirt and tie, it was pretty obvious that I was going into the MTC, so the question of wear I was serving was brought up. When I replied with Kiribati, Bo, the check-in lady, started to cry and said that she was from Kiribati. After talking with so many people that knew next to nothing about Kiribati, and just coincidentally running into someone from Kiribati the day before I reported to the MTC, it truly was a miracle. God really does watch over the details of our lives. Bo even gave us the name of her father, who isn't a member.

But anyways, the MTC has been great! It's a ton of hard work, but that's part of why I enjoy it so much. You're just thrown right into everything. I literally walked into the classroom and the teacher immediately started asking me a bunch of questions in Kiribati. We also had an an incredible and eye-opening experience teaching investigators. They put us into groups of about a hundred missionaries and had us ask a real investigator questions, trying to get to know them and understand their needs, which was a lot of pressure and pretty difficult. We went through three different investigators, and it was amazing to see how different they and their needs were.

We also met our branch president, President Willes. They divide up all the missionaries into branches, and ours is apparently the biggest with close to a hundred people. But President Willes is awesome, very nice and engaging. Something funny he told those of us who had left behind boyfriends/girlfriends, that the Lord would take care of him/her, but if not, someone else would.

My companion, Elder Holbrook, is awesome. Not a lot of common interests, but we still get along great. We've been working hard preparing to teach an investigator in Kiribati later today. We still barely know the language haha.

I'm so glad to be out here and participating in this great work. Always remember that God loves you!

I love you all! Thank you so much for all your support!

Elder Schoeny