Farewell Utah... Hello Boise, Idaho!

 Jambo! (Hello!)

    I'm currently at the airport, about to fly to Boise!  Finally! 

The Mission Training Center has been wonderful, but I'm excited to go into the field. There's a lot of things that I learned at the MTC. Here is a list of my top three takeaways:

1. The Book of Mormon is awesome. For the last few years, I've really been focussing on the Bible, which has been wonderful. The Bible has so much facinating stuff in it, but The Book of Mormon is "Another Testament of Jesus Christ" (Kitabu cha Mormoni ni:  "Ushuhuda Mwengine wa Yesu Kristo"). 

      It testifies so strongly of Him and His character, and has so many awesome stories about the faith of Native American individuals. My companion and I studied Mosiah chapter 4 and we both highlighted basically the whole chaper because it's so full of awe inspiring teachings.

(An assignment to share a Book of Mormon verse in Swahili that we did a couple weeks ago.)

     2. I really like dressy clothing.  As many people know, before my mission, my go to outfit was jeans and a t-shirt, or if I was feeling fancy, maybe even a long sleeved shirt!   But being here and having to wear missionary attire everyday has it's benefits. I'm so glad that Sister missionaries are now allowed to wear dress pants. So exciting!

     3. Time is a lot nicer to you if you keep a gratitude journal. I feel like with SOOO many things in the past, if I didn't like the expierence, it would go slowly, and of course when I'm enjoying somethings, it feels so short. But I've done a lot of gratitude journalling over the last 6 weeks, and I've noticed that it's been opposite. 

One of the biggest things I've been grateful for is the awesome people in my Swahili learning group.  They're so happy and positive and it was so much fun to go to class for hours a day. Here's a picture of me and my amazing companion, Sister Bickham:

Currently I'm sitting at the airport with a bag of snack mix and a Bluey coloring set, so I'll be pretty busy.

Spiritual thought: Yesterday, I made a playlist of hymns that I really like for the plane, and I highly recommend people to go listen to "Consider the Lillies" by the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. It's such a pretty song and I love the message.

Quarantined. "Whomp! Whomp!"

 Jambo! (Hello!)

     Last week I mentioned to a few people that I was feeling not good due to allergies. That sickness got worse and worse until I finally went to the MTC health clinic and got checked. I had the flu. (Influenza B)  This is one of my roomates and I at the clinic waiting for our test results. She was sick as well.  We are both clearly very excited:

     We both tested positive, so we packed up our suitcases and moved to the quarantine dorm building until our fevers and aches were gone.

     Most of this last week was spent in quarantine, which was honestly really good, because yes, it prevented me from getting other people sick, which was awesome, but also, I got to sleep whenever I wanted, which was AMAZING. 

Also, the food was always warm, unlike some cafeteria food. It was a little odd though, when they would put your meal bag outside your door in the hallway, and then knock on the door, then you had to put on a mask and quickly open the door, get the bag, and close the door. It often felt like we had leprosy. This is the room:

Luckily, when I got out, my comp and friends came to save me and take me back to our dorm.

    So that was Friday last week through Tuesday morning. We went to a BEAUTIFUL temple this morning. It was probably the prettiest temple I've ever seen. The Provo City Center temple. Here are some pictures of the outside:

And here are some interior images:

Spiritual thought:

During quarentine, I had the opportunity to do a lot of general conference talks. Like, a LOT of them. I mostly listened to the old ones like between 1971-1990. There was a talk that I absolutly loved in April of 1989 by Marvin J Ashton. Basically his talk was on worthiness and how people self judge worthiness, when WE shouldn't be the ones judging, because that's God's job. Like how judging other people unfairly is bad, it's just as bad to judge yourself harshly.

A quote that I liked from it was "worthiness is a process and perfection is an eternal trek".

Thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a weekend filled with amani and furaha (peace and happiness).

Kwa heri!