Mother's Day report of the MTC

Hello! (here's another post from Mom.)

Just FOUR days after Sister Whitesell enters the MTC, it is Mother's Day! The missionaries get to call home on Mother's Day and Christmas Day. This evening we got a call from our missionary :)

She said her District has 9 missionaries in it. 4 Elders and 5 Sisters.
Those missionaries are from Utah, Tennessee, Idaho, and Massachusetts (Teresa). Teresa and her companion are the only 2 going to Roseville. Each one of the group is going to one of 4 different missions in California.

Notes from the first 4 days...
This week her group (after being there 1 week) will welcome the "newbies" into the MTC on Wednesday.

They have a good group that gets along well with each other! They can hang out and talk before class starts, and be spiritual and comical. She likes the group.

She's eating "Canon Center" food again! It seems heavy...lots of carbs, pastas, breaded food.

Sister Whitesell gets an hour of exercise each day. She may run 10 laps, which is 2 miles, with some ab exercises on the side. The whole group plays "Knockout," a basketball elimination competition, and volleyball. Only they don't really play by rules with any skill, so Teresa can only tolerate a little bit of that.

Her schedule for the day goes something like this:
6:30 a.m. wake up, daily planning
7:15-7:45 breakfast
8:30-11:30 classes
12-12:40 Lunch
12:40-3:45 study
practice teaching
4:45 exercise
6:00 dinner
classes until 9
bedtime, journal writing
lights out 10:30

They take a "temple walk" on Sunday, where they can take pictures of the temple and they listen to a spiritual thought by one of the group.

They can read emails and send emails on Thursdays.

The missionaries are to have 2 talks prepared each Sunday, and the leaders announce WHO is speaking in church that day, AFTER the sacrament! So the missionaries are prepared, and don't know if they'll give their talk until the last second. They are told that they should have 6 talks ready to go, to use on their missions, before they leave the MTC. (Sometimes while on their missions, they will be asked to speak in church.)

It was nice to talk to her! Sounds like she's off to a great start :)