Last P-Day in the MTC!

Halo! 

I can't believe this is my last p-day in the MTC! So crazy! This week has been great. Biggest news: My companion and I got our first baptism commitment!! And our second baptism commitment!! We have been teaching Vincent and Moritz for 5 weeks now, and even though they're "fake investigators," it was difficult teaching them!! We finally committed Vincent to baptism and he finally recognized answers to his prayers! And Moritz (the one who slammed the door in our face and yelled at us) was ridiculously stubborn and never wanted to listen to us, but after teaching him that God is our loving Heavenly Father and we are His children about 12 times, and after he committed to reading the Book of Mormon and praying every day, he finally committed to being baptized as well! It seems like a small thing, but I am just so grateful for this tender mercy :) Sadly, our other two progressing investigators dropped us and we haven't been able to contact them :(

On Thursday we got a new batch of missionaries! And most of them were the native-speaking Germans going with us to the Alpine Mission! We have all become SUCH close friends and I'm really getting confident with my German speaking abilities!! But now we aren't called the Germans anymore :( They're the Germans and we are just the Americans :( But they're all super hilarious, and really fun to play volleyball with! Tomorrow we are getting another big batch of missionaries going to England missions so there will be 64 of us total! Right now there have only been about 40 at the most, so it's going to be so crowded!!

Thanksgiving here was awesome! The chef here is so gourmet it's ridiculous. Now all the Christmas stuff is up and I'm getting excited to spend the holidays in Germany! So ever since one of the other elders left last week I have seriously been the only person in the whole MTC who can play the piano. It's ridiculous. And the scariest thing ever. I've had to play for every meeting, devotional, choir practice, and sacrament meeting! I'm running out of songs that I can play! I'm pretty sure I've played Sweet Hour of Prayer and Praise to the Man like 12 times! But I've been practicing some new songs and Heavenly Father is definitely blessing me with more musical ability than I thought I had! And I don't get nervous anymore when people are singing! Because before I couldn't even play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star while someone was singing without messing up.

The biggest lesson I think I've learned this week is that in order for me to be a good missionary and to become more Christ-like I have to "turn outward when the natural man would turn in" according to Elder Bednar (my new favorite apostle). Patience, humility, and charity are the things I'm trying really hard to work on... but baby steps!! It's still hard for me to find the line between being prideful and hating myself (haha) But I know that through the Atonement I can be changed and become more Christ-like. 

Once again, I love being a missionary! And next time you hear from me I will be in Germany!! Or Austria. Or Switzerland. Or Italy. Or Lichtenstein. Heh :)

Sister Thunell