CALLED TO SERVE

Hello friends! :) I am currently serving as a missionary for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the Nebraska Omaha Mission. I'll be emailing home every week for the 18 months that I'm in the Cornhusker state; my amazing mom will be the one posting them on this here blog. Interested in church history? Come on down to the Mormon Trail Center at Historic Winter Quarters and I might just be there to give you a tour!

"As we lose ourselves in the service of others, we discover our own lives and our own happiness." - Dieter F. Uchtdorf


Wednesday, November 11, 2015

I'm Having Twins?!?‏ October 30, 2015

Anyahaasayo!! That means hello in Korean. :)

Soo you're probably wondering what the heck the title of this email means...I'm not going to say until the end muahahaha.

Well I've been here at the good ol' MTC for a little over a week now! The first couple of days went by incredibly slow but now it seems like time is moving way too fast. I don't know if I already said this but I LOVE my district! We walked to the temple on Sunday and took a bunch of pictures. (The group one left to right is Elder Labbee, Elder Seachriest, Elder Kelly, Elder Flukiger, Sister Orton, Sister Chappell, Sister Hutchison, and moi) We already feel like such a close family and I can't believe the elders are leaving for Houston, Texas and Lansing, Michigan next Wednesday! That will be a sad day. All of the first letters in our last names make up the words "HIS FLOCK" so that's what we decided to name our district. Cool huh? :) We got to play sand volleyball during gym time the other day and that was an absolute blast! We have so many inside jokes with each other it's great! I don't think I've ever laughed so much in my entire life. We always break out in song at random times and I think it's because we're all having withdrawals from listening to music so we just make our own. Fun fact - my companion can make a monkey sound that is scary accurate like the real deal. The other night at dinner, we raced a guy for the last piece of cheesecake haha! He won..but then they brought out more and it was delicious. That's another thing I love about the MTC; the food here is amazing! There's this really good strawberry, banana, orange juice that our teacher nicknamed "trinity juice" when he served and the name caught on.

Our branch president is like a walking scripture. He spits out verses in the middle of conversations and literally yells them to people as they walk by! He's such an awesome and inspiring man and he has lots of connections to people. He told us a story about attending President Hinkley's last birthday party! But seriously, how cool would it be to hang out with the prophet?? Speaking of birthdays...s/o to my girls Abby and Annie who both turned 19 this week! Hope you ate lots of cake. :)

There's a choir here that meets twice a week and on Tuesday night I sang at a devotional! Never in my life have I heard that big of a group sound that good with as little practice as we had. We sang a gorgeous arrangement of More Holiness Give Me, and man oh man I got chills! The men especially sounded amazing! I'm so happy I get to be in choir here but I really miss LoLyf and the Treblemaker fam. I hope the Chandler choir concert went well!

So more about the devotional: Elder Andersen came and spoke to us and it was awesome! He talked about how opposition makes us stronger, and how sacrifice is a necessary principle that helps us become more like Christ and think about "what can I give?" instead of "what can I get?" from my mission. It's been a little hard adjusting to mission life but I've never been happier. Some of you may be dealing with a difficult problem right now but I promise you can overcome whatever it is. Start looking for tender mercies, or the small little miracles, in every day and trust me you will see how much God loves you! These are just a few of the ones I've witnessed so far: 1. It's easier to fall asleep now but the first night was hard for everyone. On the ceiling in our room there are glow in the dark stars and they're oddly comforting to look at. I love stargazing and now I can from under the covers every night before going to bed! 2. Our classroom that we're in has the most beautiful view of the Provo mountains. My desk is perfectly positioned so that every morning I can watch the sun rise over the Y. 3. I found a ladybug on the stairs and saved it from being squished. It became our class pet! 4. My companion lost her voice earlier this week and could barely talk, but when we taught our lesson with our first investigator she could speak normal through the whole thing. We walked out of the room and then she couldn't talk again. 

That last mini miracle takes me to my next topic! Sister Hutchison and I have been teaching a girl named Ivy this week! She is such a sweetheart I love her! She moved from Taiwan about a year ago because she won the green lottery ticket and she's currently studying at UVU to become a third grade teacher. She comes from a Buddhist background but she's super interested in learning about our church and always asks the best questions. We've had some cool experiences with her and I won't go into detail unless you ask, but basically we taught her how to pray and that was one of the best moments ever. I've learned that one must become a missionary and not a motionary. These are real people and we need to teach them - not just teach lessons.

OKAY I guess I've made you wait long enough! Back in January, I went on a choir trip to New Orleans and a group of friends and I got our palms read. One of the things the lady told me was that on October 28th I would receive two things in the mail and one of them would be legal. Fast forward to this past Wednesday, October the 28th. I GOT A LETTER AND A NEW DEBIT CARD. I'm guessing the debit card counts as something legal because it's from a bank but the point is the palm reader also said that some day I will have four kids and two of them will be twins. *insert shocked emoji here*

One last thing before I end this novel, if you're interested my mom will be putting my emails and pictures up on a blog once she figures out how! You can visit it as lavieencorn.blogspot.com. Before I got my mission call I really wanted to go French speaking. I thought it would be funny to somehow incorporate that in my blog so that's the story behind it. "Life in corn". I found out from an elder who actually is learning French on his mission that corn is maize! The more you know. :)

I love you all so much! TTFN! 

-Sister Irwin :)

P.S. Why do missionaries always cross their legs? ......Because they only have one P day! ;)



Elder Mackay ran into Sister Irwin at the MTC.  Both were babies in Galveston 1st Ward before the Oakeys moved.

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