Week 3 MTC and Elder Holland

Our district with our teacher Sister Avery

Another week down and everything is going great here!  The food is getting a little dull..hahaha but that was expected.  The greatest thing that happened this week was ELDER HOLLAND came to speak for devotional!!  For those of you who may not know, Elder Holland is one of the members of the presidency of the church.  They said they only get apostles here about every 6 to 8 weeks, but they haven't had one for 10, so it was a huge deal that we could be here when he came!  I sang in the MTC choir which is always fun and we sang his favorite hymn, more holiness give me.  Elder Holland taught that one of the ways the devil stops us is by making us not want to talk to others.  If he can just make us a little nervous to share, worried to talk to a random person, anything like that, he can keep us from helping people who may we may be able to help.  So this week I challenge all of you out there, to OPEN YOUR MOUTH.  Compliment someone, share a thought, talk to someone you haven't before, anything works, but open your mouth.  You will be amazed at what God can do through you!

Something else I wanted to talk about really quick, a couple weeks ago I mentioned something about sisters who served missions a long time ago and I needed to apologize, I fell into the stereotype that sisters only used to serve missions if they couldn't get married but I was so wrong and this week I realized I have so many examples in my life to prove otherwise.  I have so many amazing women in my life who chose to wait until they were older to serve missions because they wanted to serve him so badly, they love him and wanted to do his work!  So once again I apologize for falling into stereotypes and I wanted to express how grateful I am for all the amazing examples of women that I have in my life.  I hope to be as good of a missionary as they are!

Not much new has gone on here at the MTC this week, we study a lot and I feel like we're eating all the time cause the days go by so fast!  We have a lot of fun here though too, which is important!  Because even though we're supposed to be working, the Lord wants us to have fun while we do it, and we're doing a good job having fun with it too:)

Just a quick thought before I sign out for the week, in the hymn "we are all enlisted" there is a verse, verse 2 that says: 

Hark! the sound of battle sounding loudly and clear;

Come join the ranks! Come join the ranks!

We are waiting now for soldiers; who'll volunteer?

Rally round the standard of the cross.

Hark! 'tis our Captain calls you today;

Lose not a moment, make no delay!

Fight for our Savior; come, come away!

We're joyfully, joyfully marching to our home.

This just kind of goes a long the lines of what I said earlier of opening your mouth.  You don't have to be a missionary to join the ranks and to fight for our savior!  He fought for you, he fought to the death for you.  Will you now fight for him?

I hope everyone is doing well and love you all!  Have a good week and God speed.

Love Sister Courtney Baggett

   Temple Walk Sunday                
                       Elder Eller, Elder Wagner, Hermana Jamison, Hermana Parris, Hermana Bassett, Hermana Craig,  
Elder Westburg and Elder House

Week 2- MTC

May 22, 2015

This week was great here and time is actually starting to move, really fast actually!  The first week here felt like an eternity, but now we're on high speed and it's awesome!  Some funny stories from this week!  I have a lot but these are my favorite!

Story 1: We're sitting in class the other day and one of the elders goes, I have a confession to make, and it's going to be really embarrassing.  So we're like okay...worried it's gonna be some deep dark secret.. what is it?  And he starts, "the first day we got here I realized that I forgot tooth paste, but the store was already closed!  But I looked over and saw a tube sticking out of my companions closet, so I thought, awesome!  I'll just borrow a little and get some at the store!  So I put a little squirt on my tooth brush and went to go brush my teeth and have a bonding moment with my companion while we great ready for bed!  So Elder Westburg (his companion)  is talking about his flight and all this stuff and I'm brushing, and this does not taste like toothpaste, not at all.  But he was standing there and I couldn't admit I stole his weird toothpaste so I kept brushing...for the whole 2 minutes...After the nasty brushing I went back into our room and peeked to see what kind of toothpaste it was, and it wasn't toothpaste...it was ANTI ITCH CREAM."  So yes, Elder Wagner brushed his teeth, and tongue, with anti itch cream for a solid 2 minutes.  And that brothers and sisters is what you get for taking without asking!!

Story 2:  At lunch things tend to get a little crazy, we all get a little to excited and laugh a little too hard.  One of my companions, hermana Parris, was taking a drink when someone made her laugh and the next this I see is her face is dark purple and she was obviously choking.  I shot into life guard mode and don't even know how I got to the other side of the table but I got there and was like where's your belly button?!  (for those of you who know the Heimlich, it makes it much easier if they show you rather than finding it!!)  She points and I was about to go into action when she finally starting coughing.  It was like music to my ears!  And then I turned into that person from the red cross first aid video when they say "tell the victim to keep coughing"  I always made fun of that video but I rocked the "keep coughing" task!  So just in case anyone wanted to know, if there is an emergency, I've still got your back hahaha

Things like this is what makes the MTC so great, and the spirit too, but laughing is food for the soul!

The MTC is great and the people here are awesome.  I love how strong I can feel the spirit always and I feel so much love for the people of Missouri even though I haven't met them yet.  Just to leave you all with a spiritual thought, God hears your prayers. It's a simple thought, but it means the world to me and has changed my life.  Because I know he listens to me, I am willing to try a little harder, pray a little longer, and have a little bit more courage in all aspects of my life.  If anyone out there needs a little love, have a conversation with your heavenly father.  He has more love than you could ever imagine.

Love you all!

Love, Hermana Baggett

         Sister Baggett

         Courtney

Hermana Jamison, Hermana Craig, Hermana Parris, Me!, Hermana Bassett

My two companions at the Provo Temple

Things get pretty crazy in the MTC

Our entire district
Back: President Price, Elder Westberg, Hermana Craig, Hermana Jamison
Front: Brother Jeffs, Elder Wagner, Me, Hermana Parris, Hermana Bassett, Elder House, Elder Eller

Week 1- MTC

All the sisters in my district and our fantastic Presidents wife Hermana Price.
She lovingly refers to herself as our MTC Mom!

May 15, 2015

Here at the MTC we do a lot of one thing, waiting. Not waiting for lessons or teaching or anything, but waiting in line for the bathroom. You see, when the MTC was built, there weren't a lot of sister missionaries. It was mostly the sisters that didn't get married so they thought, oh I guess I'll go on a mission. So the MTC didn't plan for very many sisters and the girls bathroom is much smaller than the boys! Now that times have changed and the age has changed, there are so many more sisters here, and we're caught in a rut. In the large bathrooms there are two toilets for sisters, and seven toilets for the elders.....so there it leaves us sisters, waiting in line to use the bathroom. Always. When we're not waiting to use the bathroom we're usually in class studying either Spanish or ways to teach in Spanish! Like I said last week, we had our first lesson in Spanish and it was kinda bad...hahah. My companions and I planned our lesson in English, translated it into Spanish and basically read the whole thing. He would ask us a question, for example, why do we have to be baptized? And we would say, uhhh, God loves you! Cause we didn't really know what he said and that's the only thing we knew how to say...embarrassing. But we've been teaching all week and I'd like to report that we can semi hold a conversation about the gospel now! We probably sound like 4 year olds with our grammar, but hey as long as we're getting the point across! The nacho libre quotes keep the moral up in the place, and we've all nailed the accent; "So you want to get baptizzeed?!" Life is good in the MTC, talk to you all next week.

Love Hermana Baggett

Apparently Sister Missionaries still take "selfies".

All the sisters in my district with Hermana and President Price

Day 2-MTC

May 8, 2015

Hey everyone! Really fast I just wanted to say thank you to all the people who have been supportive of me thus far, I couldn't have made it to where I am without all you amazing people and you help me to stay motivated to keep going, so thank you! I've been a missionary for about 2 days now, so I'm basically a pro..hahaha just kidding I'm far from it, but I did get to take off my dork dot so life is good!! The dork dot is the bright orange sticker they put on your name tag the first day so everyone knows that your new, which was lovingly named by Elder Bednar haha. This means that every time you take a step someone is yelling, "Welcome to the MTC, sisters!" It's nice that they're welcoming...but the extra attention isn't missed haha. The first day of Spanish class was more acting than Spanish. My teacher only speaks spanish, and me and my classmates' Spanish is quite rusty from high school. One of the elders actually only took one year in high school and he failed it. Word for word his teacher told him, "I don't think you'll ever be able to learn Spanish, you should choose another language." Hahaha so obviously the Lord had another plan in mind! Because of this rustiness in all of us, my teacher acts out every word until we guess what she's trying to tell us. We're getting better at it as we remember Spanish and have the help of the Lord, but I still like the acting, it makes class more entertaining! Speaking of Spanish, we have our first "appointment" with Raymundo tonight and we will be teaching all in Spanish. Hermana Avery told us we would be speaking all in Spanish and the looks of shock on our faces were probably pretty priceless. One of the hermana's says, "But Hermana, nosotros sabemos Espanol poco" (We only know a little Spanish) in nice and broken spangish. Hermana Avery says, "Fe, Hermana, Fe!" (Faith, sister, Faith) hahaha so I'm depending on my faith to get us through this lesson!! We did learn how to pray in Spanish though, and I know the gift of tongues has been a blessing to us already, so it will help us now! I have 2 companions and there is one other companionship of sisters in our district. We all share a room, so I think that's good that we can be nice and close! Even if it means that we're in a room meant for four sisters...It's good bonding time:) This is the slow time in the MTC before all the graduating high schoolers come in in the summer, so our Zone president didn't have missionaries before us. That means our district and zone are all the same 9 people:) It also means that we all had to take leaderships positions sooner because we don't have zone leaders or a sister training leader. I have been called as the Sister Training Leader (which is like a Zone Leader for elders) and feel very inadequate, but the Lord qualities the called, so I'll work really hard. That's all for this week, welcome to the journey with me! Love to you all! Love Hermana Baggett

Left to Right: Hermana Parris going to Carlsbad, California; Hermana Bassett going to Salt Lake City South; Hermana Jamison and Hermana Craig going to Rosario Argentina and me! PS: I forgot to mention, my companion is going to serve in my home area in Salt Lake City! She's spanish so probably won't serve in our ward, but she'll be there in 6 weeks.

May 6, 2015 MTC

May 4, 2015 Setting Apart

Waiting in the Stake Presidents office waiting to be set apart.

Baggett Family 

Charlie, Annelise, Dad, Mom, Courtney, John Paul

Annelise and Sister Baggett

Mom and Sister Baggett

Grandpa Weenig and Sister Baggett