Excerpts from McKenzie's Sixth Letter in the MTC

Taken the day before our missionaries left for the MTC.

Chelsey, I will answer some of your many questions that I feel the whole family may like to know the answers to.  Does each missionary still have to prepare a talk for sacrament meeting in their mission language not knowing if they will be called on to share it during the meeting? Yes, we do have to prepare talks for sacrament meeting (the first and most important of the weekly three-part church service during which the bread and water are taken) every week in mandarin and we get called to talk in the middle of the meeting.  Now that the older generation is gone we could get called on, and it makes it significantly more nerve wracking to go to sacrament meeting.  What do you think of the peanut butter bars? I have had the peanut butter bars and I have to say that I don’t think they are that good.  I am more a fan of the brownie with peanut butter frosting.  Hermana Allsop and my companions agree. Do they still have pizza or Teriyaki Stix as a special treat for Friday night dinners? They do have pizza or Teriyaki Stix on Friday.  They don’t have Teriyaki Stix very often though, which is sad because I love it.  What is the most exciting part of the day? In the morning, I am most excited and also the most scared about our lessons (practice lessons to volunteers).  I love teaching our lessons because the spirit is so strong in them if we are open to it.  They are also the most nerve wracking part of the day because we need to be prepared and really receptive in order to help our others come to Christ.   

This morning we had a lovely surprise.  At 2 o’clock the fire alarm goes off, which includes flashing lights and very loud noises.  It was very startling to be awoken from a deep sleep by that noise.  We all went outside and sat outside wondering where the adults were, or so we joked.  Some people alerted the front desk and a security guard told us we could go back in.  I am not totally sure what happened but I have heard rumors of something involving an electrical wire. There was no fire, but it is good to know we will wake up to the fire alarm if there ever is a fire.  Sadly it cut about an hour out of our sleeping time which is cut short anyway on Tuesdays now that the temple is open and our district (group of missionaries) is scheduled for the 6:40 session in the temple.  It is worth it though.  The temple is so wonderful and so peaceful.  We have missed it because it has been closed for cleaning for the last 3-4 weeks.  It was so wonderful to go today and feel the spirit that is there.  What a wonderful blessing the temple is.   (Note: If you have questions about Mormon temples, feel free to visit http://mormon.org/faq/#Temples|question=/faq/use-of-temples/)