happy p-day to me!

Ce-i sus câine?!
I literally woke up this morning singing "happy p-day to me" to the tune of "happy birthday". Prep days are great. Especially when I get to go to the temple first thing. Amazing way to start off my day!

Well... only 11 more days until I am on the plane to România!! How crazy is that? Pretty sure I was giving up  hope on whether or not I would actually ever leave here or not! We should get our flight plans today, which is exciting. After watching district after district of english missionaries come in and leave, we finally get to be the ones to leave! Speaking of, I had to say goodbye to some of the Elders and Sisters in my zone on Tuesday.... So hard. They will all be such amazing missionaries. Hopefully I will get to keep in contact with them after the mish. We will see.

It has been a pretty amazing week. The more I am here the more good days I have with hard moments rather than hard days with good moments. Does that make sense? This week Heavenly Father has shown me so many tender mercies. I am so blessed. Still not sure how ready I feel to leave for Romania.. I have had a few breakdowns at the thought of it this week.

The new Romanian Elders are fantastic. Seriously, we could not have even asked for better elders. They are so sweet and I am so impressed with them. For sure feel like we are way more blessed by them than they are by Sister Ewell and I. Their names are Elder Rodenberg, Elder Heyrend and Elder Travino. Elder Rodenberg is my age and was actually in my ward in Orlando at the same time, but neither of us remembered each other. It was pretty funny though when we figured out we were there at the same time. Small world.

Soooo... there have been two fire alarm evacuations since Sora Ewell and I came into the MTC. She caused one a few weeks ago with her burnt popcorn, and.... the other was caused by me on Tuesday. Wups. I was doing my service assigment and dusting in the hallways and apparently I was doing a really good job and a lot of dust gathered around the smoke detector and it set off the fire alarm. haha. So the two evacuations have been caused by the two Romanian sisters. So embarrassing.

Things are going really well with our investigators, Nelly, Daniel and Bogdan. I love teaching them and seeing their progress and feeling their spirit. I cannot wait until we get to teach real investigators and see the growth for real. I dont know how I will handle not having Sora Ewell as my companion though. She and I have gotten so used to the way we teach and I am SO lucky to have her as a companion. She has set a high bar for all my companions in the mission field. I am praying we get to be companions at some point in Romania!!

Marlin K. Jensen spoke to us on Tuesday... It was amazing. He gets released from the seventy next month so this was his last visit to the MTC and he just gave us advice. It was actually really cool. We talked about how the church isnt the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Status... haha. And talked all about how it doesnt matter what your calling is and how we are all important in the gospel whether we are a bishop or a librarian. I am not explaining it very well, but it was a really powerful talk. It reminded me of the movie Hugo and how there are not extra parts.. every single part has a purpose, even the smallest ones. I got to take Emma to see that movie last December and when we walked out we were talking about the moral and how everyone has a purpose and she said, "Aunt Aly, even I have a purpose, huh?" and I told her that ESPECIALLY she has a purpose. So tender.

On sunday at mission conference President Brown (the MTC pres) spoke on the importance of our name and how our actions today effect our legacy tomorrow and wherever we go, we will always carry our name with us and the way we conduct ourselves now will follow with us into the next phase of our life. He told a story about president hinkley and how President Hinkley vowed to not be the weak link in the chain of generations in his family. I vowed the same thing and have since made a conscious and prayerful effor to make a good name for myself, one that my children would be proud of. After his talk, it made me really want to study our family history more and do some geneology work. Dad, I know you can help me with that when I get home. I am really excited!!

I know I have lots more to say but it isn't coming to my mind right now, so I will have to send it in my letter home. It's so frustrating because all week I will think of things I want to tell you about and then prep day comes and I can't remember ANY of them. Oh well. Must not have been that important.

Well, ya'll have one more week to send me letters... Make it happen:) Kidding... but seriously.

I love you all so much and you are in my prayers.

Miss you,

Sister Cook

Brother Hodges and his wife