Letters from home

Sarah Pinnock, our oldest granddaughter, is in the Provo MTC preparing for her mission call to the Argentina Bahia Blanca Mission

Our dear Pinnock family with their favorite pets

HELLO HUMANS!!!!!!!

All is well.... In fact I'm great!!!!  I'm loving every second at the MTC and the only thing I wish I could change are all the Ys I see.... GO UTES!  I hope that made Josh smile!  I can eat regular guy food again which is suuuuuch a nice thang but surprisingly I'm not really feeling sugar these days (except for those brownies you made Mom)!   I LOVE LOVE LOVE my district and companions!!!!   Hermana Fries from California and Hermana Tokalogi (pronounced tOk-a-long-E) from Hawaii are two of the funniest, chillest, most spiritual, hard working girls!  Last night I was trying to sleep and I rolled over, opened my eyes and Hermana T was crawling on the ground trying to scare me.  I immediately went into kung fu panda mode and karate chopped her followed by some sweet body slams.  It was the funniest thing... that's the last time either of them will try and sneak up on me.  Guess my fighting skills came in handy, eheh?????  What I love most about us is we work hard and we still have tons of fun!  We've had one mock investigator and trying to teach has been interesting to say the least.  I've spoken what I think is spanish but I'm mostly playing charades.  I'm learning a lot here!!!  We have tons of study time which surprised me but heaven knows I need it.  The Elders in our district are literally hilarious!!!   Mi companions call them the six dwarfs!  There's sleepy, doc, happy, bashful, sneezy/stinky (he is always farting.... I think he has intestinal issues) and dopey.  I don't think a group of humans has ever made me laugh this hard.  David I took your advise and sticky noted our whole room with my district.  One of the Elders is from Australia named Elder Watts so whenever we see him we shout in an Australian accent  "Elda Wattz"!!!  I have seen Gracie J and Elli O hardly at all.  They are on the complete other side of the campus with all the Asians and I'm with all the espanol speakers/wanna be speakers.

Wednesday was literally the funniest day of my life.... never stopped laughing.... like ever these Elders are hilarious.  They remind me of all of Joshy's friends but yesterday was by far the most spiritual.  I made a goal to read the whole New Testament in morning personal studies and I love it!  This is for Joshy - read Matthew Chapter 10.  It's Christ talking to his apostles about missionary work and it totally inspired me!  After being blown away that morning my companions discussed what we should talk about for our new upcoming "investigator".  She is a mother from Chile and her boyfriend goes away to work.  We decided to talk about family and so we all got busy working on finding scriptures for her.  I was looking up scripts from the topical guide that had family references but nothing came so I looked up mothers (mom this is for you).  I first found the Army of Helaman which set the tone but after I looked up John 19.  This chapter talks the crucifixion of Christ.  What I loved about is that the very last thing that Christ did was take care of his mother.  He didn't give up his spirit until he took care of her.  Christ had such a love for women that no one at the time had!  Mom this is me saying I love you!!  Sibils this is me saying GO HUG mom right now because when I read this it was all I wanted to do!  She takes such good care of us it's ridiculous.  When my companions talked about what we had all found it was funny that all our scriptures followed the same line.  It's interesting because even though we were only working with a mock investigator the spirit still lead us to what we should teach.  

Ok, last but not least, my great experience yesterday was in our class when we took turns reading the Book of Mormon in our district.  I started with personal prayers like we do with everything but our teacher (Hermana Plowman= best person) told us to think of a question.  I asked what I could do to speak better and in 1 Nephi chapter one (aka the chapter that ever Mormon has ever read one zillion times) verse 2 (the verse that I've read a million times and never cared a hoot about) I got my answer... to speak in the language of my father or should I say my Heavenly Father or should I say the spirit.... BANG DEAD.  As we kept on reading we stopped and talked about Laman and Lemuel vs. Nephi and Sam.  If you think about it Laman and Lemuel were just a couple of kids that didn't have a good relationship with their dad like a bunch of people we all know.... after all they did do what their father asked eventually.  They went in the wilderness, they went to get the plates, they went on the boat, but I want you think about the real difference.... Their attitudes.  Laman and Lemuel sacrificed while Nephi and Sam consecrated.  It made me think of what I am sacrificing and what I'm consecrating.  Some rules here don't make the most sense and some things are hard to give up like singing a song that's been stuck in your head all week (aka Dan in Real Life sound track).  But I know that the attitude of consecrating makes the whole difference.  This made me think of you Dad!  You don't just make sacrifices but you do it with all you've got!!  I love that about you!  Joshy, when you get out here I hope you think about what you are consecrating instead of what you are sacrificing!  I can't wait to see you!

The people here are amazing but the work is better.  Mi Proposito es invitar a las personal a ver Cristu!  Best thang!!

A few thing for the fam!  Davido I want pics of the art and also info on ladies.... even though I'm on the mission I'm still a girl.... even though I wear velcro shoes now but whatever.... Anyway tell me if there is anyone and remember you have to wait a year and a half because I had a vision you weren't allowed to get married until two Christmases...This isn't me it's the visiOWN.  Ya you know.  Baby girl I would give you advise but I know you’re probably keeping the fam together.

Love you all tons!!!!!  Thanks for all the packages!  I loved the shoes and the mangos!!!!  Oh and tell Grandma P a letter is on the way for her. I’m probably missing something but oh well!

XO me

The Lord is hastening his work!

Hello My People!

Sounds like Joshy, Steve, and Rachel's farewells went great!  Haha look at us... going out into the world, preaching the good word... dang!!

This has been a great week!!!  Really, though, I love it out here.  The MTC is full of the cheese.  People all sharing their emotions and smiling and stuff.  I now get to talk about my feelings and listen to other people over-share about their's.  You know you are in the MTC when you make a goal to make people cry, when your room inspection paper has a scripture reference, when every wall is covered in velcro and when you shout “elder!” and you get about a million people looking back at you.  There is some construction going on outside the MTC grounds right now and they say they are fixing the road but I say it's an electric fence to keep all the humans in... just kidding I know that it's not a prison in here... most of the time.

I was looking at some church art the other day and some guy had a ponytail in the picture so I said, “dang that guy has a nice pony tail".... Little did I know a member of the branch presidency was right behind me.  He came up and was like "let me see" then before he left he whispered, "I used to have a pony tail".  It was so funny!!!  Then he said "Don't tell anyone".... oops.

Well, for the devotional this last Tuesday my companions and I decided to try soprano... again.  It was a mistake.  Little did we know that we sat in the high seprano section on accident and were told to hit a high G..... Instead of singing I just opened my mouth really big and opened my eyes really wide.  What was cool about sitting in the first soprano section was that I had the best view of all the missionaries.  It really is insane.  And to think there are 14 other MTCs that's crazy!!!!!   I've seen a lot of Joshy’s friends including Robby Neff.  I saw Micheal Dellenbach too!!!  Crazy!  This last devotional Ronald G. Hinkley spoke.  My favorite quote is "Stir up the gift of God which is in thee"... nailed it.

So, I will be getting my reassignment this next week!!! Crazy!  The only human that has gotten their VISA to Argentina is the Aussie in our district.  So we all placed bets on where we are going.  I’m guessing Texas, Arizona, Temple Square and Nauvoo.... How cool would it be if I went to Nauvoo mother dear?  The chances are half of us are going to Idaho so ya.  I decided that I like potatoes so if that's where I'm called that's where I want to be.  Way to go IDAHO!

OK, time for spiritual stuff.  I'm learning so much!  Heavenly Father takes such great care of his missionaries!  Like the other day my companion prayed for a taste of home and she legit found a huge box of diet coke in the share box.  Apparently she loves that stuff!  I've seen all the people in my district grow so much it's awesome.  They are the biggest blessing in my life!!!!  In Alma chapter 60 Moroni is chewing out Pahoran for not acting.  In verse seven it says, “Can you sit upon your thrones in a state of thoughtless stupor, while your enemies are spreading the work of death around you?"  Our enemy is the adversary aka Satan aka the devil aka the man in the red PJs holding a trident.  He is working hard so we need to work harder.  Something that I've learned in the New Testiment is that Christ was not politically correct, he wasn't always smiling and he didn't hold back, but he was perfect!  Sometimes the greatest act of love is to come down hard and stand for what you believe.  What we are teaching is true love!  The love to stand up for what's right!  We can't lean upon our own understanding.  We have to trust in Heavenly Father!  He knows things.  I'm sending a challenge home go watch 'Dare To Be Mormon’ online on Mormon Messages.... and read chapter 60 in Alma... do it... it's a good one.

Out here it isn't easy or always fun but I love it!  I love the work, I love my Heavenly Father and I love my Savior Jesus Christ!

XO Hermana Pinnock

P.S.  I heard that Hostess made a come back!  This kid in my district bought a box planning to sell it for a bunch of the dinero haha!!!   Now he's just got a box of twinkies chillin' in his basement!

Sarah and companion sisters