This week was exceptionally normal, except for in-field orientation yesterday, which was basically a day of workshops learning about working with members, effective street-approaches, etc. Apart from that, I'm afraid I don't have too many interesting things to report. Actually, while we were at in-field, the two elders going to McAllen with me met a girl who just had a brother return from that mission and said that he absolutely loved it. Their family actually went and picked him up, and she met the president and said he's amazing. So... Family vacation 2016 in Texas to pick me up? ;)
One thing that WAS cool, is that the speaker for the Tuesday Night devotional was born and raised in Colonia Juarez, Mexico. But he didn't talk about that too much, or I'm SURE he would have mentioned that it was settled by our family and he probably would have asked me to come give my testimony, as the only descendant in the congregation. Okay, probably not, but it was fun to hear about someone who lived there.
On Tuesday morning we had been studying for a couple hours, and then I was getting super hungry (which I usually don't in the morning) and wanted to go to the vending machines in 18M. So the 4 of us Hermanas went, and one of them got something that needed to be microwaved, and so we went into the room with the microwave and there was a guy sitting there and we started talking with him. Turns out that he's the director of 17 languages and he goes around and trains mission presidents. As such, he has a profound knowledge of how to be effective missionaries and he talked to us for over an hour about things he's seen and what's really important in teaching investigators, it was amazing! I learned more in that conversation than almost anything else here at the MTC. He specifically talked about how technology has changed the way we process information, and that we've switched from linear thinking to what he called "google thinking," and how that results in having to teach the gospel differently since the gospel is so linear. He was reading a book that looked super cool, called "Mind Change" by Susan Greenfield (I think?) that was all about how technology is changing our minds. So if anyone is looking for an interesting read, check it out!
We have two teachers right now (Hermana White and Hermano Norton), and Hermana White's last day teaching was on Thursday and it was so sad to leave. I don't know how I'm going to survive leaving my mission if it's already this hard to leave people after 6 weeks. On Thursday night Hermano Norton had us listen to recordings of our first week teaching when we were teaching him as an "investigator." so we heard the very first lesson we gave when we had only been here 2 days, and it was pretty comical. It also gave me hope, though, because we could hear the progress that we've made, and that was cool.
One silly reason I'm excited to be in Texas is for the warmth. I feel like I haven't felt warm ever since I came to the MTC. My skin is always cold, and I am always trying to get warmer. The forecast for McAllen is between 65-90, so I'm pretty sure I'll be cured of feeling cold pretty quickly 
Okay, well I love you all!!! Make sure you don't send anything else to the MTC.. I don't have my address yet, but you can send things to the mission home until I DO get that address (mom has the address of the Mission Home and I'm sure you can find it on Google, too)
My next email will be from Texas - Hallelujah!
Much love,
Hermana Reynolds
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