The End of Week 2 in the MTC...and Only 2 More to Go!!

Sis. Jarvis is now leaving the MTC on Aug. 7.  Here is her latest email....

Da Jia Hao!!

Thank you for the package!!!!  I love the family photos- best ones we have ever had!!!  We also loved the Zucchini bread :) I can't believe I am beginning my 3rd week at the MTC!  According to the last thing I heard, I will be leaving around August 7th which means I have about two and a half more weeks! ahh!  I'm so excited and grateful that I get to leave so early, but I definitely don't feel like I'm to that point yet....although I know I will be :) 

Where to begin!  Well, Chinese is hard....but it's the good kind of hard. well sometimes :)  We have been teaching our teacher's "investigator" in Chinese and the first lessons were so bad.  We just sat with our little study books on our laps and read out of them.  It's been really hard to come from English lessons where we have learned how to invite the Spirit and really cater to the investigator, to where we feel like we can barely communicate our feelings and understand our investigator.  I started to wonder if I would ever be ready to leave the MTC.......I can testify that Heavenly Father does not always make things immediately easier for us, but he helps us through the baby steps.  We had our fourth lesson with our Chinese investigator yesterday and we didn't read out of the books, but just tried to teach and testify with the words we knew.  It actually went a lot better and we felt like we were beginning to make a stronger connection with him.  Things were far from perfect though.....Sister Embley asked him out on a date while she was trying to invite him to church :) haha the beauty of Chinese!  I know it's not supposed to be easy with learning a language, even if you have experience.  We have to work hard and make mistakes or we would never appreciate it when we have experiences when it all comes together.  This is no easy task, but I'm grateful for the opportunity to work at it!  I will be so grateful for the day when I can give a lesson in Chinese like I experience with the Spirit in English. 

We have workshops every Monday in the MTC and I LOVE them!  We practice teaching each other and learn more in depth about what we do when we teach the Doctrine of Christ.  In this week's workshop, we watched the first part of The Restoration and the teacher asked us what the original question was that  brought Joseph to pray.  You know what it was?  It was how does man receive salvation?  We learned that we don't teach these lessons so that people can know about baptism, Joseph Smith, or the Plan of Salvation, but to offer them salvation.  That's the purpose of a missionary:  to help all of these people obtain salvation through teaching them the Doctrine of Christ.  It completely changed my perspective as a missionary!  Another powerful thing I have learned this week is that the Atonement is everything.....literally everything.  The Atonement is the key to salvation and therefore should be the center piece of every lesson.  Our teacher told us we should study and ponder on the Atonement every day so we can gain a stronger testimony of it to bear to those we help and teach.  I think it's amazing that Heavenly Father gives us a lifetime to learn about the Atonement.  I'm so grateful for it and know it is true.  Christ is our Savior and Redeemer and can lift any burden from us- I would not be here without Him.  I feel so inadequate when I teach about the Atonement because I feel that Christ is the only one true teacher of it.  Someone told us this week that through our missionary service, we will be able to experience a very small piece of what Christ experienced during the Atonement. 

We had to leave the MTC twice this week for Dr. appts for Sister Bambrough.  It was fun the first time, but by the second, I didn't want to leave the MTC!  It is such a powerhouse and I feel so comfortable here.  When we were waiting for our shuttle to pick us up from one of the offices, we had a couple people ask us if we were Provo missionaries and then they saw our badges :) haha We decided we were the Chinese speaking Provo missionaries.....we came up with a plan to walk over to the neighborhood next to us and start knocking on some doors.....asking for Chinese referrals or Chinese food.  We're goofs sometimes- my companions are so wonderful! Sister Bambrough became the Coordinating Sister this week and one sister had gallbladder surgery this week, so it was great to help her :)  We laugh all the time together and am so grateful for them!

You know you've become a missionary when:

-You're more comfortable wearing a skirt than jeans

- When you have to sing a hymn while doing wall squats

- When you can't handle doing anything without your companions 

- Letters make you super happy :)

You're all wonderful!!!  I love you so much!!!

Love, Sister J. :) 

The Journey Begins....

The first emails from Sister Jarvis:

June 6, 2012

Hello from the MTC!  This is an incredible place!  It feels like a little mini world- there are Elders and Sisters from countries far and wide studying all sorts of languages.  As soon as the Elders took me yesterday, I didn't even have a chance to think about what I had just left because they immediately take you under their arms.  I had a darling Sister who was my host and took me everywhere I needed to go and due to the red dot on your name tag, everyone welcomes you as you walk by :)  We had a great welcome meeting with the MTC Presidency and their wives yesterday afternoon.  The MTC President, President Brown, went through every country and state where people were from who had entered yesterday.  We have three elders and one sister from Mainland China!  Amazing!  There is also this sweet Sister I met who is from Taichung :)  I love the environment, the Spirit, and the amazing people here!

I was worried I would be the only Sister in my same boat and wasn't sure if I would have a companion or not.  I feel very blessed though because there are two other Sisters who are on the Mandarin fast track and so we are a tri-panion!  They are so great and I already love them- we laugh way too much together ;)  Sister Bambrough is going to Sydney Australia and she went on the Nanjing study abroad this last year!  Sister Embley is going to Manchester England Mandarin speaking( Tell Grandmother and Papa Joe!) and lived in Shanghai for 3 years.  We all feel so grateful to have each other and to be able to work together on Mandarin.  We are in the International District which is for missionaries from Foreign Countries who are serving English speaking or are already fluent in their mission language.  Our District is made up of two Elders from Fiji who are cousins AND who are going to the same mission, we have two sisters from Samoa, one Elder originally from Taiwan, and the other from Brazil......so there are always a plethroa of languages being spoken :)  We had a little testimony meeting last night with our Branch Presidency and the spirit was very strong as everyone bore their testimony and explained why they wanted to come on a mission.  Our District is a very loud group haha.....and my companions and I realized how important patience and love are with 19 year old boys :)  It's such a happy place and it doesn't feel so so different from normal life.  We are all missionaries and representatives of the Savior, yet everyone still has their own personalities and lights.  It was amazing to think as I went to bed last night that I was actually here in the MTC... on my mission.  I thought about the next 18 months and what will and could happen every day.  I feel that is a great privilege and blessing to be here and can not wait to give my very best each and every day.  I have much to learn, but I'm excited!

This morning my companions and I decided to go to the kickboxing class- it felt great to move around!  They also have Yoga and step- aerobics which we are excited for :)  I feel that Heavenly Father was really looking out for me yesterday because I ran into so many people!!  I saw a Sister from my BYU ward, Elder Cowser, Elder Moody, Elder Carver, Elder Valdez from SPAC, Liz Alley who I danced with long ago, one of my roommates old friends, an amazing girl I know from Folk, and then Sister Katie Beus!!  Love it :)  We have our first real class tonight and I can't wait to dive into everything!

Send everyone my love!!!

Write me!!

Sister Jarvis :D

July 13, 2012


I cannot believe I have been in this amazing place for an entire week!  You lose track of the days here because you are always busy- but it's wonderful!  There is so much to say, I don't even know where to begin!


We taught our first lesson last Saturday- kind of scary for me, but we did it :)  I call Sundays at the MTC a triple-double-decker Sunday because it's like going to Church all day, which is awesome :)  All of the Sisters have Relief Society together and they told us that in a few weeks we will be at the highest capacity of Sister Missionaries the MTC has ever had- SO COOL!  The meetings were wonderful and there are so many incredible people here.  One of my favorite meetings of the week was the Devotional on Tuesday.  It by Elder Seuer who used to be a member of the Seventy.....he talked about how our testimonies are our legacies and that missions are a time for God to get to know us better.  We also sang Called to Serve, which is a moment I have been waiting for....it was powerful :)


Sorry, jumping around, but there is so much to say!  My companions and I became really worried Sunday night about whether or not we would be ready to enter the field with only three weeks in a Chinese class.  The 12 week missionaries seemed way more prepared then we were and we wondered if we were in the right place.  We even considered talking to someone about moving- but Heavenly Father was listening :)  One of our roommates talked to us about what she did in our situation to help her language study and we began to feel better.  That night I felt this enormous burning in my bosom that testified to me that I was in the place I needed to be.  I could not deny it!  We had another answer the next day.....they announced our district would be getting split which meant that all of the Chinese speaking missionaries would be in the same class- we were shocked!  We now teach one of our teachers in Chinese and are able to practice the language a lot more than we usually would.  I am not even near a good missionary with Chinese, so I have a lot to do, but I'm here to learn! I know I am where I need to be.  I have learned a lot about faith this week and how vitally important it is to have regarding anything in our lives.  I know I will have to work hard, but when I look to the Lord with Faith, I know He will help me be prepared to teach the people of Taiwan....He has already began to :)


Investigators!  The TRC(Teaching Resource Center) is an incredible place!  There are both volunteer "investigators" and others who are employees.  They told us that some of these investigators are actually really not members.  We have one investigator from Guatemala, named Heley, and we honestly believe she is a real non-member.  In our second lesson, she opened up to us and told us that she has been yearning for something in her life that would teach her more about herself and God....she said she just feels like there is more than what she knows from her Catholic background.  We testified to her that there was, and we are so excited to keep teaching her because she wants to know more and is beginning to believe the Gospel may be her answer!  She has so much Faith and she is a perfect example of a investigator prepared by the Lord :)  We have another adorable little old man we teach, Melvin, who is in-active.  His wife passed away and he lost all his faith in God.  We had a hard time getting started with him, but I had this overwhelming feeling of both God's love and his wife's love for him and as I began to open my mouth, because I was just crying.  I felt like Heaven was in the room..........he reminded me so much of my Grandpa and I could honestly feel the love his Father had for him.  All three of us were crying and testifying - it was a beautiful experience.


I have learned how much Heavenly Father loves each of His children- those who accept Him and those who don't.  He knows each one of them so personally and as missionaries, He allows us to feel the love He has for them so we can testify to them.  The Gospel is incredible....live it, love it, share it!  Love to you all!


Sister Jarvis


P.S.  We love Dear Elders here ;)


P.P.S.  I was told yesterday that I will be leaving in the MTC in 4 weeks with the May 23 group to Taiwan! Ah! Kind of crazy, but it's right so I'm going to do it!  We are trying to do SYL every day now!


Life is good!  It's hard, but it's good!!!  This is all I want to do for the rest of my life!  ok kind of extreme, but seriously :)  My P Day is Fridays!!


Love you all!