Week 1

FAM!!!! I logged on and no emails....what is this? remember me....your favorite daughter/sister!! Your long lost friend who you saw last week but it feels like months ago!

When we got here the first day was so overwhelming!!!!!!!!!! Everyone told us to make it to Sunday than it gets easier....and it's monday!!!!!!!!! We did it! Thanks to everyone who has written me so far, it is so nice to get mail. We get mail twice a day, our district leader checks it at lunch and dinner, so dearelder is the best because you could send a lil something somethin ereday (hint hint). Everyone here says the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days. I can see how that is true the days feel so long. At night we will be talking about stuff that we liked or what ever and we will have to ask ourselves wait was that today?! That feels like last week!

So basically this is how describes the MTC or CCM en espanol.... spanish is HHHHHHHAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRDDDDDDDDD!! My companion (Hermana Walker) and I are by far the worst in the class lol. But we feel lucky that we got a companion who doesn't know anything either because we cannot rely on each other at all. We both feel the responsibility and nerves to learn it all before we go into our investigator. What is cool about knowing absolutely nothing is the gift of tongues is more noticable. I had a cool experience. So really, spanish is so hard if I didn't mention that already. My companion and I seriously know nothing so we are starting from the very basic. Our district is 4 Elders and 4 Hermanas. The 4 Elders all have a little background in Spanish so they are doing well and one Hermana knows quite a bit so she and her companion are doing fine. And then there is us, we are working our guts out! Every spare minute we are studying flashcards and learning phrases. We didn't go to the Sudnay night movie yesterday to study. And yet we still know so little haha. It's funny because we pray in spanish together now and we only know how to pray for a few things, so we pretty much thank Him for our companion and our families and the atonement, then thing ask for is the gift of tongues. So anyway the cool experience was on Friday I just felt like crying during class. We have two 3 hour blocks of class a day. Nothing in perticular just needed to cry haha. But I was trying to stay focused...because I have to focus really hard because our teacher only speaks spanish. She is so nice though. We were learning how to testify. She told us to practice a few phrases, I was tempted to just sit there and take a personal minute. But I decided to practice even though I didn't feel like anything was getting absorbed into my brain. Then she told us to write down our testimony, I tried to write it down from my brain not just copy phrases from the book. I was able to do it. Then she said we were going to have a testimony meeting. We knelt to pray and then nobody got up....so for some reason I felt like I should even though I am the worst in the class! And I got up there and bore my testimony without any problems and I knew what I said!! It was really awesome. The rest of the class memorized their paper that they wrote their testimony on but I just got up there and tried to say what I wanted to say. Then I understood everyone elses testimony. At the end Hermana Verwer, our teacher, testifed that the gift of tongues es real! It is so cool when she says it and the spirit was so strong. Then I had an interview with her right after that and she asked me how I was doing and I expressed how spanish is hard! And she told me that grammatically, my testimony was perfecto! She said that is awesome but that isn't even what matters, it was also very powerful.

So I know it will come little by little. We feel like if we are working our hardest the Lord will bless us when we need it. We are not comparing ourselves to the others in the class and are getting excited over little, and I mean tiny haha, things. We also laugh at ourselves a ton because we are always messing up! We had to teach an investigator our third day here...haha we were soooo nervous and scared!!! His name is Jose, and we just love the guy. Even though he is not real haha we are trying to pretend he is. So he is volunteeer, but he is a progressing investigator. So we don't just teach him once, he comes back everyday so its like we are teaching someone for real. Our first visit was hilarious! We were so nervous , we asked him the questions we had prepared to get to know him but couldn't understand anything he said so we just said "si" and "bien" a lot haha. And he asked us a question and we heard donde so we thought he was asking us where we were wfrom so we answered haha and then he said somehting but we udnerstood that is not what he asked. He also invited us in because we forgot how to ask if we coudl come in so we said hola and then just stood there in silence!! HAHAHA! We just laugh a the way down the hall after we teach cause we make so many mistakes, Jose probably cracks up after leave. I prayed at the end of the lesson and I'm pretty sure I said we ask thee for when I was really thanking him. But one thing I have learned is what makes a successful missionary is bringing the spirit. So even though we did not have the words to extend any committments and the words we said and the words in the prayer were totally wrong, I felt the spirit. Haha so we just cried for a minute together.

Oh...so cool!! Every sunday and tuesday nights domingo y martes is MTC devotional. Last night guess who showed up.....Elder Ballard! It was an awesome deveotional! It was just a boost. Our MTC president spoke first and he sounds a lot like Pres. Hinckley so I love listening to him. Then Elder Archuleta sang which was super awesome, especially since he sang one verse in spanish and I understood it. Then Elder M. Russell Ballard got up and just blew us away. What I basically got from it was human interaction in missionary work is one of the most important things. missioanries will never be replaced by just technology. So connecting with the investigator our countenances and attitudes and using our personalities and creativity and being ourselves is part of missionary work. That made me feel like I could make a difference. He said we are not asking you to be perfect, we are just asking you to do the things we've told you to do. So we know we need all the blessings we can get and all the help so we are in bed with lights out at 10:29 and up at befoere 6:30.

The food is great, I feel like we are always eating though. It is hard to make good choices cause so there are so many. Gym is the best! We had fun playing speed and four square this week. We are the only sisters in our whole branch. And I haven't met anyone going to my mission yet..:( I am just praying that I will get sent to a spanish speaking area very first so I don't lose the spanish I've learned.

The elders in our district are funny. Two really don't get a long and i sit right by them...so I get a little entertainment during the day.And I've seen a lot of people I know here.

Thank you thank you for writing me!!! It is so nice to get a little pick me up during the day! doing well love you guys!!!!!!! hope you are doing welll!!! please write often even if it is just a little hey. 18 months seems pretty long right now...but I am taking it one day at a time. I love the MTC so far! I only get 30 mins on comp so sorry if typos or deosn't make sense it all just came out when i sat down!!

LOve,

Hermana Mulliner