Friends!!! Je suis une missionare!!!! I don't even know
where to begin though...
I know what the MTC is like now. It's a place where girls
and boys come together to kill their brains, cry, laugh, eat food, sleep in
little bunk beds with tiny blankets, and flirt a lot!! That was surprising to
me, I thought we were done with the other gender but nope. ;) lol. The spirit
here is strong. tres forte. aaaaaand.. I don't know French. the teachers do not
speak English to you. I feel like I'm trying to get a drink out of a fire hose
and all the water goes everywhere except for my mouth and falls on the floor
all around me. I guess I'm here to pick up the broken pieces... i mean drops.
hahaa but wow is it fun!!
My companion's name is sister brianne mendenhall. Shout out
to Tait Drans for putting us in contact before our missions!! She is the
sweetest person I've ever met and the two of us make up our own little district
because we are the only missionaries going to tahiti who came this week. So we
have a room all to ourselves and let's just say that we may need to focus a
little more and stop talking so much to each other and having so much fun.
She's just dang cool. She's pretty much the same person as me (yes I'm saying
that I'm dang cool too). Like, we will be walking and suddenly looka t each
other and say "do you know where we are going?" "no. i was following
you." then we laugh hard.
she loves traveling, singing, she plays the violin, she
already knows french and that's helpful because then she can teach me. This is
what she's like- I was saying my prayers the first night here for a long time
(because the first night I needed a lot of heavenly support. ps prayer is my
favorite hobby since getting here), and when I finally looked up, she was just
standing by the light switch and staring at it. Just looking at it forever.
Then she turned around and saw me looking at her and flipped it off, saying
"I didn't want to startle you while you were praying!" hahahahahaha
oh my goodness I keep laughing about it.
The branch presidency made me the district leader even
though I'm a sister ("inspiration of alphabet"), which means they
handed me a lot of papers and schedules and now I can pick up mail for
us.
Our French zone is insane. Like literally I'm pretty sure
some of the missionaries in my zone have some crazy condition hahaha it's so
funny to watch. the elders flirt with each other more than the girls. Elder
larsen played the tuba and danced in a hip hop class, Elder Johnson can smash
an apple with his face (but now he can't because we got in trouble), one other
elder modeled at USU and I don't remember a ton of names because I'm such a
little baby new girl, another elder loved hi chews like they are his children.
Ok but I love them. I love everyone here so much, it's like
a little college of loving and language and the gospel. We shall see how 9
weeks here turns out!
I don't know how to make pictures appear on this
screen.
Love you all. :) wish me luck we are about to teach our
first "investigator" and I don't speak French.
Im so sorry I can't reply to other emails right at the
moment because I'm already over my time. But I love you all so much I'll get
better at time management!!!
This week I think I went through enough emotions to fill up
an entire year. Every feeling you could possibly feel, including insanity, I
felt. hahaha it was fun. There's never a boring moment. Ok actually there are
lots of boring moments but you're too stressed out to really call them
"boring."
Here's some details:
I accidentally prayed to "Pere Noel," or in
english "Father Christmas." Hope Santa brings me lots of presents
this christmas.
I played a lot of volleyball.
Elder Oaks came and spoke to us! I love that man. :) and all
general authorities! wow it was awesome.
There's a lot of crying in the MTC. What is this place? I
don't know because I spend much of the time in a little itty bitty classroom
trying to remember some french words and figuring out how to teach. Teaching is
truly a different language. So really I'm learning 3: french, tahitian, and the
language of the spirit. I hope I can become humble enough to succeed in this
because truly I can't do it by myself. that's quite evident already. But for
every difficult moment, there is a huge blessing that seems to come directly
afterwards, I have noticed. Thank you, everyone, for your prayers and support
on my behalf because I promise I am feeling it. :) There are tender mercies around
every single corner of my life right now and that is one thing that is easy to
see.
for example, last night, our first "investigator"
(we do role playing) told us that our teaching was impersonal and that he
didn't quite understand the concepts. This was after a discouraging language
lesson where I couldn't understand anything about anything, and then my zone
made a goal to speak only french for the rest of the night. I did it and it was
taxing as heck. Can't figure out how to say anything with the vocab of a very
spiritual Tarzan. it's so crazy that a language has so many words and rules!
It's also quite incredible. I have this love hate relationship with french
right now. But anyway, we paused the video of our investigator halfway through
after he said that and Soeur Mendenhall and I just broke. We had tried so very
hard to let him know that we cared and that he was loved by us and by God. Our
amazing teacher (who is Tahitian), Frere taoa, told us that teaching was more
about asking the right questions than anything. So we made some goals in our
teaching to bring the spirit more and focus on the fact that this is not about
us, but about the person and how they understand throguh the holy ghost.
The rest of the video was ok and he said he wants to keep
taking lessons and he sees a change in his life, but we still cried a lot. Then
Soeur Mendydoodle (as I call her) said the most profound prayer I've ever heard
before. It was so sincere and amazing. Right after she finished, a couple of
elders in our zone walked into our room, chatted for a minute, and then asked
"do you need anything? we felt like we should just stop in." wow The
Lord knows how to direct his servants. They gave us some really awesome
blessings and then we felt so happy and ready to be missionaries again! I love
the priesthood.
Then after that, some girl in our building put a burrito in
the microwave for 20 minutes instead of 2 minutes (#legobatman. shout out to my
fam because they will understand that) and the fire alarm went off! hahaha it
was so funny because all these girls were showering and had to run outside with
soap still in their hair! We had a good time last night standing outside of our
smoky burrito building. The MTC is a funny place.
I love what I'm doing and what I'm learning. :) Love all of
you! Thanks again.
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