anyway today is my p-day so i will email on fridays until Feb 02 when i leave for canada.
let's see where to begin...
i am in the ADL, meaning the advanced language district. everyone in my district is going to a place where they already speak the language well enough that all of our classes are taught in english. this also means that i'm pretty much the only american in my district haha. in my class there are 4 sisters and 2 elders. they are from guatemala, california/korea, malasia, the netherlands and france. there is also another class in my zone that we do lots of things with that has 3 sisters and 2 elders from africa, tonga, taiwan, tahiti/hawaii, and mexico/texas. what this means is no one gets my jokes. i made a pretty good one yesterday and no one even knew what i was saying. i was the only one laughing! but it is pretty cool to have people from all over, and we speak french and learn other words from other languages and i get teased because i'm "just from tennessee".
wednesday was probably the longest day of my life. we had a meeting with everyone who came in that day to the mtc and then we had to do orientation videos on the computer, and then we were lucky to have a different first day than everyone else because they had a special missionary broadcast that happened that day. i had to pray like every ten minutes that i wouldn't fall asleep haha but it turned out to be an AMAZING broadcast. we got to hear from elder oaks and several other members of the presiding bishopric and the seventy. i learned so many things!
yesterday was our first full day at the mtc and that was weird. there are many great things and many poopy things. the poopy things meaning that we have to sit down for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. personal study and companion study are great but after four hours study and 4 hours of class we have to do another 2 1/2 hours of study and it gets a little boring and i can hardly stay awake. oh well, it will get easier. also they put a little orange dot on your nametag for your first day at the mtc and so everyone knows you are new. the thing about this that is absolutely THE WORST is that everyone at the mtc who sees that you are new YELLS "welcome to the mtc!" at you every time they walk by. i just wanted to run away screaming "leave me alone" but i didn't don't worry.
we have the most wonderful teacher. her name is sister allred and she is so humble and wants to learn just as much as we do. she served in new zealand and i just love her. it's amazing how you can learn for 4 hours and it feels like nothing! i haven't met our other teacher yet, but we are preparing to teach our first investigator, which will happen on saturday.
I LOVE MY COMPANION!!! her name is Sister Dinge (pronounced d- ahhh(nasally like your say ahh to the doctor)nge). she is from france but was born in south africa. she is only 4 months younger than me and probably the most kind and compassionate person i've ever met. she's never been to america before coming to the mtc, but she is SO GOOD at english and very intelligent. i was definitely very blessed by heavenly father to get her. she is also going to the canada montreal mission on the same day as me! we are the only ones in our zone going to the same place! we are able to speak in french and i am learning lots of great slang phrases that i probably won't use, but that's okay. we are supposed to do all of our study for class in english but we are doing half of our companion study in french so i can practice. there are two other girls who came in the same day as us and they are from france learning english so sister dinge and i have had to translate for them during big meetings, and i feel sorry for the sister that sits next to me because i am so slow and don't know a lot of the church words in french yet, but it definitely helps me learn!
i love what we are learning. i feel the spirit so much every day which is kind of tiring, but it is also the most amazing thing. i was nervous about what we would have to learn, but i didn't need to be. everything is so easy to understand and i love feeling the spirit of what i am learning because i know that it is true. i have learned so much that love is the center of everything that we do as a missionary, and that i will be a good missionary if i love because i will want to share the gospel if i love it and i will want to share it with the people that i love. during the broadcast that we watched, i learned how important it is to be here at the mtc even if i don't always like being here. the holy ghost is the true teacher. i need to be completely worthy to have the holy ghost with me at all times to give "les amis de l'église" the perfect opportunity to learn the gospel. however that is not all i need to do. i need to have the knowledge so that the holy ghost can bring it to my remembrance at the time that it needs to be taught to the investigator. i have a lot of work to do, but i am happy to be here.
oh i almost forgot, yesterday sister dinge and i were called to be sister training leaders! i really have no idea what this means yet because i've just read the little handout, but the sister training leaders we have in our branch now are leaving on sunday, so we will have more training and take over then. the current sister training leaders are so happy so i need to work on that because i am definitely not peppy and happy all the time.
there's not much to do here on p-day because we can't leave but we do get to go to the temple after lunch!! and we get to take walks to the temple on sunday.
okay that's all for now. i'll try and have pictures next week.
love,
sister paine
No comments :
Post a Comment