Wow! Can you believe that I've already been here for 6 weeks? 3 weeks from now I'll be down in New Mexico starting on the work that I'll be doing for the rest of my mission. How exciting! My flight plans should be coming next week, but I don't know if I'll have them before Wednesday to let you all know next week what day I'm leaving or if you're going to have to wait until the week after.
Well Good Family, you're all here in Utah. I hope you're having a great time. I've been thinking about all of you wishing I was there with you, but at the same time there isn't anywhere else that I'd rather be. I am loving it here at the MTC. The language is coming well. My teachers are amazing. The food... well, it's starting to get old. But I do enjoy the ice cream bar every Wednesday and Sunday! I hope to receive lots of pictures of everyone, so dad you'd better have your camera handy to fulfill that request. You should have gotten several pictures from me that I sent to grandma's house... last Friday I believe. There will be some more coming before I head to New Mexico.
Okay, now for my weekly run-down.
Wed: Went to the temple. I love Wednesday mornings. There's nothing better than waking up and going to the temple first thing. We got 2 new roommates, one from Sandy and one from St. George going to the Maryland Baltimore mission--English speaking. Yeah, they'll be gone before we are. The English speaking missionaries who arrive today will be leaving at the same time we do. I also had 2 friends come in--Elder Rice (choir in high school) and Sister Todd (neighbor from school). It's always nice to see familiar faces. We had the TRC that night and I'm going to brag for a minute. It was the first time we'd taught in Spanish and it was the best lesson we've taught. We met all of our goals, our Spanish wasn't too horrible (yeah there's some words we struggle with, but we'd only been here for 5 weeks!). It was pretty exciting. After the TRC we had our new teacher who I think I mentioned last week, teach for the first time. Hermano Jarman has only been home from his mission to Spain for 4 weeks now. He is an amazing teacher! I loved Hno. Erickson, but he's been home from his mission for going on 5 years and has lost that "new missionary" fire. Not gonna lie, it's making me wish I could see all of my friends who are getting home from their missions in the next few weeks. If you are home already, welcome home! Send me a letter so I can hear all about your missions!
Thurs: We played lightning and volleyball for gym. I really enjoy gym here, and I guess it doesn't hurt that I've gotten over my fear of balls :) Hermana Waldrop y yo were setting up appointments for the TEC and realized that when we set up appointments tomorrow they will be for the last week that we are here! Holy cow has time flown by! The hermanas in our zone wanted to audition to sing "The Olive Tree" for Relief Society or one of the firesides. We practiced it Tuesday night and auditioned last Thursday morning. There were a few places that were a little rough, but the sister conducting the auditions said that she would like to use us so practice throughout the week and come back this week. We'll be doing that again in the morning. I also got a letter from the ward. That was nice.
Fri: We taught 4 lessons. I know, right? We were teaching machines! One of the lessons was a total flop, but the rest weren't too bad. Hno. Jarman handled the class for the first time himself. Coming from an educator's standpoint, I am very impressed by his teaching skills. He communicates what he wants to teach in a very powerful way, and really brings the Spirit into the class. He made all of us hermanas cry. We sang as a zone for the last time with District A that night. We also had the Large Group Meeting on how the Book of Mormon is everything. If someone doesn't gain a testimony of the BOM, they're not going to gain a testimony of anything else. It was a really good discussion. I really enjoy going to those.
Sat: We played volleyball during gym. Have I mentioned that it's one of my favorite sports to play... okay, my only favorite since I have absolutely no skills? We taught the first 3 principles of lesson 2 to some of our newest elders. We have been focusing so much on lesson 1 that we haven't really taken time to learn the vocab. for lesson 2 yet so it was a little rocky, but we did okay. We'll start hitting that vocab. hard tomorrow. Hermana Crook's mom sent us all some address labels that she printed up with our mission addresses on them. (I guess she went on the internet to find my address since the other 3 have the same address). That was really thoughtful of her. Note to self: send her a Thank You card.
Sun: We had to say goodbye to District A, or half of them heading to Paraguay. The rest of them were delayed because of visas, but are leaving tomorrow for Argentina. Don't ask which mission because I can't remember. We had them give our musical number in Sacrament Meeting. Thanks to them, all of the hermanas and branch presidency wives were in tears. They sang God Be With You Til We Meet Again en Espanol. After Sacrament, we went back up to the class and took pictures with them. It will be fun to find them all on facebook and get in contact with them when they get home, since I'll be back before they do. Oh, and my district and District B are now the oldest districts in our zone. How weird is that? Probably more so for me than for anyone reading this. Our Relief Society speaker was Sis. Pamela Norby from the Relief Society General Board. We had a fireside on charity and missionary work then watched the Joseph Smith movie. Hermana Waldrop y yo went back to our classroom to get our bags after the movie and found a bunch of compliments for each of us hermanas on the board. We'd set a new district goal to give each other compliments every day because some of our elders tend to be a little sarcastic in not such a good way at times. We were quite impressed. Yes, I took pictures. We wrote them thank you’s that night that we left on their desks Monday Morning.
Mon: I got quite a few letters. I got the weekly letter from my family which always makes me smile and a dearelder from Mom with Aunt Linda's letter. It made me smile to see that she'd mentioned Sister Meyer, who I also got a letter from. I also got a letter from Aunt Marion. Also, thanks for the pictures of my puppy. Do you like how I call him "mine"? I miss that little furball, though it doesn't look like he's such a little furball now. Where is he this week while you're all down here in Utah?
Tues: We had a couple of teaching appointments that went pretty good. We were preparing for our TRC that we have tonight, teaching the first lesson again in Spanish. Tomorrow the focus turns to the second lesson for the rest of the time we have here. While we were on our way to one of those appointments I saw Elder Jenkins who informed me that he was leaving the MTC at 5:30 for the airport. He will be a great missionary and do wonderful things in the Philippines!
I also saw Elder McRae as we were on our way back from one of those teaching appointments. I guess he leaves next Wednesday. We practiced our song for our audition tomorrow. President Peters heard us practicing and told us that we need to sing it in sacrament meeting. Okay, not a hymn so not one I'd choose to sing, but I also know better than to go against the wishes of the branch president. Our devotional speaker was Elder Lowell Snow from the 2nd quorum of 70. He gave a really good talk as well. I'd love to tell you about it, but I am out of time. I love you all and look forward to hearing from you and seeing pictures from the reunion. Have a wonderful time!
Love, Hermana Good
You look so dang cute as a missionary. You are going ot be such an awesome missionary. People are gonna fall in love with your spirit and love of the gospel.
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