"holla family and friends!!
well it has officially been 8 days of me being in the mtc! i feel like so much has happened and i have so little time to tell you. but first off i was to start by saying gracias gracias gracias to everyone for your letters and packages!! I couldnt believe how many people sent stuff. i feel loved and appreciate all of it!!! Did you get my letter i sent on the first day? I didnt get any responses so i wasnt sure if you ever recieved it. well... i love the mtc!! it was kind of hard to get used to at first because of the strict schedule from 6:30 to 10:30 at night but it is great and althought i feel tired a lot I am getting used to it and it is great. well my district consists of 4 elders and 4 sisters. which i dont think is very common but it is awesome! if you had asked me a week ago how my district was i would have told you that we were all kind of quiet and reserved but 1 week letter and everything is different. my district is crazy!!! we have a lot of fun and get along really well. we are all going to my mission but one elder is going to columbia bogota.
My companions name is hermana hamman and i absolutely love her!! she is from twin falls, idaho we get along so well and i honestly couldnt ask for a better companion. we have a lot in common and she is hilarious and we are always laughing. During gym time we have been run/walking around the track together and it has been so great to have someone that will work out with me. My teachers are hermano brown and hermana cannon and they are both AMazing!! i feel so lucky to have them as teachers! they both returned from their missions not too long ago and have so much to teach us and so many stories to tell us. it is awesome! one of the things they do a lot at the mtc is role play. and role play = my biggest fear!! but our teachers are always thinking of investigators they taught on their missions and they pretend to be them while we try to teach them. i have slowly gotten to feeling more comfortable with it but i really do know that it is the best way for us missionaries to learn and grow to be good missionaries when we get to the field. it is crazy to think how much i have already learned in the 8 days of being here. we are literally in the class all day and sometimes we get crazy after being their for too long but we call it home and our district is a little family. we went to the LRC on tuesday for the first time and i am not going to lie i was scared out of my mind. this is where they give you a fake investigator and you have to teach them. our task was to introduce ourselves and talk to them for a little bit in spanish and then teach the lesson in english. it ended up being not to bad, i know i have a lot to work on but i think that it is great practice to get used to what it is really going to be like. on sunday they asked all of us to try our best to get up in church and bare our testimonies in spanish. I was just sitting there thinking i have been here for 3 day.. how am i suppose to do that?!? so i tried my best to learn as much as i could to bare it and then because of time i didnt get to bare it but i now can attempt to bare my testimony and pray in spanish.
Another thing that our branch does is every sunday they just randomly select an elder and a sister to speak that day. they tell us the topic the week before and we have to prepare our talk to possibly give the next sunday in spanish. this week is it on the holy ghost and i am attempting to write this talk in spanish but it is difficult because i dont know spanish but i just have to remember that we are all learning spanish and if anyone makes a mistake we all understand. learning spanish gets super stressful at times because we hear all of the missionaries that have been here way longer than us speak all of this spanish and we dont understand a word they are saying but i just have to remember it has only been a week and continue to learn as much as i can. i have officially seen everyone i know at the mtc. i ran into sister horsepool on sunday, sister farley several times and two other friends from idaho sister cheney and sister gormely many times. it really makes my day when i see familiar faces! when i see sister horsepool (going to russia) and sister cheney ( going to japan) i realize how grateful i am to be learning spanish and not those languages.
Today is p-day and we got to go to the temple this morning. ahhh i cant tell you how amazing that was!! it was so nice to walk off campus and feel the peace of the temple. i thought of mom a lot while i was there because i was always going with her and i was missing that but going as a missionary was wonderful and i know that i am going to be looking forward to every thursday because of that. haha life is good! i am happy to be here and i know i am suppose to be here right now! i am learning so much and i am excited to learn so much more!! i miss you all and you better keep writing because to a missionary a letter is just a ray of sunshine in the day! love you lots!!!
love,
Hermana Van Wagenen
p.s. everyone has a difficult time pronouncing my name!! haha"
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