04.21.11

Hola!!!!! 
How is everyone doing? I feel like I havent heard from people in a while. Is everyone still alive? :) oh wait my district leader just literally gave me the letters from ky and mom. Thanks for those! Mom I cant wait to hear about efy and see pictures from what you were saying about preparing it sounds like it was amazing! and ky thanks for the letter I absolutely loved the cute little pic and I am excited that you finally got some new "spreading" :) you will have to send me a pic. Everyone else that reads this Update me!! :) You only have 11 more days to write me then who knows what mail is going to be like when I get to argentina. I am starting to kind of freak out that I only have 11 more days in the mtc, this means that I only have 11 more days where I can even speak english because once I get to Argentina it will be todo espanol. ahhh!!!! I have so much to learn. Speaking of learning spanish we had an AMAZING experience here at the mtc this past week. As you know we have a fireside every sunday and then a devotional every tuesday normally it is just some random speaker, we have had a couple of the quorom of the 70 but this past tuesday was a little different. We never know who the speaker is going to be until they walk onto the stage at 7 pm to start speaking so this past tuesday we could all just feel this different spirit around the mtc and as we all sat in the gym with anticipation to know who we would have the opportunity to hear from we all knew that it was someone special and lucky enough we had the amazing opportunity to hear from Elder Scott! I was so stoked especially after his amazing talk at conference. He talk was pretty incredible but the one thing that stood out to every single person listening was when he asked all of the missionaries who was learning a new language and as the majority of the room raised their hands he then said something similar to this: "In the authority of the apostleship I invoke upon you the blessing of the gift of tongues for those who are striving. He said: you will recieve additional help and support. I confer this gift upon you. you still have to study but I think you will find it easier." I'm sure you can only imagine the spirit at that moment in time. It was truly incredible to hear an apostle of the lord invoke this blessing upon us. It just gave me hope that through the lords help I WILL be able to learn this language. :) 
     This week was also kind of an interesting week because last thursday my companion and I walked into our classroom to our Branch president standing there telling us that he needed to talk to all of the sisters in our district. (there are 4 of us) He ended up saying that due to some things going on they were going to have to switch up our companionships. I was devasted!! I absolutely love my companion. We get along so well, we teach so well together, and we know how to have fun but also focus and study. I did not want to let that go but the other sisters in our district have a horrible companionship. They dont get along at all and they are always arguing, i guess they thought that if they switched us up that things would be better. After a long day of thinking I had to switch companions they ended up telling us that we were just going to have companionship exchanged for two days so we were apart for 2 days and luckily we are happily back together and hopefully companions for the rest of the mtc! So things are good at the moment. :)
     Another exciting moment of the week is that yesterday (wednesday) I was able to be a new missionary host, meaning we bacically take the new missionaries around to check in. As I was standing there with sister horsepool waiting for a sister to arrive I look over by the cars and see the Foggs dropping Meghan off. I literally sprinted over there, I was so excited!!!! I got to see them for a minute and then sister horsepool and I took Meghan around the mtc and got her all checked in and in her class. I think she was excited to see someone she knew and I was excited to see her. She lives with two of the sisters in my zone so I think I will see her a lot which is cool!

   Well I dont know if I can think of anything else at the moment but like usual right when I get off of this I will probably think of something else I can tell you. but some exciting news is I signed my visa on tuesday and I should be getting my travel plans today!!!! yipee!!! we are all getting so excited, I know I have so much to learn still but I am excited to finally get to argentina and teach people the gospel. Its exciting to hear other peoples mission stories but I am ready to creat my own mission stories!! :) oh I met my second cousin. the other day when we had our argentina meeting for signing our visas I heard his name because grandma had told me his name and so I went up to him and told him that I thought we were related and he just kind of looked at me funny cause he had no idea what i was talking about and just said oh cool. so umm ya that was an interesting experience. haha Well i think that is all for now! i love you all. keep writing me, letters really do keep me going! and know that I am doing great and becoming closer to my savior everyday! it really is an exciting and happy time of my life. I will send pictures home today. hope everyone is doing great. have a wonderful day and i love you lots!!

 

love,

Hermana Van Wagenen

 

P.S. Heather I swear you are super popular, today at the temple some girl came up to me and said she knows you. I guess you were in the same ward this semester.. i didnt get her name though. haha but really i have met so many people that know you. oh and I hope finals went well and drive home safely tomorrow! i will be thinking about you!!

 

04.14.11

Holla again!!!

como estan? I swear these weeks fly by I literally feel like I was just sitting on this computer writing an email but aparently that was a week ago. I have some exciting news!!!! Tomorrow we have a meeting where we will be getting our visas!!! and then tuesday we have another meeting to get our visas signed!!!! guess what that means??? we will be leaving on time! I was literally so excited when I found out. I think next week we will be getting our travel plans to leave. Ahhh i am so excited but at the same time feel so not ready for that! On monday we will be the oldest district in the zone. that is honestly hard for me to believe but it is the truth! :)

     Some things that happened this past week... well on sunday the BYU mens choir came and sang for our devotional and it was incredible! We are so used to always having speakers that it was a cool little change to have a musical fireside and wow do they sing amazing! Nick Nelson is in the choir so it was fun to see a familiar face up there. oh and heather I saw your friend ummm I cant think of his name ohhh andrew!!  I saw him across the room on sunday and I ran over to say hi to him. and then he ended up sitting by me at the fireside so I talked to him for a little bit and he was teaching me some of his thailand language. Its funny how I am seeing all of these people that are heathers friends. For devotional on tuesday Elder Rasband spoke to us and he talked a lot about the importance of having the spirit with you always. It is so important that as you are teaching lessons that you are feeling the spirit because that is how the investigator is going to be converted is through the spirit. THis is something that I have really realized since being here and as I hear new missionaries teach lessons I realize how much I have grown since being here. It really is amazing the difference in lessons when you are truly focusing on the investigator and not focusing on the lesson you should be teaching. Hermana Hamman and I had a really cool experience this past week with one of our lessons. We have a progressing investigators whos name is Carolina (she is our teacher Hermana Cannon acting like one of the investigators she had) and a couple of weeks ago we asked her to be baptized and she said she wanted to!! which was ways exciting, my first baptism on my mission!! :) ( ok so maybe its fake.. but still) but anyways as we would plan for her lessons we just felt like she really didnt understand the things we were teaching her and why she was being baptized so this past week as we planned for our lesson with her. We took a long time to plan and really just focused on her and asking her questions and reading the book of mormon with her. and after the lessons she just stopped and looked at us and asked "how did you think to teach your lesson like that" and we both just looked at each other really confused and said we just really wanted to focus on asking questions and she said that is the best i have ever felt during one of your lessons! how exciting it was for us to know that our investigator felt something good from our lesson! A couple of weeks ago I was just really feel down on my self with my spanish and just feeling like I dont ever feel the spirit when I am teaching my lessons in spanish but this past week that changed a little bit and as I started to focus on the investigator and not think about how horrible my spanish is that spirit was so strong. There is still so much I have to learn. I really dont know any spanish but I just continue to try my best and to work as hard as I can and just have faith that the lord will help me along the way. Missionary work truly is incredible. In relief society on sunday the speaker said, "Our mission is the mtc for the rest of our lives!" how true is that. My mission is preparing me for the rest of my life. I just think everyday how grateful I am for the opportunity that I have to be on a mission, I know that it is helping me in so many ways and it will help me for the rest of my life. I am glad that I listened to the spirit when I was told that I needed to go on a mission because I know that is was so true. Thanks for all of your amazing examples in my life! I think everyday how greatful I am for my family and friends back home. I love you so much and pray that you are all doing well. Keep updating me because i am not kidding when I say I want to know what is going on at home and in the real world. I love you all so much!!!

 

con amor,

Kara :)

 

p.s. efy is this next week right? have so much fun at efy!!! and I better get updates on it!!!!

04.07.11

Holla my family and friends!!

I cant believe that it has already been a week since I last wrote. Time is going to fast and I am just getting scared/ excited as the day of me leaving the mtc gets closer and closer. Just a few weeks ago we were the new ones/ babies of the zone and now our branch president is calling us the older district. Where has the time gone. Ahhh!!!!

Well this past weekend was conference. Wasnt it just amazing!! It was so cool to have the opportunity to watch conference here at the mtc and as a missionary. It was the first time I have watched every session of general conference with no distractions and just full attention on conference. and what a cool opportunity to watch it with so many missionaries. We all gathered in the gym as we watched 8-10 hrs of conference. I absolutely loved Elder richard g. scotts talk as he talked about his wife and his love for her. It was just the sweetest most sincere talk ever and I also absolutely loved as Jeffrey R. holland testified of pres monson saying he knows that he is called of god. I just felt the spirit so strong while he testified and i just got an overwhelming love for pres monson and I just knew that he really is called of god and he is our modern day prophet on the earth today.

This past monday was no english day meaning we had to speak spanish all day! Ahh it was crazy, our district has decided that every monday is going to be all spanish day. It was pretty funny because if someone that actually knew spanish heard us speaking they would laugh because nothing we say is conjugated correct or said right but we still all understand each other and i think it really is good because i have realized that really the only way that we are going to learn this lanugage is by speaking it as much as possible and just practicing the things that we learn. Memorizing only does so much but just speaking is what is going to help me learn.

This past week I met several people who had connections with fresno one is really good friends with lyndons fiance. she is going to taiwan and she went to school in hawaii and she also knows beau and mckenzie fogg. I also met this sister who is going to france i think and she lived in fresno for a couple of years and she knows several people i know like matt termeer and michael green. The mormon world is so small it is so cool to find people that you have connections with. Grandma bonnie said that i have a 2nd cousin that just got here in the mtc. I will have to be on the look out for him. It would be interesting to find him. The other day I met a sister that is from Resistencia!!! it was seriously the coolest thing ever!! She is serving her mission on temple square english speaking and she doesnt know very much english right now so it was kind of hard to communicate with her but it was so amazing!! she was so sweet and so excited to here that i was going there. She tried to tell me all about resistencia as we spoke in our little spanish/english we knew. i am going to find her again because she made me so happy and made me so excited to get to argentina to meet the people there.

Well i prob have a ton more i can say but my companions are waiting for me so i better go. I love you all tons. It is amazing how much my testimony has grown in there 5 weeks of being here. I love this gospel so much and couldnt imagine my life with out it. The church is so true and I know that pres monson is a true prophet of god. Read the book of mormon it is incredible. love you lots!!

 

love, hermana vanwagenen

 

p.s. keep the letters coming! they are like gold while on a mission!! ( i am not kidding! )

picture time.

yay for pictures! Kara sent us these and wrote her own little commentary on each one, they made me laugh! ha:)

"Fresno people in MTC (I look super awkward)"

"My district! 1st temple walk 3/6/11"

"Elder Grimes and I"

"Hermana Tonga and Hermana Hammon. I love these two, I look kind of special.. but oh well."

"P-DAY! Hermana Hammon and I 3/10/11"

"All of the sisters in my zone after the temple 3/10/11"

"My companion Hermana Hammon and I, temple walk 3/13/11"

"Sister Cheney and I (friend from Idaho)"

03.31.11

hola again!!

I cant believe that I am already here on the computer again writing another email home. The weeks really do just fly by. I have already been here for a month. which means I am about half way through. crazyness. I dont feel in any way ready to leave here. Yesterday my class fully immersed in spanish, meaning if we need to say or ask something it has to be in spanish. so pretty much i just dont talk. I am realizing that I really need to focus hard on my spanish because I have so much to learn. We taught our first lesson in spanish last saturday and man can I just say that it was a total bust. It is such a struggle when we are teaching an investigator and there is something i want to tell them so bad but I just can figure out how to say it in spanish. Pray for me because I need all the help I can get with this spanish.

                    My district was the new people in the zone for 3 weeks and finally last week we got a new district and then yesterday we got another one. So we are officially not the new missionarys anymore. It is awesome!!! I feel so much older than them. its kind of weird here because ages doesnt exist. like the fact that I am 21 and the elders are 19 doesnt even matter, its all about who has been at the mtc longer. All of the district that have been here longer than me just seem so much older. The two new districts we got are ALL elders meaning NO sisters. it is kind of sad. Although the elders are great I love having other sisters and once the district above us leaves the four of us sisters in my district will be the only sisters in the zone. We are now the 2nd oldest district in the zone. man its hard to believe.Have I talked about how every devotional we all sing called to serve together and it is incredible to hear 2000 missionaries sing it. The spirit it always so strong when we all sing it but last sunday at the fireside we stood up and sang it with all our might and it was amazing. Everyone was just so excited because that is what we are doing, we are called to serve. Every sunday night we have a fireside and every tuesday night we have a devotional and it is always exciting to see who is going to come. It is usually someone in the quorum of the seventy which is great!! Last sunday my companion and I were asked to give a lesson for our district meeting and we were asked to teach on charity. It was such a great opportunity to read more on charity and to realize what an important characteristic it is to have. Charity is something we all need to strive to have more of. but anyways our girlie/relief society came out of us and we decided to give a handout with our lesson and my companion just happened to have some little containers of play-doh and we named it "chari-doh" and wrote on it "sculpt yourself to be more like christ" i think our district was pretty excited its always fun to have a little handout.

                 Dad sent more brownies this week! haha when I got the package and saw that it was brownies i couldnt wait to show my district. They were all excited and I was able to share them with brother brown this time and we all quite enjoyed the brownies. I even shared some with Evan and Dylan. its such a treat to be able to see them everyday and practice our spanish with each other. Yesterday at lunch the mtc president President Brown randomly came and sat by us at lunch. He was quizing us at sciptures we knew and asking where scriptures were about the atonement. It was super intimidating and I realized how much a still need to learn. Today for study im planning on finding scriptures. He threatened to call me up during a devotional to test me. ahhh scaryy!!!!!

well the time is blinking and i have 2 minutes. my heart is racing. i love you all and miss you lots. have a wonderful day!!!

love,

hermana vanwagenen

ps i still havent seen sister martin. i am looking for her everywhere. christa should try to figure out her schedule for me. like when are her meal times, where is her class. i have to see her!!!

pss keep the letters coming!!! i absolutely love reading your letters and hear what is going on in the outside world. we really are in our own little world here. 

03.24.11

"holla mi familia y amigos!!!

how are you all doing? this week has been just like every other week, lots of class, lots of studying, gym time, meal times and little sleep times. :) You know how I told you about hermana ponaveitongo? well we had a really neat experience because last thursday night our whole zone decided we were going to fast for her and her family. We all prayed together and fasted on friday. It was a really neat experience to come toegether as a zone for her I felt like it really unified our zone and you could tell that she truly felt our love. It was amazing. As I was thinking about her situation i have just thought, what better place for her to be at this time than on a mission with all of these people that love her and know that everything will be alright because of this gospel. How amazing! She seems to be doing a little better lately which is good!

 

Last saturday was officially the hardest day I have had since being at the mtc. It was just the longest day ever and I felt like nothing was going right that day. but it comforted me to know that everyone in our zone hates saturday. We are just going going going all day its the end of the week and we are all just so tired. but all is good and it just made me really grateful for all the other great days I have had here. Although there are hard days because I feel like I just cant learn anymore or my brain is fried from so much class all day I have great comfort in knowing that my heavenly father is by my side, he knows what I am doing and he is there helping me through this. This week I have truly found an appreciation for my teacher Brother Brown. I have just really realized that I think I have the best teachers at the mtc. We have all been stressing about spanish and how we just cant learn it and how it is hard so in class the other day as brother brown was teaching he told us how it really doesnt matter if we dont know anything but to use the words we do know and even if it isnt a lot if we say it with meaning the spirit will be there and touch those peoples lives. He gave an example of him saying three words.... Jesucristo, Jose Smith, and la iglesia (chruch). He was super passionate as he said each of these words and even though he was only saying these three words it was truly incredible how strong the spirit was while he was speaking. It just really gave me courage to just speak spanish as much as I can. These past couple of weeks as we teach lessons we have just had to teach them in english but this saturday for the first time we have to teach the first lesson in spanish to our teacher. Pray for me! I am scared out of my mind!!!!

 

My companion and I are still doing great! We get along great and each and everyday I just realized how blessed I am. Yesterday (wednesday) we recieved a solo sister. This sister is going to germany and is the only sister in the mtc at this time that is going to germany. ( can you say lonely?) So since all of the german missionaries have the exact same schedule as us we Hermana Hamman and I have been assigned to her, which means every morning at 7 we have to escort her to her class and she will go to gym and temple with us. Basically she stays with the elders in her district all day but if she cant be with them she has to be with us. I feel so bad for her because as we get ready for missions we are all expecting to have a companion but she got here to nothing. So it is really important that we welcome her and make her feel loved cause I sure it is hard. It will be interesting but she seems cool so Im sure it will be good. Her name is Sister Funk and she went to school at BYU-I and went to Jerusalem so we have some stuff in common. Im excited!! Mom was asking about our bedroom, well before our solo sister got here it was just 4 of us in our room (the four of us sisters in my district) but now we have 5. It is kind of weird to share a room with 5 people but it really isnt bad because honestly the only time we are in our bedroom is from 10 pm- 7 am (the times we are sleeping) the only hard thing sometimes is the snorring, but its not too bad. Well one thing i have learning about myself since being here is apparently I am really easy to tease... hmmm I thought I got out of that since Im not around dad anymore but noooo.... my elders are constantly teasing me! There have been a few times where I start laughing really really hard and they all tell me I laugh like a Brontosauras (some kind of dinosaur) and whenever they see me they make the noice I apparently make when I laugh.. great!! The teasing just continues on with many other things. I deal with a lot here at the mtc. I just think of the elders like little brothers and just do it right back at them. It makes things entertaining! :)

 

Basically I just want you to know that I am doing well! I am happy to be hear and I know that I am suppose to be here. It is truly incredible how much I am learning everyday i really do love it. I know a lot of people hate the mtc and yes is does feel like you are trapped in some other world but it is so amazing to be around so many other missionaries all the time with the spirit so strong. I am happy to be here and I am glad I still have more time here. It was weird for me to think that if I was speaking english I would have been leaving this week. One of my favorite parts of being here is every tuesday at devotional when we all sing Called to Serve. The spirit is so strong and we all know our purpose of being here. The church is true. Keep smiling. i love  and miss you all mucho!!!

 

muchas amor,

hermana van wagenen"

03.17.11

Hello out there!

 

It crazy to me that it is already p-day again! I swear it was just p-day but at the same time it feels like forever ago. Time doesnt exsist here. Most of the time I dont even know what day it is. I know understand exactly what people mean when they say that the days feel like weeks but the weeks feel like days. It is soooo true! I told you how I recieved the brownies you sent and how I wanted to share them with my teacher hermano brown that night because right when we met him he told us he loved brownies and that we will get brownie points if we bring him brownies. So I had opened them on wednesday night and shared some with my district and then saved the rest to eat the next night during class. I was so excited to share them and when I told him I had brownies you should have seen how excited his face was until I opened up the box and the brownies were covered in ants!! it was the saddest thing ever! no brownies for hermano brown.

 

This week has been an interesting week. We have now been here for 2 weeks which means we have gotten to know each other really well. I have really come to learn the importance of companion unity. My companion and I have great unity and we get along super bien! but there is another companionship in my district that doesnt and it is amazing to the impact it has not only on them but on our district and everyone around them. We have had many discussions about unity and we even watched "the district" to see how they got along as companionships. It is so important that even if you dont get along to do anything you can to have unity with each other. I saw Elder Grimes and Cucuk yesterday!!! I was so excited to see them, I was worried that I wouldnt see them because there are so many people here and everyone has different schedules because I hardly ever see Sisters Horsepool and Farley. but luckily both Elder Cucuk and Grimes homes (aka classrooms) are in the same building and floor as me so I think I will see them often which is awesome!! It was so funny because my companion and I were just contacting someone at their door and in the middle of the contact I here voices and I turn around and Elder Grimes was standing there. It totally caught me off guard I didnt even rocognize him because I wasnt expecting him to be there. One of my favorite things in the whole entire world of being at the MTC is the temple walks on sunday. They are seriously amazing! It is so funny to see the temple just filled with missionaries but the feeling of walking out of the mtc is a nice little feeling of freedom and I think everyone just loves it.

 

Yesterday one of my favorite sisters in my zone (Hermana Ponaveitonga aka Hermana Tonga thats what I call her because i cant ever pronounce her last name) found out that her grandpa passed away and along with that her mom called her and basically told her that she was disowning her because she wont fly home to go the funeral. She is a convert and no one else in her family are members so they already arent happy about her being on a mission. But my heart has just been breaking for her and the struggles she is going through in her life right now. It is so interesting how her joining the church has brought so much trials in her life but it also brings so much comfort at the same time. The church truly is a blessing and will help her get through these trials.

 

It is incredible the amount of information I have learned in this little amount of time. I have never felt so emotionally drained but it is in a good way. Spanish is coming along slowly but surely. I still have a long way to go but i have been trying my hardest to whenever I know words to say them in spanish. Even if most of the time how I am saying it is totally wrong. My companion and I currently have 4 progressing investigators (aka teachers at the mtc acting as investigators they had in their mission) It is so interesting to do this because even though we know that they are teachers there is something about it that makes it so real at the same time. When we start teaching everything becomes real and I think of these people (Carolina and Jackie) as real investigators. We pray for them and do all we can to know what they need to be taught. I know that this is helping me so much in preparing to be a better missionary. I know exactly what it is like to teach someone. I absolutely love it!

 

We went to the temple this morning and it was just great! It always just brings me so much peace and love when I go. I look forward to this opportunity every week. The plans for the rest of our p-day are to take a nice needed nap, do laundry, write letters :), and class later tonight. Happy day!!! I love you all so very much and think about you often. I have the cute picture of mckay that amy sent me by my bed and also the sweet pic ky sent me of her and dad at the daddy daughter dance. I love it. Send me more pictures!!!!! I want to see whats going on. Keep writing me letters really are what keep me going! I miss and love you all! Have an amazing day and remember the church is true and heavenly father loves you so much!!!

 

love,

Hermana Van Wagenen

 

P.S. My friend jenn told me that people have been printing off blog post and sending them to her. That is pretty much that best idea ever! so you should do that because then I can see pictures and also know whats going on... just an idea! :)

 

also congrats to ali snarr!! I was so excited to hear that she is finally engaged!  yay!! :)