Week 1

Well if this isnt hint enough, today is my P-day, we just got out of the Provo Temple, what an AWESOME experience! I love it there, there are circles everywhere and it just struck me how centered on eternity that temple is, it was truly amazing. So hopefully i can address all your questions here, if not i'll have to just try next week.:)

 

So if you're wondering what my average day like is here... here it is. We wake up at 6:25 every morning to beat the rush to the showers. (you see we have mass bathrooms in the dorms) After we shower we have companionship prayer, oh and make our beds, they randomly inspect our rooms and it's kinda a big deal that they're clean, fyi they did that to day and we got excellent marks.;) You guys would not believe how i am here haha, i absolutely fill up my planner and use it constanly, and believe it or not i'm usually the organized one, which is weird because elder Baker is a clean NAZI, no pun intended. Like seriously we have to use another restroom if someone has been in it before he goes in, so we usually go down stairs and use the Russians haha. Which brings me to a confession... we share a dorm floor with the French elders, and between you and me, haha i ALWAYS use their side when i have to go to the bathroom. Also in our classroom floor we have a few Portuguese elder's waiting for their visa's to head out, those darn portuguese always trying to expand and conquer! But it's cool, i love to talk to the elder's headed to other country's. So now that that tangents over i can finish what i was trying to say, after we;re ready we head to our classrom and have 1hr 15mins of personal studay, then we go to breakfast, and then we come back and have and hour of companion study. After that we either have one of our two lovely teachers there but almost alwasy we have MDT or Missionary Directed Time until 1pm which is when we have lunch, that's a lot of time to fill haha, but we do all sorts of fun stuff. Then after lunch we'll have gym usually, we usually play volleyball as a district which is super fun. Then we return and have instruction or MDT. Dinner's at six and after that we have classroom instruction til 9. Then we plan in the classroom (if you cant tell, we're very familiar with our classroom) and then we return to our dorms, write in our journals, study, and lights out at 1030.

 

That's basically it, there's no way i could describe every little thing we do, but you get the point. Tuesday's we go to a really cool place called the TRC. That's where people come in and volunteer to be tought, it's actually extremely serious. Role playing here is huge, in fact we all have to have one or two characters formed from people we knew so that people can teach us at a moments notice. Haha i actually compare the TRC to monster's INC. YOu get a door assigment, do a door approach, and then teach the first lesson. Meanwhile instructers watch you and evaluated through Video cameras, microphones, or one way mirrors hidden throughout the room, haha it's pretty crazy. You can also make appointments to teach people here during MDT at a place we call the TE which is fun. It's good practice. Once you teach someone at the TE tho they become your investigator, and you have to do teaching records and lesson palns and prayers for them and the whole nine yards. Even if you see them around campus you have to treat them like the real investigator they are acting as... like i said it's really serious. Every week too we have to do a task in German at the TRC, last weeeks scenario was us having to contact someone in a Park and set up and appoitment in German. I'm actually getting really good at it. The gift of tongue's is sooooo here. I can pray, contact, bear testimony, and introduce my family and all those things in pretty decent german. It's coming and i'm speaking it correctly and relatively quickly, but i still have SOOOOO far to go. I actually got to go on an exchange to practice contacting with Elder Gygi (the elder i met in the temple doing work) it was really cool.

 

Well i'm almost out of time, but everything is FABULOUS here, i know it's where i need to be and i feel my testimony and abilities grow each and every day. I cant believe i've been here a week already! It's difficult to learn not only to feel the spirit but to listen to it and teach by it's promptings, but every day our companionship gets better. Elder Van Miltenburg is doing muc better which is great and an answer to prayers... plus i'd hate to be down 2 companions 1 week into my mission. Ya elder Hundley never came.:( But even tho it's been hard at time being in a threesome with two VERY VERY different people thant me, i am thankful for all i've been able to learn from them. Thanks for all your prayers, i feel them every day. Love you all the mostest. Hoorah for Israel!