Sunday, August 7, 2011

Linnea's First Letters Arrive!

I opened my email on Saturday, August 6th, not expecting anything from Linnea and was happily surprised to receive an email.   While I was reading it aloud to Percy, Rhiannon went down to get the mail and there was also an actual letter from her.

We were super excited to hear from her two times in one day!  She sounds like she is doing well.  We are so proud of her and can't wait to hear more from her on Thursday, her official P-Day (this is the day the missionaries have to themselves.  They do their preparations for the week on this day and letter writing is a big part of the day.)

Below is the first email letter we received...


Hola Mi Familia y mis amigos!
    I have 30 minutes to write emails today, but my pday is actually Thursdays and I'll still only get to email for 30 minutes. So far the MTC is pretty good. It was hard to adjust at first but Im getting in the swing of things. Everyday is planned out to the minute basically which is good. Spanish is hard! Well, gospel Spanish at least. I didn't know any of those words to begin with. The MTC got a new teaching curriculum and we are the first class to use it. Mi maestro, Hermano Anderson ONLY speaks to us in spanish! He will explain thing every once in awhile but other than that...it's all spanish. Right now I'm getting about every 3rd word but its only the 3rd day so I'm not too worried. So my schedule pretty much goes like this....we wake up at 6:30AM and get ready. We have to be in our classroom by 7 for personal study, then off to breakfast at 7:40. We then have personal study again or companionship study for about an hour. We then have classroom intstruction. So far we've learned to pray in spanish and bear our testimonies in spanish. It's pretty crazy. Classroom time lasts for 3 hours. Its pretty hard to stay focused especially since I only catch every third word. But I'm doing by best and feel like Im getting better everyday. AFter classroom instruction we have lunch. Then gym time for an hour. You can play basketball, volleyball, four square, and they have excericise machines and weight machines you can use. They also have an indoor track that runs along the top floor. 10 times around is a mile. Then we have time to get ready for our next activity. We come to the computer lab and do language excerices in a program kind of like rosetta stone, but more for gospel stuff. It also teaches grammar and phrases. It seems pretty helpful as long as you take it seriously which is probably why rosetta stone didn't work because I didnt take it seriously haha! Then we have more language study in our classroom, then off to dinner. After dinner we either have more classroom instruction or meetings with our branch. At 9PM we have a planning session with our companion for the next day and we go back to our residence halls at 930 to get ready for bed. 10:15 is quiet time then lights out at 10:30. The schedule is a little different everyday like gym could be after breakfast instead of lunch or we could have language study in the morning instead of the afternoon but its basically the same. My companions name is Hermana Kerr. She is from Portland and is going to Tempe Arizona. She is pretty cool. We get along pretty well. There are 6 girls in my room. We all got here Wednesday and we are all going spanish speaking. Hna Miller is going to San Fernando, CA and is from Utah. Hna Westmond is going to Peru and is from Utah. Hna Baker is going to Ventura,CA and is from Dallas. Hna Christensen to Riverside and from Utah(I think). Those 5 girls plus me are in one room. All my roomates are super cool. Hnas Miller, Westmond, Kerr and I are in the same district along with 8 elders. Our district is really fun. All the elders are cool. We all get along and have been having fun getting to know one another. 2 elders and Hna Westmond leave after 2 more weeks to go to the MTC in Peru. Im not sure if we will get new elders and sisters to replace them. We all tested into intermediate spanish, but it seems more like advanced ha. We had to teach an "investigator" a lesson yesterday...in SPANISH! Soo hard. Today we are meeting with her again. She's actually one of our teachers but she plays the role of the investigator VERY well. She doesn't break character ever. Oh Mom you asked what it meant that Lindzi was my host. It was so cool because I was the first Hermana to arrive on Wed so all the host sister were waiting for us...Lindzi saw me and ran up to me give me a hug. It was soooo good to see her. I was hoping so bad I would just even see her, but to have her be my host was sweet. She helped me take my luggage to my room and showed me around th MTC. We then got my name tag,room key and MTC card which you use to do laundry, get food in the cafeteria, etc. WE get $8 a week on the card to get stuff from the bookstore or vending machines or whatever. WE dont pay for meals or to use the laundry machines. The MTC card also allows us to get into our residence hall. You have to swipe it to get in to each level of the building. I've seen Bobby Shuster, Paul Sliffe and David Riddle around which is cool. ANd i see Lindzi a lot which I love. She leaves Tues morning for Washington. Mom, thats cool about the teacher you interviewed and Im impressed you  and Dad made it home in one day. NICE! I know DAd was happy to sleep in your bed. You guys should def write me on dearelder.com while I'm here because I only get to check my email once a week and I get the dearelder.com letters like 2 times a day if I have mail. BIGGGG shoutout to Liz and Nigel for writing me the FIRST day. I looked pretty popular getting mail the first day and it was so awesome to hear from them. I really needed it that first day. Karen also wrote me which was way sweet. I will be writing them all letters today since today is my mock Pday. I can really only write letters on my Pday which is THursdays starting next week. Things I could use would be those like littel nylon socks, flesh colored and black because Im already getting blisters! Lame ha. Also I NEED my temple recommend I left in your purse by this Thursday so I can go to the temple. That is it so far. THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL THE LETTER SO FAR! They really mean a lot and I LOVE hearing from everyone!!! My time is almost up! Hope everyone is doing well. I love you all!
 
Hasta luego,,
Hermana Harris <3

I know Linnea would love to hear from all of you and dearelder.com is the quickest way for her to get your correspondence.  

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