One Week in the MTC!

Linnea completed her first week in the MTC and wrote to us on Thursday to tell us how it went.  One comment she made was...It feels like I've been here for a month, but nope...just a week HA! Everyone says the days at the MTC go by really fast, but the weeks go by slow. I think they are right! 


One of the benefits of being so close to the headquarters of the church is the opportunity the missionaries have to hear from the General Authorities of the church.  Linnea shared...Tuesday we had an MTC devotional. These are when General Authoritys come to speak. This week we had Cecil O Samuelson of the 70 who is also the Pres of BYU and his wife speak. They both talked about missions and how we are always supposed to be on our best missionary behavior at all times because you never know who is watching us. Their talks were really good too. Then after the devotional our district met together with our Branch President to go over the devotional. We all shared our favorite part of the talk and elaborated. It was awesome and so spiritual. My district is so rad. For those who don't know what a district is...its basically the group of missionaries I have class with everyday. There are now 13 of us. 9 elders and 4 hermanas.   This link tells a little about Elder Samuelson. http://lds.org/church/leader/cecil-o-samuelson?lang=eng&query=Cecil+Samuelson


She is feeling better about her Spanish. My spanish has really improved...at least my understanding of spanish. I am now catching all the words my teacher speaks. Mi maestro, Hermano Anderson, is so awesome. We all love him and he really fits in with our district. He served in Guatemala and is finishing his Pre-Med studies at BYU. He is so animated when he talks and appreciates our senses of humor. Our district made some goals to work on together, one of them being having an espanol solamente day. That day is tomorrow. So for a whole day we will speak nothing but spanish. We will see how it goes. The Hermanas and I have been really trying to only speak spanish together because Hermano Anderson said if we did so he promised our spanish would be in tip-top shape in 3 WEEKS! We try our best but it gets so frustrating because it takes us forever to complete our thoughts, but we've been getting better. The first day we got here they gave us all this spanish study material so that has been helping. And they gave us scriptures in spanish which is super cool. Ive been reading them along with my english ones. Another one of our district goals is to sing at least one hymn in spanish a day. I really like this. Its so fun to sing in spanish, i dont know why. Hermana Miller does not like singing...its so funny! She always tries to pick the shortest songs to sing haha. 


I asked her about the food and about the hour of physical exercise. The food here is decent. Nothing like yours mom, but it will do. They have a really good wrap making station. The line is kind of long but its really worth it. Its probably the best thing they have.   Gym is good and bad. Good because it feels great to just get out of my missionary clothes and run around. You can either do stuff in the huge gym, like play bball, v-ball, four square, weight machines, or they have a track that goes around the entire 3rd floor. 10 times around is a mile. The other option for gym is outside across the street by the temple. You can play sand volleyball, soccer, and various other weird outdoor sports, like croquet. Ha. Elders and Sisters are only allowed to play vball and four square together since its a non contact sport. The bad thing about gym is that my gym time always follows a meal. We either go right after breakfast or lunch or dinner. This makes for a lot of like mid-day showering which is kind of annoying, but also good because there arent too many people trying to take showers all at once. The last couple of days we have been playing sand volleyball as a district. Its sooo fun. We are all terrible but its just fun messing around and being out in the sun.


A girl from Linnea's ward entered the MTC on Wednesday, the week after Linnea.  She tells of seeing her.  Yesterday Amy Remsberg got here...she is going to Romania. I saw her as she was leaving dinner and I was coming to dinner. We saw eachother and she yelled "LINNEA!...I mean Hermana Harris" HAHA its so hard to get used to calling everyone by Elder or Hermana especially when you know their first name. The girls in my district ate lunch with Amy and her district today. She lives on the same floor and building as me so Im sure Ill be seeing her around.


Linnea loves hearing from you.  The letters she gets provide her with encouragement and support.  Keep on writing.  She sent her thanks...Thank you to Mom, Dad, Nigel, Aunt Pat, Ashley, Shane, Juli, Alisha, Allison, Celestine, Brandon, Karen, Liz and everyone else who wrote me. I hope I didnt forget anyone. You guys are all the best. I'll be writing letters while I wait for my laundry so hopefully you'll be hearing back from me pretty soon. And BIG BIG thanks to my canoe crew buddy K-Rohn for the package. So rad! I loved everything...thanks for getting me the stuff I needed. And the mints were a BIG hit with my district. One Hermana brough like 20 packs of gum but cant chew any because gum is not allowed.