Week Three in the MTC


Three whole weeks have passed since we dropped Linnea off at the MTC.  She sounds like she is doing well and learning lots.  Thursdays are the days she has off and she gets to email on that day.  Her emails usually arrive around 1:00pm which is such a lovely treat for me.  I am usually just coming inside from my 2 hours of lunch duty and enjoy eating my lunch while reading her latest email.


Here is what she had to say about her week...
The word for this week is CHANGE! So on Sunday our Branch President, Pres. Craig was released. It was pretty surprising. We didnt really see it coming but him and his wife had been serving for like 4 and a half years. They put in mission papers and are waiting to hear back on where they are going. The counselors, Pres. Jurgens and Pres Claybaugh, are still in the presidency which is cool because they are both awesome. We will definitely miss Pres Craig but our new Branch Pres, Pres Tyler seems super cool. He's an ex army drill sergeant so there will be no messing around ha! He's also very very knowledgeable...its way cool. Another big change this week is that we seem to be the old-veterans of our Branch and we've only been here 3 weeks. Our Branch is only advanced and intermediate spanish and the advanced missionaries leave after 3 weeks. So we've already had one advanced district leave, and 2 intermediate districts leave which just leaves like my district, and a couple other districts, but some of those are advanced so they got here after us and will leave before us. That probably didnt make sense but whatever. We just completed our three weeks here but it feels like 50 ha. Lets see, another big change was that 2 elders (Nilsen and Wheeler) and 1 hermana (Westman) left yesterday for the Peru MTC. Elder Andersen from my district was supposed to go too but his visa didnt come in. :( We all felt so bad for him...he was so bummed. He had his flight plans, packed up all of his stuff and then the travel office called him down to tell him his visa didnt come. He found out he wasnt going like 12 hours before his plane was supposed to leave. Such a bummer! So since Hermana Westman left, I am now in a trio that consists of Hna Kerr, Hna Miller and myself. I think it will work out well. We all get along so that is good. Another thing that will be changing is that one of my teachers, Hna Hunter wont be my teacher anymore starting next week. Im super bummed! I really liked her and just hope we get someone else as good as her. 


BASKETBALL
Oh Ive been playing basketball these last couple days...its so fun. I met this girl name Hna Riggs who is suuuper good. So we guard each other when we play a game with the boys since we are not allowed to guard elders and vice versa. We also play Lightning or Knockout. Hna Riggs is from Mission Viejo and we figured out that we must have played against eachother when I played travel ball. She played for a team based out of San Clemente and was always playing in tourneys in SD. Small world right? It has been really fun to play with her. She kills it from the 3 point line...she has like a 80% field goal percentage. Its awesome. 


New Friends
So I have to tell you about this girl I met. We met in the bathroom while brushing our teeth and just started talking. We would always see each other around campus or in the residence hall and just chat. We got to know eachother pretty well and we were talking one night and were just saying how its weird that we got so close so quickly. We just had this like instant friendship...we came to the conclusion we must have been friends in the pre-existence because we just instantly clicked and it felt like we had been friends forever. Her name is Heather Petherbridge...awesome name right? ha. She is originally from Canada but most recently from Maryland. She is going to Peru on her mission. She was also supposed to leave on Wednesday but her visa didnt come in either. 13 people that were supposed to go to the MTC in Peru didnt get their visas. At least I dont have to worry about that


Letters
Letters are GOLD on the mission keep them coming,


Thank you to everyone who has written to Linnea.  I know that she loves hearing from everyone.  Hopefully, there will be some photos for the next time.