February 18, 2010

Hello, hello, Well, here I am in the MTC. I have now been here six days so I am practically an expert on all things MTC. This place is terrible - the food makes me sick, my companion hates me, and they make me sit next to obnoxious elders all the time. Just kidding! I completely love it. The first day and a half were probably the longest days of my entire life, but after we made it past them (which practically every person in the MTC who saw us told us "just make it to Sunday" but I think it might actually be true), we are having a great time. My companion is Hermana LaPray, who Dad actually stalked on Facebook. She's fun and we get along well. We also have Hermana Crosby and Hermana Tingey in our district and our room so we are basically always with them. The four of us laugh all the time and we have a good time together. Being a sister at the MTC is completely awesome - we get to cut all the food lines, they have a free make-up class we can go to where they give us free stuff, the elders have to hold open all our doors and take our trays at lunch, and they have a special exercise class at 6:00 AM every morning that we can go to if we want to. Our coordinating sister told us that she heard that 99% of sisters gain weight in the MTC so I make a lot of jokes about how we're getting fat and then,"No, sisters, we can be part of the 1%! Well, actually, I don't think all of us can be part of the 1%." And then one of the sisters usually volunteers herself to be the one to gain weight. But we actually went to the early morning exercise classes twice this week. On Monday was step aerobics and we did this move called "power mambo" which cracked me up every time we did it and today was yoga, which was actually kinda rough. We also have pilates, kickboxing, and some other stuff. We also have gym time every day except Tuesday and Sunday so I've been playing volleyball for that. It's really fun, but sometimes the elders get too involved in showing us how good a spike they have that they steal the ball from us so that gets kinda annoying. Anyway, I absolutely love my district! They are so great. I was so impressed because we all came in speaking Spanish pretty well and we're all excited and interested in learning how to become better missionaries so we're totally focused, but also have a lot of fun together. I think I already told you a little bit about them, but I'll tell you again. There's me and Hermana LaPray (from Idaho and she was an engineer at BYU) and Hermana Tingey, who's also going to Bahia Blanca and I knew her freshman year at BYU. She's really happy and she's going to make an awesome missionary and she's fun to be around. Hermana Crosby is her companion. She's from Arizona, going to Canada Toronto East and she's really funny. I like her and I'm sad we're not going to see each other after the MTC. She actually studied Spanish in college and lived in Mexico for a while so her Spanish is really good. Then there's Elder Shawhan (pronounced like Shawn) who's totally ridiculous and hilarious. He is really animated and goes on rants about things for like five minutes sometimes (he can do it in English and spanish, which I think is pretty impressive). He also told us a story the other day about how he was running one time in the forest with his high school track team and a squirrel landed on his head. He totally freaked out and tried to get it off, but his teammates didn't even think it was funny. I laughed for so long over that. Just the picture of him with a squirrel on his head was hilarious. Also, I'm going to send some pictures of my district next week. Elder Keeling, from Utah going to Ecuador Quito is his companion. He's a quieter, kinda nerdy elder who's fun to be around and we like him. Elder Miller is our district leader from Colorado going to Las Vegas west (yeah!) and he's a really solid guy. I like all the comments he has to say in class. When we first got here, he asked me if I wanted the ham off his breakfast sandwich. I was really confused and asked," Why would I want the ham off your sandwich?" So now we always ask him if he wants random parts of our leftover food. He has two companions - Elder Bartholomew from somewhere going to Oklahoma Tulsa, he's really funny and cracks me up also, and Elder Spencer, who got moved up from basic and has 12 brothers and sisters. I've actually gotten way more mail than anyone in my district, which makes me feel kinda bad. They all want mail too. You guys can feel free to write them if you want to. :) i shared my M&Ms with them. We are also all in the MTC choir, which is performing tonight at the devotional and we're going to sound amazing. I'm excited to be singing in a choir again and we sing so many hymns. We're still trying to get the Spanish down though so sometimes it's kinda rough. I've learned a lot so far and I know I'm going to learn even more. We went to the RC yesterday and the day before to make calls to people and see if they got the BOM they requested. I called a guy named John on Saturday and talked to him for a while. He got baptized a long time ago, but doesn't go anymore. I testified that it is important and asked him to share the BOM with his wife. He said I could send the missionaries to his house so I did. Yay! We went again on Sunday and our whole district made calls in Spanish. It was soooo scary, but so great. I talked to one guy and testified that christ will help him with all his challenges and I know that he suffered for us. He said that he was interested and my teacher helped me get down his address. I've really been learning how amazing the gospel is and that it can change lives. We just have to believe that it will. I've been trying to develop my faith a lot so that when the time comes for me to ask Roberto to not go to work and feed his family in order to go to church, I will have enough faith to tell him that God will take care of him and everything will be all right. That sounds so scary to me, but I'm positive that if I'm directed by the spirit to tell him that, that it will happen. The MTC is a really fun and incredible place. I love wearing my nametag and always being reminded that I'm representing Christ. That seems like a lot of pressure, but I know that he's definitely helping me a lot. I've actually met a few elders going to Jordy's mission and I get so excited every time I do. It turns out that you can wake up early if you need more time getting ready, but it actually hasn't been too much of a problem. And I actually like showering every day because I usually get kinda gross after gym or our morning workout. We're trying to be healthy when we eat in the cafeteria, but Elder Miller challenged us not to waste food so now I just shove things down my throat so I won't feel bad for wasting them or give them to the elders. I actually had a plate of 2 corn dogs and some french fries the other day and it turned out that I only wanted one of them. I asked the elders if they wanted the other one and Elder Shawhan said he had seen the other corn dog on my plate and wanted to get one for himself, but just decided that he would wait until I offered to him. How did he know? Also, I did the first vision in Spanish and I was the only one in my district who knew it by heart already. They're all memorizing it now, but they were pretty impressed by how lista I was for the MTC. :) Well, family, I love you guys so much and every time I learn about the doctrine, I feel so lucky and excited that i get to spend eternity being weird and laughing with you guys. (I feel weird writing guys because you always have to say elders and sisters here so I've been trying to break the habit). Thanks for all the support. Feel free to pray for me and my district. And know that I am praying for all of you. Adios! :) Hermana Seegmiller