Loving the MTC!!!! ...except maybe eating that cricket.

Hola Mi Familia!!

I have a half p-day today, so I get a little time to e-mail you! This only e-mailing for 30 minutes thing kinda stinks but I'll get out as much as I can real quick!!

I absolutely LOVE it here!!!! My first day I got all of my stuff (name tag!!), took my bags up to my room, and then went STRAIGHT to class!! I walked in and my teacher immediately started asking me stuff in Spanish haha I did pretty good answering her actually, but luckily she's a super nice and awesome teacher so she didn't just speak spanish the whole time. When I first got there there was one other sister, Hemana Campbell and one Elder Connors. Hermana Camacho (my teacher) had us decorate the room while we waited for the rest of our district to get there, which was fun! Then eventually the rest of our district got there, besides me companera!! SO yeah mom I was without a comp for a couple hours. .. pero, esta bien! :)
We learned the basic spanish like como esta, como se llama, de donde es, and things like that and then did a computer orientation and I waited for my comp who FINALLY got there right before our big orientation meeting. Her nombre es Hermana Tolman y I love her SOOOO much! She is incredible! We were actually friends on FB, she is the sister who sent me that ginormous message about what to expect in Argentina! So from there we went to be greeted and listen to the Prsident speak! Holy dang, the spirit in that meeting was incredible. We sang We'll Bring the World His Truth and changed the words to "we are now the Lords missionaries" and I was just bawling my eyes out cuz I think that was the point when it finally hit me that I was actually the Lords missionary finally! It was a really beautiful experience :)

Our mission President is really funny, he cracked a lot of jokes and he has kinda a dry sense of humor which I tend to appreciate so I felt like I was the only one laughing haha I don't think my District really gets my sense of humor yet cuz I'll say things and they just look at me like I'm a wierdo haha which I am so esta bien!! :)

Ok so the rest of my day is kinda foggy. We eat dinner at 4:45!!!! Haha when I'm used to eating at 8 and even that's kinda early, I normally get back to my room and am STARVING!! They have vending machines but I"m trying to stay away from them cuz I know I don't need the extra poundage here haha

FUNNY STORY! Ok hahaha soo they have like serval lines, some have a main course, another one is like a bar with wraps or soup (the wraps are REALLY good) and then a back portion with a different entre and and open salad bar, then one other container with packaged salads. I got one of the entres in the back and saw the open salad bar so I went ahead and got some. I went sat down, and was happily eating my salad with my district. Ya know when your chewing and you can tell the consistenacy of what your eating and then when something chews a little different than you think it should? Well I swallowed something that was kinda weird feeling and then as I was chewing felt some thing kinda bigger and not crunchy but like harder. . .as gross as it seemed I went ahead and pulled it out of my mouth (this was Thursday btw)  haha it was this huge brownish black thing and it had what looked like legs siticking out. . .yep. there was a huge cricket in my salad haha I was like "Guys, I'm pretty sure I just ate half of a bug." And mi Hermanas were freaking out and the Elders grabbed it and were liike "Yep! That's a cricket alright! I think it had been dead for quite awhile haha cuz it was pretty dang hard haha but I had like a 30 second rebound rate and just started laughing and thought of Brock's tory about Elizabeth and squiching the bugs all around her, I think I may have just beat that story cuz it literally didn't phase me! I haven't eaten from that salad bar again yet haha but I think I'll work up the courage to eventually ;)

OH! Let me tell you about my district! So, there are 4 Hermanas y 4 Elders! We are one of the mallest Districts right now, and a rare one in that ALL OF US are going to Bahia Blanca!! That doesn't happen very often at all in the CCM!! (That's spanish for MTC ;) ) It's me y Hermana Tolman, who like I said is INCREDIBLE! She definiitely can speak the most Spanish of everyone, and I'm not bragging, but I can understand a lot of Spanish, so we make like the ultimate companionship right now haha the other Hermana's, Harrison and Campbell are so awesome! We have grown super close already (probably beacuse we spend like 15 hours a day together haha) and we want to work super hard to learn the language. We try to talk solely in espanol with each other and I think you would be surprised to see how much we already can talk about!

The Elders in my district are some amazing men. Elder Jaggi y Elder Thompson are one companionship y Elder Connors y Elder Webb are the other 2 :) They are all so diligent and want to learn the language, as well as be good missionaries. They are really funny and I know all of us are gonna become a tight knit family before we head out of here.



We have about 6 hours of taught classroom time (this week has been different from how my schedule the rest of my time I'm here will go) but we spend ALL DAY in our classroom. Some is personal study time, other is taught by Hermana Camacho o Hermano Painter, both of whom have strengthened my testimony TREMENDOUSLY!!! They bare testimony frequently and I have grown soooo much because of that! We taught our first lesson last night!!! EN ESPANOL!!!!! Haha ensario. (That's I'm serious haha) It was a little intimidating, but like I said, mi y Hermana Tolman work SOOO well together. We knew we just wanted to be sure we were being a vessle for the spirit so we didn't bring any notes of what we had learned so far or anything, just let the spirit tell us what we needed to say, and we did feel the spirit. Our investigator, Maria (she is just a volunteer who acts btw, I'm supposed to tell you that so you don't pray for her to be baptized or anything like that ;) ) was so sad and didn't think she could feel happiness because of all her mistakes, so we jsut shared with her our belief of a loving Heavenly Father and that his son Jesus Christ suffered for all our sins and loves us more than we know, then invited her to pray about it! The spirit in that lesson was amazing. Everytime I spoke it was in broken spanish, and Hermana tolman spoke pretty much entirely in Spanish!!

I have to keep reminding myself I can't know everything by day 4, no matter how much I want to. I can pray and bear a short testimony in spanish though, so it's a good start :) I have to write a 5 minute talk in spanish before tomorrow and every week, then they call on people randomly to give their talk! Kinda scary haha

Well my time is pretty much up! Mom they have everything I could ever need in the bookstore, I sent you a letter the other day but I need you to print off my immunization record from offline and fax it to the number I put in the letter, it's a pink slip and it's got the fax number on it! They won't give me anymore shots until I have that record (and apparently they can't access the online one...which i thought was ridiculously pointless haha) anyway yeah!

Just keep praying for me! I'm doing so good like I said, I miss you all and thenk you SO MUCH for the Dear Elders! They totally make my day :) I hope you all had so much fun at Aunt Tiani's, I'm sure you did! I love you all sooo much!

I know this gospel is true, it's incredible how much I have yet to learn, but I know as I keep up what I"m supposed to be doing it'll all come eventually :) Conversion to the gospel is a continual proccess, gaining a testimony is the only one time thing, the rest is progressive. All we can do is work hard everyday to be a little better and to think of others. I LOVE YOU ALL!! Oh my p-day is Friday so that's when you'll hear from me again :) LOVE YOU! I'll have to send pictures another time, sorry! But I'm taking them when I have time, I promise :)

Muchas Amorada,

Rissy :)