Oi familia!!
Como vai?! I feel like I have so much to say and I don't know where to begin, so hopefully I have time to say everything!! Take your for all of the love this week!! Letters really are like gold! We always get our letters from our District Leader at 9:25, and they are always so fun to get after a long day!! So, I really appreciate all of you for the love!! Keep them coming!! And thank you, thank you, thank you for the packages!! I was really feeling the love this week!! I got dearelder brownies from popsicle, an awesome package from mom and Kara, and Sis. Hansen is so thoughtful and sent dearelder brownies to both Ginger and I! Could she be any more thoughful?! I was seriously feeling spoiled to be getting so much love! Getting packages is the best!!
Ok. So, Wednesday I got out of the car and a very enthusiastic sister started leading me around the MTC and getting me all checked in. I was a little overwhelmed by hearing "welcome to the MTC" alllll dayyy. And people saying, "the MTC is the best place ever." And you just think, "is it? is it really?" hahaha. But Wednesday was kind of a long day. I was the last one to show up to my class, so they had already been learning some of the basics. And the second you walk in, your teacher just talks in Portuguese the whole time. My teacher is Sis. Tirrel and I just love her. I think we just learned basic phrases that day. I don't know. It's all a blur now. I also had been up since 4:15 and I hadn't gotten any sleep the night before, so I was really tired and I was just kind of ready for the day to be over, so that I could sleep and start the next day without this orange newbie sticker on my badge. I saw Ginger at dinner, and she yelled, "Heather!!" hahaha. It was so fun to see her!! She was like, "Oh em gee, I can't believe we are in the MTC. Oh em gee, we are missionaries!!" She was just so excited and I loved it!
My companion is Sis. Peterson. She is 19 and she is from Provo. She went to a year at BYU. She is going to my same mission. We have the strangest things in common...her older sister is exactly my age, like same birthday and same year. Her sister is currently serving in Washington while she is waiting for her visa to the Argentina, Resistencia Mission. How random is that?! Apparently Argentina missionaries aren't getting their visas either. We have the same little shoes from Hawaii, the same scarf...basically we are twins. Jokes. We are actually pretty different. I am more talkative and out there. She is more reserved. But we get along well. I think my personality was probably a little overwhelming to her at first, but she is getting used to it. Every once in a while she is sassy to me, and I think it is so funny. Like when we are planning a lesson and she suggests something to say, and she says it in Portuguese, and I tell her, "You can take the reigns on this lesson." And she says to me, "brat." I think it is so funny, probably because she gives a little sass back to me.
The other two sisters in my district are Sister Hymas and Sister Dunn. Sis. Hymas is from Kentucky and did a year at BYU. She is talkative and has been picking up on the language super fast. Sis. Dunn is from Medford, but didn't know the Brendles. She did two year at Idaho and is majoring in Photography with a minor in Dance. They are both cute and fun, and I love all of the sisters!
My district started out with 14 of us. Sadly we lost an Elder on Monday and we also lost an Elder on Tuesday. It was really quite sad. Even after a few days, you are with each all the time and you grow to love them. We all just pray that they will be able to figure things out and get back on a mission. So, now there are 12 of us. I love my district. They can be very entertaining, and distracting sometimes, but I love them. Most of them are fresh out of high school, and sometimes they do things that really remind you that they are 18 year old boys. You can see a difference in the Elders that got a little bit of school under their belts, they are a little more mature and understand more where we are coming from. But they are awesome, and they are good Elders.
Thursday was good, it was just long too, because it was our first full day. Those first few days are kind of rough just trying to get into the swing of things and becoming familiar with the schedule. We were told on Thursday that we would be teaching our first investigator on Friday...in Portuguese. We were like, "say what?" We pretty much had the whole script written out. I was so stressed about it, and as we were about to knock on the door, I was like freaking out. But it went...ok. Basically whenever our investigator replied, we kind of just stared at him blankly. It was awesome. hahaha. He would like ask a question, and we didn't know how to answer, so we would just bare our testimony instead. hahaha. We taught on Friday and on Saturday and we pretty much just felt like we were talking at him, because we didn't really know how to respond to him, and we just read from our notes the entire time. Those first few days were overwhelming with the language and everything.Saturday we finally got our first gym time, which was way nice to go outside and take a break from studying without feeling guilty about not studying.
Everyone had been telling us, "just make it to Sunday." And I didn't really understand why...until Sunday came around. We just got so spiritually fed, and I was reminded why I was here and that I was where I was supposed to be. The first few days of being in the MTC, even if you know that you are where you are supposed to be, you really start to question what in the world you are getting yourself into, and a year and a half just sounds like forever. But Sunday I felt the spirit so strong and I really heard what I needed to hear. Also, Sunday night between 8 and 9...you get to choose a little movie to watch, so we went and watched a talk by Elder Holland from years ago to the MTC...I'm sure Kara has seen it...I think it was called, "Missions are Forever." It was AWESOME!! He just talks about why missions are so hard. And he talks about how salvation is not easy, and that Christ sacrificed for us, and we need to have a taste of the Climb to Calvary to truly be a witness of Him. It was so good!! I want to watch it again. Plus, he says things so funny sometimes that we were laughing and crying all at once. hahaha.
Monday we taught our investigator for the third time in Portuguese...with NO NOTES!! We were freaking out beforehand.We were like, "how in the world are we going to teach a 20 minute lesson in Portuguese when we do not know the language!" Our teacher, Sis. Tirrel, gave my companion and I a pep talk and it was just what we needed to hear. She said how we are able to pick up stuff in class, and I said, "Ya, because you say vocab that we know." And she was like, "Exactly. You know vocab." She just brings us down to earth and reminds us that we have only been here a few days, we aren't expected to be fluent. And surprisingly it went so well. We only had our scriptures and a dictionary, but it went so much better than we had expected. We still didn't understand everything, but we understood him a lot more. It was also a lot better to not have our noses in our noses the entire time. On Monday we committed him to baptism, and he said yes. My companion and I joked around that if he didn't commit to baptism that we would just drop him, and for some reason we thought it was way too funny...probably because we knew that he really was a member of the church. But he was basically a golden investigator the entire time...so we figured he would say yes. But it was still happy to hear him say it...we had to double check that he had understood us and we had understood him. hahaha.
Tuesday and Wednesday, we continued to teach him. I knew from previous missionaries that he was going to become our teacher, and that he was just posing as an investigator...but it was exciting when he showed up in our class on Thursday! All the Elders were loving it, and those that didn't realize that he was a teacher were so surprised. I also think the Elders loved getting a guy teacher. Plus, we had found out the night before that one of our Sister Training Leaders had dated this guy before, and that he wanted to marry her, but she went on a mission. So, pretty much they see each other all the time! That seems like that would be hard. So the Sisters were all wanting to say something to him about her, and he ended up asking us if we knew her, and he figured out that we knew the story. When my companion and I were walking out, we asked him if it was hard to see her, and he said, "It hurts my heart, but I love it so much. She is happy, so I am happy for her. I just love her with every fiber of my being." Our hearts pretty much melted. We hope they get married. Wednesday and Thursday were kind of rough because I felt...for lack of better word, "crappy." I just sucked it up, because I didn't have any obvious symptoms, but I was really lacking energy. I really wished that I could just call dad and ask him what I should take. Today I am feeling better though, so that's good.
I see people all the time that I know!! So, seeing Ryan Smith wasn't that weird. Since I went to BYU, I know so many people that work here. My companion thinks it is ridiculous how often I see someone that I know, but I love it!!
Fun quotes and stories:
Elder Hardy: "You are lucky I am an Elder right now. I am the King of the Body Roll. My hips don't lie and my body doesn't lie either."
Elder Hardy was also giving a lesson and the investigator asked if they had talked to their parents, he said, "No, we email them on...'payday'." He said that in Portuguese and the investigator started laughing and the Elders were so confused. They told us about the story and I told them that payday means "I farted." The Elders companion was on the ground from laughing so hard. He is never going to live that one down.
I'm doing good though!! Each day gets better and we have gotten more in the swing of things. Keep the love coming, it is the best!!
Love you all!! I love what I am doing, even though it is hard, it is already rewarding. I know that I have been called to speak Portuguese, so eventually I will be able to speak Portuguese!!
I am out of time, so I won't be able to write individual emails to people, sorry!! Love you all!!
Sister Heather Van Wagenen
P.S. It was so hard to get used to called people Sister and Elder and introducing myself as Sister Van Wagenen...every once in a while, I still slip. hahaha
Here is me with my second cousin from Rocklin!
No comments:
Post a Comment