Oct. 1, 2009

It got cold family. In one day it went from sunny 70 to cold! Thanks so
much for sending those clothes dad, now I'll be warm on Prep-day.

Guess what they're making us do today. More shots. On our Prep-day! We
have to go in and get the second round of Japanese Encephalitis. Can't
wait. And yesterday we had to go to a Malaria pill seminar thing. All 10
of us missionaries going to Singapore and Malaysia had to go to the Health
Center and the Doctor gave us this long lecture on how to avoid mosquito
bits, included things like bug necks, constantly putting on repellant, and
taking a malaria pill each day. A malaria pill EVERYDAY 18 months. Hooray.
But I'm glad for that, Malaria and Dengay (spelling?) sound awful. Sister
Goodwin is the type of person who hates doctors and hates modern medicine so
she was throwing a fit. She's never taken a pill before and now has to take
one everday for the next year and a half. And on top of that, you have to
take it at dinner while you're eating or you will mess up your GI tract
intensely, and Sister Goodwin refuses to eat dinner. I think the Doctor was
getting a little frustrated with her haha. We'll see how obedient she will
be, right now she's saying no way to that.

The language keeps coming family. I can form sentences a lot better than I
could before so that's good (about gospel principles). I don't have to
memorize entire phrases, only the vocab. We taught lesson to to a Sister who
served in Jakarta on Saturday and it went pretty well. She reprimanded my
two companions for bringing notes in to use so hopefully they won't do that
anymore. I think its becoming a crutch for them. Pray for Sister Wing, she
is really struggling with this language, but she's probably not alone at
this MTC.

So I wish that I didn't get along so well with my district. I think that if
that were the case I would get in twice as much studying. But that is
definitely not the case. Now, I know I think everything is funny and I
laugh at every joke but seriously, the Elders and Sisters in my district
are hilarious. There is an Elder McCormies in our district that has more
embarassing stories than anyone i have ever met. He shares a new one almost
every day and they are so funny. I laugh too much I think. Sister Goodwin
says it's my fault when we get in crazy moods in class because I laugh at
everything. Well, I would laugh if they weren't so dang funny. Don't worry
though family, I'm being good too, I study and am serious when the time
calls for it. But I'm very grateful that we all get along well.

In class we have been teaching the Elders a lot and they have taught us.
The other day our teacher Brother Merrill took us out in the hall and told
us to teach him the second lesson in Indonesian, in two minutes. That was
quite a task, I didn't quite make it through the whole thing but I almost
did. Anyway ever since then the Elders and Sisters I'm in class with have
been teaching each other and there are always time limits set. I don't know
if this is necessarily a good way to learn but it sure keeps it fun. We
have a stop watch and everything. I think it helps because when you're mind
goes blank on a word or you can't think of what you want to say, you abandon
that whole track and move on to something else because you're RUNNING OUT OF
TIME. Elder Mccormies taught the whole second lesson in a minute and a
half, that's just rediculous.

You want to know that hardest thing about the MTC? Keeping appropriate
music inside my head. So we aren't allowed any music at all, which is fine.
But this causes all sorts of random songs to pop into my head, I mean really
random. For service this week we had to clean the girls bathroom on our
floor and Sister Goodwin and I started singing Ace of Base and Spice Girls
at the top of our lungs, probably not the most appropriate songs for the
MTC. A girl showering started singing How Great Thow Art at the top of her
lungs to shut us up I'm sure. I felt kind of bad. Def need to repent of
that.

Let's see, oh Sister Goodwin and I run around the track when the weather
prevents us from playing outside during gym. Yesterday we ran three miles.
Be proud family, I'm not a runner, I'm pretty proud of myself. Something
about sitting in a chair all day... I think my back is going to be messed
up from these MTC chairs. However, the other day we passed by the
Haitian-Creol classroom down the hall from us and they all were sitting on
these chair pads that slipped over their chairs. We were so jealous. We
found out they were leaving in 3 weeks so we told them when they left to
give them to us. Elders are so nice to the sisters haha, that night they
came over to our classroom and gave us the cushions. YAY WE WERE SO HAPPY,
my butt is so happy too.

I have to tell you about a game Brother Maynes had us play the other day,
and I hope you will understand how I describe it. So, Brother Maynes says
he has a vocab game for us to play and to start off he tells us to write
down on a piece of paper mean or embarassing things we want to force our
companions to do. We didn't really know what to think at first but then
after awhile we were just going crazy, thinking of all sorts of crazy things
we were going to force our companions to do. Then we played the vocab game
and if we didn't know the word we had to do one the things our companion
chose for us. Bro Maynes said we would save it all for the end so during
the entire game we were plotting against each other and yelling and it was
hilarous. Turns out at the end of the game it was just an object lesson to
teach us to treat others how you want to be treated, but understand family
that this was already after the fact that we had been thinking of
embarassing things to force our companions to do, or things we know our
companino would hate doing. We got pretty into it. it was pretty funny what
we came up with.

Anyway, times running out so I gotta go, my laundry is almost done too.
I love you guys.
Sister Viehweg THE FIRST (that's braggin rights)