Oct. 15, 2009

I'm in the laundry room. As I write this, the other Indo Elders are rolling
around in the laundry baskets on wheels while singing and dancing. It's
like a musical in here. We love P-days.

How are you all! Thanks so much for the letters and emails. I feel so
loved everyday. Especially Mondays, all the DearElders come rolling in!
This week has flown people. I saw Dacia yesterday and this morning! She
lives two rooms down from me. I was in the bathroom last night talking to
another sister while brushing my teeth and in walks Sister Clifton. I
screamed. I had been looking for her all day. I think I startled the other
sister I was talking to. Dacia looked a little overwhelmed last night but I
saw her again this morning and she looked super. First day is killer.
Our group is one of the oldies now. I was talking to the mongolian elders
in the class next door and they said that the Indo Elders seem so much older
than them. I remember thinking that about the last Mongolian group. I still
feel so new. Our hallway of classes is dwindling fast. The Fiji Elders and
the Haitian-Creol Elders left this week. The Samoan and Tahition and Tongan
Elders are leaving soon too. And then us! It's crazy. Rumor is we are
getting our flight plans next week, so stay tuned.

Yesterday it rained all day and we were pretty sad. When it rains we aren't
allowed to go outside in the field for gym time. I live for that hour
outside each day. My back is constantly hurting and I think it is from
sitting in a desk all day. I look forward to walking miles and miles
everyday. We have been really into softball lately. They make me be the
pitcher. I can't catch so I guess that's the safest place for me to go.
They're nice to include me, because I am really bad, BUT i am getting
better.

Teaching in the TRC this week was not the greatest experience. We taught
fine, but our "investigators" were frustrating. Sister Goodwin started our
lesson with a prayer and during the prayer the three RMs we were teaching
started laughing. They could not control their laughter for the majority of
the lesson. We of course had no idea why they were laughing, probably at
something Sister Goodwin said in the prayer. But they wouldn't stop. So I
just started teaching them and ignored their laughs. What else could I have
done? After awhile they calmed down but one of the guys was pretty
obnoxious the entire lesson. He kept talking like a pirate and making fun
of us, probably because we were saying the "r's" wrong and had a horrible
accent; he kept saying "RRRRRRR". I could have punched him haha. We made it
throught our lesson alright and then we booked it out of there. I guess if
he feels the need to come to the TRC and make fun of new missionaries to
make him feel better, so be it. He's still doing a service to us by coming
in and letting us teach him. Other than that I think our lesson went pretty
well.
We also taught one of the other district's teachers this week for practice.
The lesson was kind of scary. You know you're going to be in trouble when
the topic of discussion starts heading towards something you have ZERO
vocabulary for. He started asking questions about how you can recognize the
spirit and how to know when you get an answer. I have no idea how to
explain that in Indonesian, it's hard enough in English! We stumbled through
some sort of explanation, but basically I told him we would answer his
question next time we came to teach, I totally dodged his question. Woops,
now i know what I need to study.
One of our teachers went to Vegas last weekend for the BYU football
game and brought us all back IN-N-OUT hats. The Elders went nuts, they were
so happy. We wore our hats all night. It's funny how anything out of the
ordinary gets us so excited here. I have been blessed with really excellent
teachers. however, one speaks Indonesian and one speaks Malaysian. This
makes class really complicated sometimes. One teacher will teach us a way
to say something and then the Malaysian teacher will come in and tell us
it's all wrong. When I get to Malaysia I'm not going to be speaking
Malaysian and I'm not going to be speaking Indonesian either; it's going to
be some random combination of the two. Hopefully I'll be able to sort it
all out when I get there. It should be interesting. The Elders and I want
to burn our Indonesian dictionaries. Almost every word we look up we are
told is wrong in Malaysian. It definitely keeps things interesting in the
classroom; keeps us on our toes.
I'm trying to think of other's things we have done this week. This
week really flew, I feel like I just emailed home yesterday. We are all
getting excited to leave that's for sure, I think I'm getting more scared
than excited sometimes. I like the MTC, it is safe here :-).

Kristin, I still can't believe what happened to you in the Library.

Thanks so much for sending my coat dad. I'll be fine, they cook us in the
classrooms and we are barely outside ever. I love you guys!
It sounds like a lot of fun at home, all the sporting events and such.
Never a dull moment in Eagle. I can't wait to here from you all again!

sister viehweg