Sept. 10, 2009

HELLLOOOOOOO family.

How's it going everyone. I feel like it's been awhile since I've seen
y'all. K honestly I feel like this week has been the LONGEST WEEK OF ME
LIFE. In a good way of course. The MTC is pretty rockin. Not half as bad
as some people made it out to be. Everybody here is telling me that it's
gets better after the first week but here I am thinking, "Can it get better
than this? This place rocks!" These classes are WAY better than anything i
would be taking at BYU. Plus, there's a lot more incentive to study let me
tell you.
K I really don't know where to begin.
Oh my companionS. Yes I'm in a threesome. They stuck me with two lovely
sisters (I don't really like being called sister because it makes me feel
old but i am praying that i will learn to like it). One is from California
and just turned 21 yesterday, the other is from Bountiful and is 24. Sister
Goodwin, from CA, cracks me up. She is so funny, sassy, and hates rules.
I've discovered that when I laugh at her when she gets worked up about a
"dumb rule" she realizes she's overreacting and settles down. But she
really is funny, she reminds me a lot of Erica haha. Sister Wing from
bountiful is also quite funny, but with her i have to stifle my laughter
because i don't think she would appreciate me laughing at her mannerisms all
the time, she's quite interesting. She has some issues and loves to talk
about them. (Except she starts every story with "I hate talking about this
but..." and then continues on into a long sad story) It's nice because i
love em both and wouldn't trade them for the world but when one is driving
me nuts I just pay attention to the other. It's works out quite nicely.

Class is good. It's amazing because we sit in class for five hours and it
seems like 30 minutes. I HAVE SO MUCH TO LEARN! I love my teachers.
Brother Maynes just got back from Singapore 6 weeks ago and you can tell,
and Bro Merrill is actually my second cousin I discovered. He's from Mesa
and apparently his Grandpa is Grandma Janet's brother. Small world.
Indonesian is CRAZY. It's kind of a pimative sounding language. My
favorite thing to do is make words plural, you just say it twice. Brilliant.
So "dosa" is sin, and "dosa-dosa" is sins. They're so smart to do that. I
love how it sounds. And I love how it just rolls off my tongue. I've been
blessed with being able to pronounce everything pretty easily. That hasn't
been a real struggle. the struggle has been retaining it all. So far I
have memorized a small testimony, prayer, and part of the first prinicple of
the first lesson. I'm talkin baby steps here. It truly is amazing how fast
we learn though. It took me three years of spanish class to be able to put
together a sentence. I try not to think about everything I have yet to
learn because when i do, I get a huge panicky feeling and I want to throw up
haha. Baby steps people.
I don't like the food here, but thankfully they have a salad bar every meal
and oatmeal in the morning. Everything else is YUCK.

The devotionals here are so good. Sundays and Tuesdays are my favorite
because of them. I like it when all the missionaries meet together in the
gym for devo. Singing hymns is crazy. I can't hear myself sing it's so
loud. I'm used to girls over-powering the men every time i sing. That's
definitely not the case here. It's SO LOUD.

It's definitely intense here. Everyone is trying so hard to learn. Next to
our classroom are the Mongolian missionaries and on the other side are the
Malagasi Missionaries. with the Tahitian missionaires down the hall. It's
crazy to walk down that hallway and listen to all the jibberish going on. I
feel for the Mongolians, that language is nuts. There is another Indonesian
district down the hall to going to Indonesia. Yesterday during gym we
challenged them to a kickball tournament. That was exciting. The elders
decided to make a rule that when they kicked they had to make it home no
matter what. We had elders running all over the field trying to dodge
balls, elders jumping over other elders, doing dive rolls, jumping over
sisters, etc just trying to get home. There's never a dull moment with the
Elders around. They make me laugh and I'm surprised at their maturity.
Sometimes I think they're looking at me thinking how immature I AM.

Oh I remember at Lisa's reception in Utah someone came up to me and told me
to look out for an Elder Bench. Well he's my district leader and a great
Elder but I don't remember who told me to look out for him....lisa help me
out? he's from CA....i dunno.

All the Elders in our district are awesome. there Used to be seven of us
but now we're down to six (two threesomes of elders and sisters). Sadly one
of our Elders was sent home yesterday. It is intense here and if you have
done something that's needs repenting you better do it, cuz you're gonna
feel it. Man I know I'm worthy but I still wonder if I'm good enough to be
here! During those intense meetings im sitting there thinking, AH I kissed
a guy this summer I should be sent home haha. Anyway I feel bad for the
elder. The other Elders say he really wants to come back so hopefully he
will and our district can be his trainers when he gets out in the field.
Can't believe it's only been a week, eight more to go! (not that i'm
counting down). Man my time is dwindling fast and I can't remember what i've
typed. If there are mistakes i'm sorry because i'm not going to have time
to reread this. I love it here. LOVE YOU ALL

SIster Viehweg