Sept. 24, 2009

Thanks so much for sending the package Dad. I haven't got it yet but i hear
the mail from Idaho to Provo is pretty reliable :-). It sounds like there
are a lot of fun things going on at home. I hope everything works out with
that man Deb knows coming to church and stuff. Natalie's boat sounds sweet.
Dad was always the best at making school projects, I remember when you
helped me make a "plant water-er". What a creative child i was.

Family there's something you should know. There is a new face to the sister
missionary and she is lookin GOOD. I look around here and I see a lot of
girls I would never put into the sister missionary category. I may just be
saying this because 40 new sisters came in this week all going to temple
square. 40! What they say is true, the temple square sisters are a
beautiful kind.

I finally saw Elder Truman on Sunday after the fireside, which was lucky
because he was leaving the very next day. He looked happy and very excited,
but all the Truman's seem to look like that all the time with their huge
amazing smiles...

Let me tell you about last weekend, it was drama. So Saturday morning
sister wing woke up and decided that she hated the world. It was so strange
because she usually is very happy and positive but that morning she was
slamming doors, slamming books, and snapping at sister Goodwin and I. She
had us go to the front desk and when we asked her why she would just say,
"I'd rather not tell you." She handed a note to the front desk clerk which
i assumed said she wanted to call our Branch President. I don't know why
she just didn't tell him, I guess she really didn't want us to know, so
naturally Sister Goodwin and I thought it was something about us. We were
freaking out. She was on the phone with President for an hour! And we just
had to sit there, trying to come up with a defense story, which was
difficult because we didn't even know what we did. We were going to teach
that day in the TRC and I knew it would have been disasterous to go in with
her hating the world. So I forced her to say a prayer with sister goodwin
and me which helped a little. That night we had a little talk, turns out it
was something we did. Family I have been called to repentence. My actions
here at the MTC apparently make my companion feel uncomfortable. Im a
pretty touchy person, and so is sister Goodwin. We like giving hugs and
stuff like that, sister goodwin smacks by butt haha. Harmless! Except it
makes sister wing feel like we are lesbians, yep, that's what she told us.
So I am going to try really hard not to be so touchy. Also sister wing told
us we were too goofy and that we weren't representing a Sister Missionary in
a very good way. So I'm going to try and work on being less goofy also.
THIS IS HARD. My refining has begun, I will be one polished lady when
sister wing is done with me haha. Actually Im not really worrying about it,
I just try to tone it down when she's around.

The TRC on saturday was so sweet. I had this goal all week that i was going
to teach the lesson in Indonesian without using any notes. This was a
pretty lofty goal because I was no where near being that good. It wasn't
looking too good Friday night. But saturday came and despite all the drama
with sister wing, the language was just flowing. When wen got into the room
to teach the investigator I decided I wasn't going to look at my notes and
see how far I could get. I taught the entire thing in Indonesian! Now mind
you the "entire thing" is only three sections of the lesson and I still
couldn't really understand anything he said back to me but still, I was
pretty pleased. The best part was I felt the Spirit so strong while I was
teaching in Indonesian, I almost started crying while testifying. This role
play thing can be quite realistic.

A couple new districts arrived in our zone this week. They are goobers.
They sit by us at lunch and mix all sort of drinks together, chocolate milk,
juice, soda, etc. and then give it to this kind of large Elder to drink, and
he just keeps drinking them. It was disgusting, I wanted to throw up. I am
so grateful for the Elders in my district and their maturity. I really think
that having Sisters in a district makes a world of difference, we calm the
elders down a bit. But really the Elders I'm in class with everyday are so
fun. They force these elders to grow up and become responsible so fast and
for the most part they do an exceptional job. But every now and then the
young crazy Elders have to break out and they go nuts. It's pretty funny to
watch. They work really hard though. Often I wish I was their companion
because they are so dedicated and diligent. The sisters I'm with kind of
have the attitude of "no worries, I'll just pick it up when we get to
Singapore". This is a little frustrating for me because I want to learn all
I can while I'm here. They just want to takes naps all the time. I HATE
NAPS. I don't think tiredness should ever be an excuse for anything. WE'RE
ALL TIRED HERE. I didn't expect it to be this fun though. We continue to
be very competetive against the other Indo district. Yesterday we played
kickball and wooped em good.

Our class room neighbors the Mongolian missionaries all left this week
which makes me sad. I really like them. They had trouble with their VISAS
so they had to go to states here in the west. I hope it gets sorted out for
them soon. I'm glad the Singapore mission doesn't have to worry about
VISAS, there are a lot of missionaries stuck here at the MTC waiting on
VISAS. The Mongol missionaries were telling us that the flight plans of the
last Singapore group to leave had their destination as Thyland and there had
instructions that they were supposed to "miss" their connecting flight in
Singapore and just stay. Whatever gets us there I guess, even if it is a
little sketchy like that.

Family I am afraid of the bugs I will see In Malaysia. Our teacher thought
it was a good Idea in class to tell us all about the spiders he would come
in contact with in his apartment. They were the size of his entire hand and
would stab lizards with one of their legs and bite off the head. AH! I'm
going to die, I hate spiders so so so so much. Pray for me. Also an
interesting fact, we don't wear our nametags in Malaysia and we're not
allowed to proselyte in Singapore. so many rules!

It's been a good week though, I still have so much to learn! I love you
guys so much.
-sister viehweg