Omigoodness-
I can't believe that tomorrow is the halfway
mark already! Time goes by so fast here! Well, sort of. The
missionary-time is slow days, quick weeks. How true that is! It
seems like every day is another Sunday or P-day. In three weeks I'll be
in Munich, and then who knows where they will send me next!
The Honeymoon period of the MTC is over. I find myself
constantly praying for patience and love for others ,and for myself! It's
so easy to get impatient with yourself here! It's a constant reminder,
but I guess that's why they give us so much personal study time each day, so
that we're always being spiritually rejuvinated!
So this week my district starting something called the
TRC. It's once a week, and we go and teach lessons to volunteers who come
to the MTC. It is mostly RM's who are just so excited to speak to someone
in their mission language, and they mostly just help us out (or so I've heard.)
So this week my companion and I headed into the TRC, thinking that it would be
super easy. We'd get to speak our mix of German-English, the volunteer
would forgive our poor grammar, and all would be well! Oh, how wrong we
were! Our first volunteer was an older lady who grew up in Germany, moved
to Italy, got converted in Italy, and was just in Provo for the weekend to see
General Conference. She had the missionary who baptized her with her, but
he didn't speak German, she doesn't speak English, and since she was baptized
in Italy, she doesn't know any of the gospel words in German. And we had
to teach her! There would be moments where I would say something in
German, she would look confused, I'd say the English word to the RM, he would
say the Italian word to her, and she would finally understand. It was
sehr schwer! But the cool part was that we taught a native German
speaker, we were able to have a decent conversation with her and teach her a
lesson in German, without the safety net of speaking English. So that was
a huge confidence builder.
I'm getting to the point in my German that my English
spelling is going down the drain at an increasing rate! It's bizarre to
me to hear a prayer in English, I can't remember the English words to the hymns
anymore, and I find myself accidentally including German words in my letters
and emails. Sorry! You have the luxury of Google translate, I don't
lol.
General Conference was very good! Although I have to
say that I am so glad that the Lord has the timing that he does! If this
conference had happened before the October one, I would have spent all of my
time freshman year looking for a husband! Seriously, it seemed like the
main focus of this Conference was on the importance of the home, the sanctity
of marriage, and the power of the priesthood. I just feel bad for those
poor Sister Missionaries who have been called but haven't reported to the MTC
yet, they must be at war with themselves right now...
Speaking of Priesthood, I have a really great story!
So there is a Finnish Elder in my district, and he speaks pretty good
English, but there are some words and phrases that he still doesn't understand.
(Like one time he tried to call his companion humble, and instead he said his
companion was so 'down in the Earth.') So he was telling us what he liked
about the Priesthood session of conference, and he was sharing something from
Uchtdorf's talk. He said "and Elder Uchtdorf kept talking about this
creature that would fall down a lot...I think this creature must be like a
sloth or a turtle or something, and it would fall down all the time. I
kept thinking throughout his talk, that poor animal!" and we were
all desperately trying to think of what creature he could possibly be talking
about; what clumsy and stupid animal falls down all the time, when his
companion chimed in and said, "uuh, you mean a toddler?" We
could not stop laughing! Oh, that poor creature...
Tell people to write me letters! Keine Post fur
mir! I think that lots of my friends expect me to write to them first,
but they forget that I don't have anyone's address and mine is freely posted on
facebook...if it's not too much trouble, do you think you could log on my fb or
something and get some addresses for me? I think the main ones are the Tiemann's
and the Ries's. and maybe post that if people want to hear from me, they
either need to write to me or tell you my address, cause I don't have the
luxury of Google or Facebook!
It is snowing again here! It has been snowing on and off since we got here :(
I love you all and thanks for all of your support!
Tschuss!
-Sister Peterson
