Week #2

Hola mi familia y mi amigos :]

Things are so fantastic in the MTC! From Wednesday-Sunday of last week, the days seemed extremely long and I didn't know how I was going to make it through 10 weeks here! But Sunday was so fantastic, and things have really picked up since then. I can defintely feel that my time here will fly by!

Every fast Sunday at the MTC is a mission conference. It is so incredible to have thousands of missionaries in the same room! The MTC presidency and their wives spoke to us. There were a lot of things that stood out to me and it really helped me put this whole experience into perspective! Sister Brown shared the analogy of walking into a spider web, and jumping around trying to shake it off.. when we get caught in one of Satan's webs, are we as quick to shake it off? It was a fantastic meeting. We met with the Branch presidency and the whole Sunday was just a really chill day, which we TOTALLY needed! We got to walk to the temple. It was so great to get out and get some fresh air. It was funny though like leaving the MTC, it felt like we were doing something wrong! But it was so nice to get out! Then Sunday night we had a fireside where a man... I can't remember what his name is off the top of my head, but he came and spoke to us. He is the director of all international MTCs. It was fun to learn where they all are, and to hear some pretty neat stories about missionaries that have attended them. This guy was seriously incredible. He was the mission president of the Japan Nagoya Mission (thought you would like that dad!) when he was in his 30s!! They had three very young (under the age of 10) when they went. But the children bore their testimonies, and it sounds like they really enjoyed their time there.

Monday was great too. Mi compenaró, Hermana Cottrell was feeling pretty sick in the morning, so we stayed in and I just got some studying done while she slept. The rest of the day was spent mostly in classes. My Spanish is really coming along. It is so incredible because I have only been here for a week! But we speak it all the time, and teaching José really helps. We have taught him 5 lessons already, and we are teaching him again tonight. We started out by scripting everything, and are slowly weening ourself off of notes. When we get out it's pretty funny because Hermana Cottrell will be like " did you know that you said..." or vice versa. We've said some pretty funny stuff, but if you told me a week ago that I would be able to talk to someone in Spanish I would have thought you were crazy! I still have a long ways to go, but I am loving it.

Thank you to everyone who has been sending me mail. It is so fantastic to get mail at the end of the night! So funny though, our district leader passes the mail out, and will read our fulll names. It's so funny because most people don't know your first name, it's like that part of your identity is gone. But when we learned some of the names it was just hilarious. We couldn't like stop laughing. It was like we knew this secret. We're silly, but we have fun!

Tuesday afternoon Hermana Cottrell and I decided to go to the bookstore and get prints of some of the pictures we have taken because apparently there is not really any way of uploading pictures and emailing in the MTC! But when we got to the bookstore one of the machines was out of order, and the other one had a long line. But we got in it anyway because we totally wanted to get pictures!! Long story short, the machine that was working was totally awful and slow. So we waited in line for like two hours and missed our lunch. But we got pictures! So I'll mail some home today! Yeah I'm already kind of starting to get sick of the food here... it's not awful, but just eating a cafeteria everyday all day is kind of blah... Tuesday night was the devotional. O. Vincent Haleck of the seventy came and spoke. He's from Samoa and it was fun to hear some of the stories he had to share. After devotional you meet with your district to discuss some of the things that you learned and that you want to share. We all bore our testimony and it was so incredible. I am so blessed to have such a great district. We have 4 Elders going to Tijuana, Mexico, 3 Elders to Houston!!, 1 to New York, New York, 1 sister to Peru, 1 to Ogden, UT (I've been able to tell her some fun stuff because of you Julie!!) and then the 2 of us to Mesa, AZ. It's just so incredible.

I love Hermana Cottrell so much. I can honestly say that I am loving the MTC. I know 10 weeks is a long time, and March sounds forever away, but I can already feel time picking up.

Everyone lives for preparation day, and I can totally see why! This morning our zone got to go to the Temple. It was so incredible to be in there with my district. It's just so fun. When we got in there we met a really nice lady who asked us if we wouldn't mind going through for one of her family names. So awesome. The name was Wu Shi, born in 1643 in China. So cool. It was just really good to go, since I hadn't been in over two weeks. Afterward, all the missionaries that have been here for weeks were like, "You HAVE to eat at the cafeteria in the temple because it is so good!" We were like uhh... okay. Who knew that that Provo Temple Cafeteria food is so good. It's probably not that good, but after what we had been eating it sure looked good! I got some quiche that was looking sooo good. I ate about half of it when I realized that it had shrimp and crab in it... I couldn't eat anymore of it. There's something mental with me and seafood. I haven't quite figured it out. haha. But it was pretty funny. Today I'll have time to write mail, do laundry, and just wear jeans! I'm so looking forward to it.I love you all so much. Thanks so much for the support. I don't think I could be here without you!

Love, Hermana Larson

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