Letters--week of June 19, 2013

Letter June 20, 2013

This week was great! The days are starting to fly by!  Friday we did TRC for the first time. I don't know what it stands for but we teach real people--mostly members/RMs because it's in Spanish. It was so funny: the first girl's name was Megan and she had just gotten home from a mission in Chile. We were having her read Jacob 2:18-19 but I accidentally told her 28-29! Hermana Jensen was wise enough to also bring her English scriptures and we saw the mistake and stopper her. She wrote on the review that had made her day! The next woman we taught, Hermana Griffin, was the sweetest, most motherly lady. We asked her about any trials she faced in her life, and she broke down crying about trying to ensure the eternal life of her family. Then the Spirit reminded me about a scripture we had used with an investigator earlier that week: 3 Nephi 18:21. We had her read it and I witnessed the Spirit taking it deep into her heart. She said that she had been wondering earlier what makes the MTC so much like the Temple, and she realized it was because we pray so often here. I was thinking about that the other day and counted the least amount of times we would pray--so on a day with only one class period and no investigators to teach--10 times. Assuming the circumstances are right the least amount of times we pray in one day here is 10 and those are never the circumstances. A realistic average is prbably around 20 and that doesn't include prayers of he heart throughout the day! Hermana Griffin is right: because we speak to God so often there is a special spirit here. I encourage you to pray together more often and I promise that as you do you will feel a greater presence of the Spirit in our home. 

Monday night at 6:30 pm the Zone Leaders' district (7 elders) hopped on a place for Tegucigalpa, Honduras! I'm missing them a lot now, they were so much fun and incredible leaders! One of them, Elder Bartchsi, is still here. He's headed for Spain but has no visa. He should be receiving his reassignment soon. Yesterday we got a new district of Elders! Six are going to Mexico and four to Guatemala. Next Wednesday though we are getting four new Hermanas! Which is good because right now in the zone ther are four other Hermanas beside my district and two are leaving for CA on Monday (the other two don't have their Peru visas yet). We won't hear anything about our visas until one week before we are supposed to leave which is when we get our travel plans. We most likely won't get them in time though. We have written down guesses for everyone's reassignment!  State-side would be fun, and I know the Lord has a plan but I really hope I can go straight to Argentina. Neverthelss not as I will, but God will it. Reassignment will just be something I"ll have to come to grips with and I pray for strength to accept it.

I have three teachers: Hermana Comacho is from Puerto Rico, and Hermano Avila served St. Lauderdale, FL Spanish & English. They just teach us Spanish, the accent we pick up in Argentina; however I've heard that in week five or six we get to Skype members in Argentina, but I'm not sure. Elder Sorensen doesn't want to wait and tries to put in the "sh"s every now and then. It's kind of a joke in the district especially because Hermana Comacho doesn't like the accent (even though she says "ll"s and "y"s with a little "j" in there.

Class is great, each class period is three hours long and we have two most days.  Hermana Comacho and Hermano Holman teach together and then Hermano Avila teaches solo. One hour is usually grammar, one is for teaching "investigators." and one hour is for coaching which is more how to teach instruction. Besides our permanent teachers, we have Zone Resource Teachers who pop in randomly to help. They are alos called floating teachers until they get their own district to teach. Hermano Thatcher is the district's favorite! He served in Pennsylvania Philadephia Spanish speaking, of course. Hermano Thatcher said it always made him feel so uplifted when our Elders look so happy to see him so he decided to try and make them feel just as awesome all the time and it has escalated into a compliment war. It's hysterical! "Hermano Thatcher, that was the best prayer I've heard in English and Spanish. Hermano Thatcher, you just know the answer to everything. Hermano Thatcher gives a compliment bu usually in Spanish which, according to the Elders, beats and English complement so this little game encourages the Elders to look up more Spanish. It's wonderful entertainment.

Guess what?! On the 23rd there will be a worldwide mission broadcast in the Marriott Center. The prophet will be there and who know how many of the 12! Elder Nelson said it will be the mission broadcast of the century! And my whole district is singing in the choir! There's an MTC choir about 1200 strong combining with a member coir of 1100. We will be recorded and put on the church website! I'm so excited! Also this past Tuesday was the very first MTC devotional in the Marriott Center, I think just so we can be with the people from the Raintree Campus which opened a couple weeks ago. As we were coming back people in cars were filming and taking pictures of the massive line of 3000+ missionaries. I felt like a zoo display.:)

I'm participating in so many "firsts" here that I know will bless my family forever! Also the new Mission President's seminar is like the 23-27 and Brother Eggot (the MTC choir director is putting a small special group together for that and by special I mean experienced. I filled out a form and will hopefully be able to participate in that. Then I might get to meet my new mission President. They get switched out in July so we (Hermana Jensen, me & Elders Walton, Sorensen, and Carter) might not even get to know the current one.

Let me know if anything really cool happens! Don't forget to go to the temple! IT is the happiest place on Earth!

All my love,
Hermana Arntsen

E-mail June 20, 2013

MOMMY!!!!!!!!!

You will never guess what just happened!!!!! Guess!!!!! Are you guessing?????? When I was walking to the temple this morning with the Hermanas, who should drive by the second we leave the MTC gate but EVAN AND MICHAEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They waved and shouted which was great!! I can't believe I got to see them. All the Hermanas were saying "oh are they going to turn around?" and were staring down the street after them, but they didn't which is fine. Anyway that was SO incredibly awesome! Wonderful tender mercy from the Lord! I don't know if it will happen again but that was sure fantastic

I hope I didn't freak you out last week. I assure you I am in perfect health now. I was only sick Wednesday evening, Thursday, and Friday. I went back to class on Saturday and have been fine since then. Thanks you for the medicine! Oh and for the comic section! Dilbert was very funny!

I don't know if I told you but the district that had my ZLs in it left two weeks ago for Honduras. So cool! And the district with the other Hermanas in it left this week. Two went to CA and the other two stayed behind waiting for their visas to Peru. Well those two got reassigned today to Montana and Texas which is so cool. Just so you know that will most likely happen to us but we heard that missionaries going to Argentina and Brazil are getting put at the top of the reassignment list because they are assuming there will be problems with those countries. So I might not have to wait as long to get reassigned. If I do have my visa then my travel plans will come tomorrow! But if not I won't get anything unless I've been reassigned already which probably won't happen so you and I will know what will happen most likely next week.

Also, in light of the Hermanas leaving for CA, Sister Jensen and I were assigned to be the Sister Training Leaders for the zone. We don't really do much but we got to welcome the new district that came in yesterday. Four Hermanas and four Elders. I know one of the Hermanas! Hermana Annalise Carter and I had French together the last to semesters. How ironic right! She and two of the other new Hermanas are going to Argentina. They are going to the new mission in the south which did in fact steal the tip of the world from Buenos Aires North so no penguins for me but I know they will enjoy it. The up side to that is that the area of the BA North mission just got smaller so we can be more thorough in the areas we are assigned because we will have more missionaries in a smaller area. That's really exciting!

I got a letter from Grandma which was so sweet! I'm working on writing you back, Grandma! This week I received more letters than ever before so my pile just got so much bigger and now I have to work my way through the stack. Haha. I also got a package from Karen Scott!! SO kind and delicious! Thanks! You're also in the pile! :D And Hermana Jensen's mother, a saint, had been sending me packages and letters! She says she is only doing what you would do, Mom, if you live twenty minutes away like she does. I told her you appreciate it and that she is helping to fatten me up! Hahaha!

I got a letter from Elder Quinn this week!! He didn't know I had entered the MTC and was so excited for me! He also mentioned an exchange he went on with his district leader who reminded him of me so I got a letter from Elder Hatch, the district leader as well. So that was really fun!

Also, a couple of weeks ago we, as a district, took a Spanish-speaknig assessment. We just recorded it on the computer and the answers got sent to evaluators to help us know what to work on. I got the results this week. There are four categories of scoring, I don't remember exactly but I think they are pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary, and grammar. Out of 7 I received a 5, 5, 4, and 4 respectively. Hermano Avila, who was going over them with me, said that by the time missionaries leave the MTC they hope that they are at 5s so I'm doing really well! That was great! I'm so excited to learn Castilian! It will be so pretty and I can't wait until my Spanish is at a level where I can communicate without hindrance to native speakers! It is such a barrier in teaching right now, not an impossible one, but mostly one I have to wait to knock down until I get to the field.

Thanks for the family photos! i love them! Especially that one with Michael hanging off the banister/wall thing! That is our family in a picture! Hermana Jensen says we are just the cutest most adorable family! The jacket you sent made me burst out laughing! Hermana Binks (in my district) and I had just discovered that, in our photos on Mormon.org, we are leather jacket buddies and we were saying how much we love our leather jackets and then you sent it to me. Haha! I don't know if I can wear it but thanks anyway! I'll just send it back right before I leave with some other stuff.

Mom, Thanks for all that you've done to get me here!! We did invitatories today and I just kept thinking about the when you went through with me!!!

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know that this Gospel is true and that God is sitting and waiting and wanting to bless us. All we have to do is ask and seek! Remember D&C 4 does not just apply to full-time missionaries. In verse two it says that any who have the DESIRE is called. So if you have the desire, get working! If you don't have the desire, pray for the desire and then get working! The desire will come as we seek for it- verse 7. Our work is meaningless without the members and our work is SSSSSOOOOO much more successful with the members help!!!

MUCHISIMO AMOR!!

Hermana Arntsen