This will be Katie's last email from the MTC. She goes to the mission field on Dec 31. Her new address there will be:
Hermana Katie Klaus
New Mexico, Albuquerque Mission
4400 Presidential Dr NE Ste E
Albuquerque, NM 87109
-------------------------
Hola!
Feliz Navidad! I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I know I did. We opened gifts from our families in the morning. It was fun to see what everyone was given. I loved all of my gifts especially the scrapbook of pictures. (The Elders couldn't figure out how to get it to close :D ) After that we had breakfast which was eggs and ham, and then we waited around for the devotional start. There was a mix up in the prayer and I actually ended up saying the prayer for the afternoon fireside, but there is a good story with that in a bit. We had Elder Russel M. Nelson come and speak to us. It had a very nice Christmas feeling to the devotional and you could feel the Savior's love for each of us in that room. The cutest thing was when he was leaving Elder Nelson waved and then from the sea of black suit coats all these hands popped up and waved back. After that we had our Christmas meal. It was the same menu as Thanksgiving, so turkey, potatoes and of course the best part stuffing! Then we made sack dinners and headed back to our classrooms. Then we took time to study the Christmas story as a district in Luke and Mathew. After that we took a walk up to the temple in the snow. Yes we did have a white Christmas, but the blizzard was saved for yesterday! We have probably a foot or more of snow on the ground. I love the snow! I am going to miss it in New Mexico. Then we had free time. Yep you read that right FREE TIME! In the MTC? I know it's crazy, but we actually had 40 blissful minutes where we didn't have to anything at all. So the hermanas and I simply basked in moment and enjoyed each others company.
After our free time, we went to the talent show. The talent show was amazing. I had a front row seat, so I had the perfect view. It was mainly singing, and instrumental pieces. The best two: first an elder who played an incredible piano piece that was lively, upbeat and super fast. At the very end all his music fell off but he kept going, improvised the end and then sat on the piano. The other great one was a set of twins who pretend-fought (pushing and shoving) while playing again an incredibly difficult piece of music. It was so funny because as part of their routine one twin was engrossed with being on film and kept pointing and laughing at himself, and finally the other twin looked up smiled and then sternly told his twin to keep playing. The other funny thing that happened while the talent show was going on was I looked over at the head security guard, Brother Angus. He is big man. I mean he could give "Brother Chatman a run for his money" kind of big. I look over and his socks were clearly visible and they were a nice Christmas red. It made me smile.
Ok so the funniest moment of the day. After we had a short intermission we all came back in and President Hacking announced the rest of the evening. He concluded by saying we would sing the closing song and then said "the closing prayer will be offered by Sister Katie "Claus" (pause) wait a minute (giggles while he puts on his glasses and reads it again) Yep Sister Claus (more giggling) Well that's just too perfect (laughing) Ok sister "Claus" who is from (pause again) I really want to say the North Pole (and the audience is all laughing)." His wife came up to me after and said that the first time he read it he wondered if someone was playing a joke on him. She said I had a great last name. It's fun to have the last name Klaus around the holidays. Greg Olson's talk was really neat. He shared a bunch of his paintings of the Savior and then told us the inspiration behind the paintings and what he was trying to get across. His work has some of my favorite pieces of the Savior. We ended Christmas day by watching It's a Wonderful Life. It's been a long time since I've seen that movie and I really enjoyed it and it was fun to get lost in the story and enjoy the company of all the MTC missionaries. That is Christmas at the MTC. A very memorable day filled with lots of thoughts of Jesus Christ and his gift to each of us.
Ok so I have 4 days left in the MTC! I can't believe it! I am not sure where the last 9 weeks have gone. I am so excited to begin the next phase of my mission. I think my mission president's wife told me that P-day is on Monday, so I am not sure when I will get the chance to email again. I love each of you so much. I am so blessed to have so many wonderful people supporting me. I hope that everyone has a great New Year and that we can each find ways to invite the Spirit into our lives this coming year.
Con Amor,
Hermana Klaus
"And it came to pass..."
Friday, December 28, 2012
Friday, December 21, 2012
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Week 8
Hola!
I hope everyone is doing well and that everyone is enjoying the Christmas holidays. I have loved getting the Christmas cards from people! It is so fun to hear from all of you! I am doing much better this week, although at the end of last week I was coughing so hard on the way to dinner, I turned to Hermana Pearson when I finished and said we better go back because I think I coughed up half a lung back there and I'd better go find it!
Can you believe I have less than two weeks left?!!!!! Where has all the time gone?! So I am glad the attack of the killer cold is over and hopefully I will stay unsick. Ok, so I have some very exciting news!!!!!! Do you wanna hear?! So on Sunday our branch had a little red paper in our mail box and we have been chosen to give the prayers for the Christmas devotional. Guess who is giving the closing prayer!!!! MEEEE! Yep I get to be sitting on the stand with an apostle on Christmas and hopefully will get the chance to shake his hand! What better Christmas present could a girl ask for?! I am so excited and can't wait to find out who it is. We have been joking that they picked me to say the prayer because they are going to make a comment about my last name over the pulpit. I will say that comments about my name and Santa Klaus go up exponentially around this time of year.
The other fun news is that Elaine S. Dalton, the General Young Women's president, came and spoke in Relief Society and afterwards we went up and she gave us each a hug. It was neat to meet her and her husband. Background: for relief society all the sisters meet together and we barely fill the middle section on the floor in the big auditorium room. However, Sister Dalton told us that in April there will be 2000 sister missionaries! That will not only fill up the floor but the entire room! That is basically the whole MTC right now in sisters! It's going to get a little crazy around here. All of the branch presidents and leaders are being told to prepare themselves and in 6 months they won't even recognize the MTC. I think that about every devotional the general authority speaking tells the sisters that we'd better gear up because we are going to be trainers right away! Sister Dalton told us what a privilege it is to be serving at this time and that we are going to be setting the tone for this new wave of sister missionary work! I am so grateful that I can be a missionary!
So other than those exciting pieces of news, life at the MTC is very much the same. My Spanish keeps progressing, but I am a little worried that when we get into the field we are going to feel the full fire-hose effect of a new language that isn't being spoken nice and slow by the MTC teachers. However, I know that with the Lord's help I will be able to communicate in Spanish!
I am not sure if they have it online yet or not, but you should try and go online and find the Music and the Spoken word from this week. It was about the gift of giving small things and the told the story of Hal a WWII pilot and how he changed the world. It was so sweet that it brought tears to my eyes.
I am slowing checking off my "last things" here at the MTC. I did my last service this Tuesday because we don't have it on Christmas. We were assigned trash again, so as we were taking these huge garbage bags to the compressor I suddenly broke into my grinch voice and we started to do the Grinch walk. "I am the Grinch that stole Christmas" We then were quoting the garbage scene from that movie while we were throwing the bags in. "One man's garbage is another man's potpourri!" It was s good time at 6:50 in the morning in the freezing cold taking out the trash!
We have had some snow this week and we are all keeping our fingers crossed for a white Christmas. Luckily I haven't biffed it yet because we all know how graceful I am. I truly believe that the Lord has sent some angels to watch over me when I walk on ice, so that I won't slip and fall and make an utter fool of myself in a skirt.
The only crazy moment I had this week was when I hosting again this week. We had over 700 new missionaries come in this week and I am meeting several sisters who are 19! I was standing in line waiting for my new sister to walk through the door and I was having a conversation with some other Spanish speaking hermanas. We were laughing at the fact that our English sometimes struggles and that we mix and match words and sometimes your tongue doesn't cooperate. Not even 5 minutes later we were talking about something - I can't even remember what - when I responded that's horrible. However, I pronounced horrible in English, but followed the Spanish rule for a silent H so it came out how Orrible! Yep just another day in my life.
We should be getting our travel plans this week, so I will be able to tell you more about that next week. I think that I am the only sister going to Albuquerque so I will have elders as my companions on the flight. We have two neighbors in the residence hall that arrived last week and they are both going to Albuquerque Spanish speaking. One of them knows Ashley...they were in a sewing class together at BYU I think her name was Hermana Wilcox. I wonder if I will be her companion some time down the road?
Ok well Merry Christmas everyone! I am sending lots of love your way! I am so grateful for the Savior Jesus Christ and all that he did for us. I hope everyone takes the time to remember the true meaning of Christmas.
Mucho Amor,
Hermana Klaus
I hope everyone is doing well and that everyone is enjoying the Christmas holidays. I have loved getting the Christmas cards from people! It is so fun to hear from all of you! I am doing much better this week, although at the end of last week I was coughing so hard on the way to dinner, I turned to Hermana Pearson when I finished and said we better go back because I think I coughed up half a lung back there and I'd better go find it!
Can you believe I have less than two weeks left?!!!!! Where has all the time gone?! So I am glad the attack of the killer cold is over and hopefully I will stay unsick. Ok, so I have some very exciting news!!!!!! Do you wanna hear?! So on Sunday our branch had a little red paper in our mail box and we have been chosen to give the prayers for the Christmas devotional. Guess who is giving the closing prayer!!!! MEEEE! Yep I get to be sitting on the stand with an apostle on Christmas and hopefully will get the chance to shake his hand! What better Christmas present could a girl ask for?! I am so excited and can't wait to find out who it is. We have been joking that they picked me to say the prayer because they are going to make a comment about my last name over the pulpit. I will say that comments about my name and Santa Klaus go up exponentially around this time of year.
The other fun news is that Elaine S. Dalton, the General Young Women's president, came and spoke in Relief Society and afterwards we went up and she gave us each a hug. It was neat to meet her and her husband. Background: for relief society all the sisters meet together and we barely fill the middle section on the floor in the big auditorium room. However, Sister Dalton told us that in April there will be 2000 sister missionaries! That will not only fill up the floor but the entire room! That is basically the whole MTC right now in sisters! It's going to get a little crazy around here. All of the branch presidents and leaders are being told to prepare themselves and in 6 months they won't even recognize the MTC. I think that about every devotional the general authority speaking tells the sisters that we'd better gear up because we are going to be trainers right away! Sister Dalton told us what a privilege it is to be serving at this time and that we are going to be setting the tone for this new wave of sister missionary work! I am so grateful that I can be a missionary!
So other than those exciting pieces of news, life at the MTC is very much the same. My Spanish keeps progressing, but I am a little worried that when we get into the field we are going to feel the full fire-hose effect of a new language that isn't being spoken nice and slow by the MTC teachers. However, I know that with the Lord's help I will be able to communicate in Spanish!
I am not sure if they have it online yet or not, but you should try and go online and find the Music and the Spoken word from this week. It was about the gift of giving small things and the told the story of Hal a WWII pilot and how he changed the world. It was so sweet that it brought tears to my eyes.
I am slowing checking off my "last things" here at the MTC. I did my last service this Tuesday because we don't have it on Christmas. We were assigned trash again, so as we were taking these huge garbage bags to the compressor I suddenly broke into my grinch voice and we started to do the Grinch walk. "I am the Grinch that stole Christmas" We then were quoting the garbage scene from that movie while we were throwing the bags in. "One man's garbage is another man's potpourri!" It was s good time at 6:50 in the morning in the freezing cold taking out the trash!
We have had some snow this week and we are all keeping our fingers crossed for a white Christmas. Luckily I haven't biffed it yet because we all know how graceful I am. I truly believe that the Lord has sent some angels to watch over me when I walk on ice, so that I won't slip and fall and make an utter fool of myself in a skirt.
The only crazy moment I had this week was when I hosting again this week. We had over 700 new missionaries come in this week and I am meeting several sisters who are 19! I was standing in line waiting for my new sister to walk through the door and I was having a conversation with some other Spanish speaking hermanas. We were laughing at the fact that our English sometimes struggles and that we mix and match words and sometimes your tongue doesn't cooperate. Not even 5 minutes later we were talking about something - I can't even remember what - when I responded that's horrible. However, I pronounced horrible in English, but followed the Spanish rule for a silent H so it came out how Orrible! Yep just another day in my life.
We should be getting our travel plans this week, so I will be able to tell you more about that next week. I think that I am the only sister going to Albuquerque so I will have elders as my companions on the flight. We have two neighbors in the residence hall that arrived last week and they are both going to Albuquerque Spanish speaking. One of them knows Ashley...they were in a sewing class together at BYU I think her name was Hermana Wilcox. I wonder if I will be her companion some time down the road?
Ok well Merry Christmas everyone! I am sending lots of love your way! I am so grateful for the Savior Jesus Christ and all that he did for us. I hope everyone takes the time to remember the true meaning of Christmas.
Mucho Amor,
Hermana Klaus
Friday, December 14, 2012
Week 7 (or week 6...)
Katie said that she realizes last week said week 5, but she is actually in her 7th week, so she is updating the calendar... :-)
Hola Familia!!!
What a great week! I have lots of good stuff to share this week! First off, congrats to my awesome little sister who did amazing at the dog show last weekend! We have a little super star in the family, Jade you are so precious! Just kidding Kara... you are the super star! I am so proud of you.
The joke of the week is in English and is compliments of one of the Elders in my district. We were talking about agency and making wrong and right choices, when the comment was made that two wrongs don't make a right, to which he responded, but two Wrights make a plane! It made me laugh. :)
The only sad part of this week is the fact that once again I am sick. What did I expect? I live with 3 other girls who started hacking last week, so I didn't stand a chance. I have been hacking, sneezing and making very undesirable nose sounds all during class. I feel like a leper because you don't want to get anyone else sick. The elders were so funny this week. When we had class on Tuesday the hermanas were all sick and coughing so they all went into the observation classroom behind our classroom and opened the window and turned off the light. When the teacher walked in he asked where the elders were and they flipped on the light in the other classroom and you could all see them sitting there with their scriptures open with a sign posted on the two way mirror "Las Hermanas estan enfermas!" (The Sisters are sick). Our teacher appreciated the humor!
Have I ever told you about the running joke in our district about the white missionary handbook? So even though we are not suppose to flirt in the MTC, there are some sisters and elders that just can't seem to stop themselves. So whenever our district sees any of these behaviors, we all call out disorderly conduct on the field! Page 33! If you happen to look at pg 33 in the missionary handbook, it talks about relations with the opposite sex. However I think the dear elders in my district are protective of their hermanas because if we even talk to another Elder outside the zone they call a pagina 33 on us. I was in the middle of a workshop giving a "fake tour" of the church building to an elder and I look over and I see Elder Lawrence pulling his white handbook out and mouthing pagina 33! I had the hardest time not busting up laughing. Our crazy Elders! Another tradition is that when they drop us off at our building, Elder Lawrence says in the most annoying voice "good night Hermanas" to which now all the Hermanas respond "good night Elder Lawrence" in equally ridiculous voices! I have the best district ever and I am dreading having to say goodbye, but at least I will get to occasionally hear of the crazy antics of Elder Lawrence because he is going to New Mexico as well.
Other fun stuff, I got a package this week and they always give you a slip that tells you to come get it. On the top of my package was my name and then written above it in Happy letters is SANTA!!! My district got a kick out of that! Yesterday we were waiting for class to start after getting back from lunch early and I look over and two of the Elders are playing go fish with the missionary pamphlets. Do you have the restoration? Nope go fish! It was funny because they had the exact same ones, but they kept telling each other to go fish until one of the Elders said I think you are cheating! Hmmm what else...Oh yesterday all the hermanas were in the classroom and Elder Hokanson was in there with Elder Fox. Elder Fox walked out in the hallway to check on something and Elder Hokanson looks up looks at the hermanas and then jumps up running out of the classroom saying I can't be here!
IMPORTANT!!!! We were sitting in class this week and we were munching on candy and discussing our favorites when it hit me! I NEED CADBURY EGGS!!!! Please someone come to my rescue and send me a bag of this delicious goody. I am going crazy now that I realize that I am living the Christmas season without! Please take pity on me!!!! Oh mom I should tell you that the Elders love my hand sanitizer. The first week I put some on and one elder was like what is that smell...I wasn't going to fess up it was me until he was like that is the best thing I have ever smelled. Fast forward to yesterday. I put some on (because I am sick) and then Elder Fox walks by and is like that smells so good. He decided he needed to use some and then for the next hour I would randomly catch him smelling his hands! Two other elders tried it as well...one elder put some on his placa so it would smell nice!
One last funny story...Yesterday is my 7 week anniversary in the MTC and I got to be a host sister. So I took two new sisters and their bags to their rooms, get their books and then drop them off at their classroom. So the first sister went great. Actually she lives in the room right next door to me, so we are now friends. The second sister however was placed in a different residence hall that has an elevator to help with bags. We get up to the room with no problem, but then trying to be exactly obedient I decide to take the stairs down because you are only suppose to use the elevator if you are sick or have luggage. So we go through this door that says stairs and we walk down a flight, but the door to the outside said limited access, so I wasn't sure if we should go out it. Then the new sister said this next floor is where we came in and me being a genius was like yeah ok. (Sure, Hermana Klaus - follow the sister who has been in the MTC less minutes than you have weeks). So we go through this door and we walk into the first floor and it is completely under construction with wires and tools everywhere and signs that say this floor is closed. I am like we aren't supposed to be here but the door we came through says do not enter this door - alarm will sound! Now I feel ridiculous and am apologizing and finally I say let's just take the elevator which we did and made it out safely. Everyday is an adventure at the MTC!!!!
Ok so last on a little bit more of a spiritual note. We had this great devotional on learning the language. The best story the speaker gave was about how hard it was to learn japanese. One day he was feeling very discouraged when all of the sudden this dog broke free from a house and was running happily for the gate, when it's owner came out and shouted at it to come back. The dog stopped turned around and with it's tail between his legs walked back inside. The elders companion turned to him and said "See elder, if that dog can learn japanese then you can too!!!" It made all of us laugh. I am continuing to learn tons in Spanish, but I am feeling a little nervous about being in the field speaking spanish to natives in less than 3 weeks! However, I know with the Lord I can do hard things! Finally one last fun thought is in 2 Nephi 30:3. This scripture talks about taking the gospel to the lamanites in this day. Our teacher talked about how Nephi saw our day and that he saw the missionaries who are taking the gospel to these very special people. What an amazing blessing that I get to be a missionary in direct response to a prophets prayer. I love this gospel. I feel the Savior's love everyday. I know that he is making me into the best missionary that I can be! I love you all so much. I pray for all of you daily! I hope that you all take some time to remember the true meaning of Christmas and remember what the Savior has done for each of us!
Mucho Amor,
Hermana Klaus
Hola Familia!!!
What a great week! I have lots of good stuff to share this week! First off, congrats to my awesome little sister who did amazing at the dog show last weekend! We have a little super star in the family, Jade you are so precious! Just kidding Kara... you are the super star! I am so proud of you.
The joke of the week is in English and is compliments of one of the Elders in my district. We were talking about agency and making wrong and right choices, when the comment was made that two wrongs don't make a right, to which he responded, but two Wrights make a plane! It made me laugh. :)
The only sad part of this week is the fact that once again I am sick. What did I expect? I live with 3 other girls who started hacking last week, so I didn't stand a chance. I have been hacking, sneezing and making very undesirable nose sounds all during class. I feel like a leper because you don't want to get anyone else sick. The elders were so funny this week. When we had class on Tuesday the hermanas were all sick and coughing so they all went into the observation classroom behind our classroom and opened the window and turned off the light. When the teacher walked in he asked where the elders were and they flipped on the light in the other classroom and you could all see them sitting there with their scriptures open with a sign posted on the two way mirror "Las Hermanas estan enfermas!" (The Sisters are sick). Our teacher appreciated the humor!
Have I ever told you about the running joke in our district about the white missionary handbook? So even though we are not suppose to flirt in the MTC, there are some sisters and elders that just can't seem to stop themselves. So whenever our district sees any of these behaviors, we all call out disorderly conduct on the field! Page 33! If you happen to look at pg 33 in the missionary handbook, it talks about relations with the opposite sex. However I think the dear elders in my district are protective of their hermanas because if we even talk to another Elder outside the zone they call a pagina 33 on us. I was in the middle of a workshop giving a "fake tour" of the church building to an elder and I look over and I see Elder Lawrence pulling his white handbook out and mouthing pagina 33! I had the hardest time not busting up laughing. Our crazy Elders! Another tradition is that when they drop us off at our building, Elder Lawrence says in the most annoying voice "good night Hermanas" to which now all the Hermanas respond "good night Elder Lawrence" in equally ridiculous voices! I have the best district ever and I am dreading having to say goodbye, but at least I will get to occasionally hear of the crazy antics of Elder Lawrence because he is going to New Mexico as well.
Other fun stuff, I got a package this week and they always give you a slip that tells you to come get it. On the top of my package was my name and then written above it in Happy letters is SANTA!!! My district got a kick out of that! Yesterday we were waiting for class to start after getting back from lunch early and I look over and two of the Elders are playing go fish with the missionary pamphlets. Do you have the restoration? Nope go fish! It was funny because they had the exact same ones, but they kept telling each other to go fish until one of the Elders said I think you are cheating! Hmmm what else...Oh yesterday all the hermanas were in the classroom and Elder Hokanson was in there with Elder Fox. Elder Fox walked out in the hallway to check on something and Elder Hokanson looks up looks at the hermanas and then jumps up running out of the classroom saying I can't be here!
IMPORTANT!!!! We were sitting in class this week and we were munching on candy and discussing our favorites when it hit me! I NEED CADBURY EGGS!!!! Please someone come to my rescue and send me a bag of this delicious goody. I am going crazy now that I realize that I am living the Christmas season without! Please take pity on me!!!! Oh mom I should tell you that the Elders love my hand sanitizer. The first week I put some on and one elder was like what is that smell...I wasn't going to fess up it was me until he was like that is the best thing I have ever smelled. Fast forward to yesterday. I put some on (because I am sick) and then Elder Fox walks by and is like that smells so good. He decided he needed to use some and then for the next hour I would randomly catch him smelling his hands! Two other elders tried it as well...one elder put some on his placa so it would smell nice!
One last funny story...Yesterday is my 7 week anniversary in the MTC and I got to be a host sister. So I took two new sisters and their bags to their rooms, get their books and then drop them off at their classroom. So the first sister went great. Actually she lives in the room right next door to me, so we are now friends. The second sister however was placed in a different residence hall that has an elevator to help with bags. We get up to the room with no problem, but then trying to be exactly obedient I decide to take the stairs down because you are only suppose to use the elevator if you are sick or have luggage. So we go through this door that says stairs and we walk down a flight, but the door to the outside said limited access, so I wasn't sure if we should go out it. Then the new sister said this next floor is where we came in and me being a genius was like yeah ok. (Sure, Hermana Klaus - follow the sister who has been in the MTC less minutes than you have weeks). So we go through this door and we walk into the first floor and it is completely under construction with wires and tools everywhere and signs that say this floor is closed. I am like we aren't supposed to be here but the door we came through says do not enter this door - alarm will sound! Now I feel ridiculous and am apologizing and finally I say let's just take the elevator which we did and made it out safely. Everyday is an adventure at the MTC!!!!
Ok so last on a little bit more of a spiritual note. We had this great devotional on learning the language. The best story the speaker gave was about how hard it was to learn japanese. One day he was feeling very discouraged when all of the sudden this dog broke free from a house and was running happily for the gate, when it's owner came out and shouted at it to come back. The dog stopped turned around and with it's tail between his legs walked back inside. The elders companion turned to him and said "See elder, if that dog can learn japanese then you can too!!!" It made all of us laugh. I am continuing to learn tons in Spanish, but I am feeling a little nervous about being in the field speaking spanish to natives in less than 3 weeks! However, I know with the Lord I can do hard things! Finally one last fun thought is in 2 Nephi 30:3. This scripture talks about taking the gospel to the lamanites in this day. Our teacher talked about how Nephi saw our day and that he saw the missionaries who are taking the gospel to these very special people. What an amazing blessing that I get to be a missionary in direct response to a prophets prayer. I love this gospel. I feel the Savior's love everyday. I know that he is making me into the best missionary that I can be! I love you all so much. I pray for all of you daily! I hope that you all take some time to remember the true meaning of Christmas and remember what the Savior has done for each of us!
Mucho Amor,
Hermana Klaus
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Week 5
Hola!
I am writing to you a much older and wiser missionary than I was last week. I debated whether I should tell this story and highlight the follies of my youth, but in the end I decided I shall let you in on what transpired this week at the MTC.
But before we get to that let's discuss other items of business. So in answer to your question, yes I did see Elder Buchanan this week. I had been keeping an eye out for him, but I hadn't seen him. I did however run into Sister Shaum who entered the same day as Elder Buchanan. She is in my same residence building but on the first floor whereas I am on the third. She was in my ward during my sophomore year at carriage cove. She looks great and is excited to teach the people of North Carolina! I will still have a week and half in the MTC when she leaves for the field! I am ready to go! Plus I need to get out of the MTC, so I am never again tempted to act like the Elders and participate in such foolish activities inspired by boredom and cabin fever.
Getting back to Elder Buchanan, I was keeping an eye out for him with no such luck, when Tuesday morning service rolled around. Have I told you that every morning for service we are suppose to have a joke. Thanks to Matthew Vance I had a great joke this week. What do you call a turkey that crosses the road, rolls in mud, and then crosses back? I dirty double crosser! Nice one! Ok back to the story...Now if there is a time you don't want to run into anyone, it is at 7am while you have been cleaning for 40 minutes, haven't showered and don't even realize that the concept of make-up exists. You know where this goes...I was happily sweeping the staircases thinking that I could do a pretty good cinderella impression when I hear a familiar voice on the stairs and Elder Buchanan walks down the stairs with the other Elders in his district. We say hi and all the normal missionary pleasantries and then we went to breakfast and I continued my impersonation of Cinderella. Now had I not been one of the Lord's missionaries giving service that could have been an embarrassing moment of oh dear my hair looks awful, but as it turns out I am and it wasn't. Haha in all seriousness it was good to see some familiar faces.
In other news, the new elder I told you about, Elder Murray, got a call from his mission president last friday who told him he needed him in the field the next day. So on saturday morning Elder Murray was on his way to New Jersey. Our district seems so small now with just 8 and what's weirder we have the same number of elders as sisters! Now I am sure in January that will become the norm, but as for now it is still a little out of the ordinary. With all these level-headed sisters you would think we would never do anything crazy, but alas we have spent too much time surrounded by Elders.
Oh another great moment of the week. I think it was about 2 Sundays ago while we were having our Sunday walk we were taking all sorts of pictures. We were also randomly taking face shots of ourselves. So as the story goes, I had hold of a blue camera that I thought was Hermana Thompson's and I took a lovely close up of my face...well as I found out this week that was not her camera, but it was in fact Elder Lawrence's camera (the other missionary going to Albuquerque) and now he has a lovely picture of my face on his camera!
Ok so shall I stop stalling and tell you my story? I think the time has come. Ok so on Monday at dinner we were all sitting around the dinner table having random conversations about everything, when Elder Lawrence looks over at the end of the Cafeteria and says "Hey! We should do the tower challenge as a district!" What is the tower challenge you might ask? Well the tower challenge is where your district eats an entire tower of cereal. To help you get a feel for the size of these towers they take about 4-5 big bags of the malt o maties cereal. Yeah not boxes but bags! Ok so to this query the Elders were excited and not to dampen the spirit the Hermanas all jumped on board! So we discussed the pros and cons of which cereal we should consume. We couldn't decide on a cereal, but somehow we ended up deciding that frosted flakes would be our challenger. So we are all pretty pumped at this point. No one in the zone thinks we can come even close to finishing a whole tower especially with 4 hermanas. We decided that we would face the challenge at lunch because we didn't want to miss out on biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Later that night as we were discussing our feat, Elder Lawrence admitted the only reason he suggested it, was because he was sure that the Hermanas would shoot it down. But now we can't back out because we would lose face in front of the Zone and let's be honest we were still pretty excited at the thought of eating a whole TOWER! Ok so the day arrives. The Hermanas waited impatiently for the Elders to show up to lunch and when they finally did, we commenced. So the first bowl was good, the second bowl was good, the third bowl was starting to taste a little gross, because you can only eat so many frosted flakes. The other zone members just watched and we continued to eat. Our elders plowed ahead bravely and we downed bowl after bowl. Towards the end we had to add a little cranberry juice because at that point we all hated frosted flakes. We wondered why we hadn't tried tuti frooties because they have more air in the tower. Even Hermana Farnsworth who is allergic to milk ate bowl after bowl of cereal. Oh and we didn't do no pansy bowls we had nice big heaping bowls. So when it was all said and done we were the last people to leave the cafeteria and we had eaten that tower down until there was basically powdery crumbs and you could see the springs. I would say in total we ate about 7/8 of that tower and for all intents and purposes we were successful. In total, any guesses on how many bowls of cereal we ate? 55 bowls of cereal!!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!!! What were we thinking?! The hermanas averaged 5-6 bowls and 3 of the elders ate 9 bowls each. I ate about 5 1/2 bowls of frosted flakes. Sure the challenge was, ehem, "exciting", but what we failed to realize was that with every choice there is a consequence and the majority of the district (especially the elders) spent the rest of the evening in varying degrees of discomfort. The Hermanas had done our part, but we had not stuffed ourselves to the point of feeling sick. The elders who did cross that line spent the next several hours moaning in pain, but we had the respect of the Zone. I'm not sure that gaining respect through a silly challenge was a smart thing to do, but again it is the follies of youth. We have all fully recovered, but the funny thing is up until that point I saw most of the Elders eat a bowl of cereal with every meal, and I have yet to see one of us eat a bowl of cereal. So lesson of the week:
A) Don't eat an entire tower of cereal
B) When you are around 19 Elders 24/7, judgment can lapse
C) Every choice comes with a consequence
I promise for the remainder of my time at the MTC I will not do anything so foolish again, and it might be a long while before I can ever eat frosted flakes again!
In spanish news, this week I gave my first analogy in spanish. We were teaching about keeping the commandments, so on my last p-day, I created a Kite out of paper, reused string from our book bags, and our sack lunch bags. We then talked about how we are the kite, the savior is flying the kite and the string is the commandments. If we break the commands the kite crashes as does a real kite if the string is let go of. We talked about how through repentance we can fix our string and once again fly high. So the commandments are not meant to bind us down and take away our freedom, but they in fact give us the freedom to fly and live happy lives. That's the gist of it. We decided to take our investigator outside, but when we got down there I realized that my note card with the words to my analogy was gone, so I ended up having to say it all from memory! I was super nervous at first, but went even better than I hoped because my companion and I taught by the spirit and I remembered all that I needed to be able to say! The lesson was great and it was a lot of fun teaching!
Ok one last experience from this week. Saturday was a little bit of a more trying day. Nothing really in particular it was just hard. I was feeling a little insecure and was just feeling a little upset. We were having class with Hermano Clarke and we were talking about teaching people, not lessons. We were doing a practice with two of the elders and we were being taught as the investigator first. We were pretending to a widow of 2 months. The elders handed me a scripture to read in the book of mormon. I read about one line when the power that comes from reading the book of mormon hit me. I didn't even know what the words were saying I just felt the power behind them. Well that started the water works and all those insecurities and doubts I had completely disappeared as I again knew how much heavenly father loved me. I was feeling good when we switched roles. My companion started teaching first and then the time was turned over to me. Right then Hermano Clarke jumped in and said get them involved, so I asked the first question that came to my mind. As they were answering I was trying to think of another question I could ask when a question formed in my mind. I asked the Elders "If you're loved one was here right now what would you say to them." Then it was silent. We sat for about a minute or two but it felt much longer. I felt impressed just to keep waiting and when I looked over at one of the Elders he had tears streaming down his face. Well that set the hermanas off and we both started to cry as we felt the spirit. The lesson ended, but the spirit did not. I know that the spirit gave and prompted me to ask that question, not for the pretend character, but for that Elder. I know that the Lord is aware of us. I know that I had received inspiration, but I didn't know that until later. Afterwards we all just sat as the elder ended up leaving the room with his companion because the spirit had touched him. I can feel that spirit as I am writing about this experience. There is so much more I wish I could say about this experience, but I don't have any more time. I love being a missionary. This is the greatest joy I have ever felt. I have never felt so close to my father in heaven or to my Savior Jesus Christ. I love you all and I am thinking and praying about you! Take care!
Much Amor
Hermana Klaus
I am writing to you a much older and wiser missionary than I was last week. I debated whether I should tell this story and highlight the follies of my youth, but in the end I decided I shall let you in on what transpired this week at the MTC.
But before we get to that let's discuss other items of business. So in answer to your question, yes I did see Elder Buchanan this week. I had been keeping an eye out for him, but I hadn't seen him. I did however run into Sister Shaum who entered the same day as Elder Buchanan. She is in my same residence building but on the first floor whereas I am on the third. She was in my ward during my sophomore year at carriage cove. She looks great and is excited to teach the people of North Carolina! I will still have a week and half in the MTC when she leaves for the field! I am ready to go! Plus I need to get out of the MTC, so I am never again tempted to act like the Elders and participate in such foolish activities inspired by boredom and cabin fever.
Getting back to Elder Buchanan, I was keeping an eye out for him with no such luck, when Tuesday morning service rolled around. Have I told you that every morning for service we are suppose to have a joke. Thanks to Matthew Vance I had a great joke this week. What do you call a turkey that crosses the road, rolls in mud, and then crosses back? I dirty double crosser! Nice one! Ok back to the story...Now if there is a time you don't want to run into anyone, it is at 7am while you have been cleaning for 40 minutes, haven't showered and don't even realize that the concept of make-up exists. You know where this goes...I was happily sweeping the staircases thinking that I could do a pretty good cinderella impression when I hear a familiar voice on the stairs and Elder Buchanan walks down the stairs with the other Elders in his district. We say hi and all the normal missionary pleasantries and then we went to breakfast and I continued my impersonation of Cinderella. Now had I not been one of the Lord's missionaries giving service that could have been an embarrassing moment of oh dear my hair looks awful, but as it turns out I am and it wasn't. Haha in all seriousness it was good to see some familiar faces.
In other news, the new elder I told you about, Elder Murray, got a call from his mission president last friday who told him he needed him in the field the next day. So on saturday morning Elder Murray was on his way to New Jersey. Our district seems so small now with just 8 and what's weirder we have the same number of elders as sisters! Now I am sure in January that will become the norm, but as for now it is still a little out of the ordinary. With all these level-headed sisters you would think we would never do anything crazy, but alas we have spent too much time surrounded by Elders.
Oh another great moment of the week. I think it was about 2 Sundays ago while we were having our Sunday walk we were taking all sorts of pictures. We were also randomly taking face shots of ourselves. So as the story goes, I had hold of a blue camera that I thought was Hermana Thompson's and I took a lovely close up of my face...well as I found out this week that was not her camera, but it was in fact Elder Lawrence's camera (the other missionary going to Albuquerque) and now he has a lovely picture of my face on his camera!
Ok so shall I stop stalling and tell you my story? I think the time has come. Ok so on Monday at dinner we were all sitting around the dinner table having random conversations about everything, when Elder Lawrence looks over at the end of the Cafeteria and says "Hey! We should do the tower challenge as a district!" What is the tower challenge you might ask? Well the tower challenge is where your district eats an entire tower of cereal. To help you get a feel for the size of these towers they take about 4-5 big bags of the malt o maties cereal. Yeah not boxes but bags! Ok so to this query the Elders were excited and not to dampen the spirit the Hermanas all jumped on board! So we discussed the pros and cons of which cereal we should consume. We couldn't decide on a cereal, but somehow we ended up deciding that frosted flakes would be our challenger. So we are all pretty pumped at this point. No one in the zone thinks we can come even close to finishing a whole tower especially with 4 hermanas. We decided that we would face the challenge at lunch because we didn't want to miss out on biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Later that night as we were discussing our feat, Elder Lawrence admitted the only reason he suggested it, was because he was sure that the Hermanas would shoot it down. But now we can't back out because we would lose face in front of the Zone and let's be honest we were still pretty excited at the thought of eating a whole TOWER! Ok so the day arrives. The Hermanas waited impatiently for the Elders to show up to lunch and when they finally did, we commenced. So the first bowl was good, the second bowl was good, the third bowl was starting to taste a little gross, because you can only eat so many frosted flakes. The other zone members just watched and we continued to eat. Our elders plowed ahead bravely and we downed bowl after bowl. Towards the end we had to add a little cranberry juice because at that point we all hated frosted flakes. We wondered why we hadn't tried tuti frooties because they have more air in the tower. Even Hermana Farnsworth who is allergic to milk ate bowl after bowl of cereal. Oh and we didn't do no pansy bowls we had nice big heaping bowls. So when it was all said and done we were the last people to leave the cafeteria and we had eaten that tower down until there was basically powdery crumbs and you could see the springs. I would say in total we ate about 7/8 of that tower and for all intents and purposes we were successful. In total, any guesses on how many bowls of cereal we ate? 55 bowls of cereal!!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!!! What were we thinking?! The hermanas averaged 5-6 bowls and 3 of the elders ate 9 bowls each. I ate about 5 1/2 bowls of frosted flakes. Sure the challenge was, ehem, "exciting", but what we failed to realize was that with every choice there is a consequence and the majority of the district (especially the elders) spent the rest of the evening in varying degrees of discomfort. The Hermanas had done our part, but we had not stuffed ourselves to the point of feeling sick. The elders who did cross that line spent the next several hours moaning in pain, but we had the respect of the Zone. I'm not sure that gaining respect through a silly challenge was a smart thing to do, but again it is the follies of youth. We have all fully recovered, but the funny thing is up until that point I saw most of the Elders eat a bowl of cereal with every meal, and I have yet to see one of us eat a bowl of cereal. So lesson of the week:
A) Don't eat an entire tower of cereal
B) When you are around 19 Elders 24/7, judgment can lapse
C) Every choice comes with a consequence
I promise for the remainder of my time at the MTC I will not do anything so foolish again, and it might be a long while before I can ever eat frosted flakes again!
In spanish news, this week I gave my first analogy in spanish. We were teaching about keeping the commandments, so on my last p-day, I created a Kite out of paper, reused string from our book bags, and our sack lunch bags. We then talked about how we are the kite, the savior is flying the kite and the string is the commandments. If we break the commands the kite crashes as does a real kite if the string is let go of. We talked about how through repentance we can fix our string and once again fly high. So the commandments are not meant to bind us down and take away our freedom, but they in fact give us the freedom to fly and live happy lives. That's the gist of it. We decided to take our investigator outside, but when we got down there I realized that my note card with the words to my analogy was gone, so I ended up having to say it all from memory! I was super nervous at first, but went even better than I hoped because my companion and I taught by the spirit and I remembered all that I needed to be able to say! The lesson was great and it was a lot of fun teaching!
Ok one last experience from this week. Saturday was a little bit of a more trying day. Nothing really in particular it was just hard. I was feeling a little insecure and was just feeling a little upset. We were having class with Hermano Clarke and we were talking about teaching people, not lessons. We were doing a practice with two of the elders and we were being taught as the investigator first. We were pretending to a widow of 2 months. The elders handed me a scripture to read in the book of mormon. I read about one line when the power that comes from reading the book of mormon hit me. I didn't even know what the words were saying I just felt the power behind them. Well that started the water works and all those insecurities and doubts I had completely disappeared as I again knew how much heavenly father loved me. I was feeling good when we switched roles. My companion started teaching first and then the time was turned over to me. Right then Hermano Clarke jumped in and said get them involved, so I asked the first question that came to my mind. As they were answering I was trying to think of another question I could ask when a question formed in my mind. I asked the Elders "If you're loved one was here right now what would you say to them." Then it was silent. We sat for about a minute or two but it felt much longer. I felt impressed just to keep waiting and when I looked over at one of the Elders he had tears streaming down his face. Well that set the hermanas off and we both started to cry as we felt the spirit. The lesson ended, but the spirit did not. I know that the spirit gave and prompted me to ask that question, not for the pretend character, but for that Elder. I know that the Lord is aware of us. I know that I had received inspiration, but I didn't know that until later. Afterwards we all just sat as the elder ended up leaving the room with his companion because the spirit had touched him. I can feel that spirit as I am writing about this experience. There is so much more I wish I could say about this experience, but I don't have any more time. I love being a missionary. This is the greatest joy I have ever felt. I have never felt so close to my father in heaven or to my Savior Jesus Christ. I love you all and I am thinking and praying about you! Take care!
Much Amor
Hermana Klaus
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Week 4
Hola Familia y Amigos!
AHHHHHHHH What did I get myself into?! Oh yeah the best decision I have ever made! Ok look at me - 4 weeks and now officially an "upper classman" at the MTC. Oh yeah!
Ok so sad to report that Elder Holland does not have any grandsons up for grabs. His oldest grandchild is a granddaughter and she is going to Italy on her mission in March I think. I want to say the oldest grandson was only 14 or 15, so I'll have to find another apostle and see if they have any grandsons at an acceptable age. :)
Typing this has made me remember just how old I really am in the MTC. I am surprised they haven't given me a special pass to the elevator or have a cushy seat in devotionals like the Senior couples because I am so old! One funny thing that the Elders got a kick out of was the fact that I graduated from high school when they were in 8th grade...just let that sink in. Hahaha it's all good! I may be a whomping 22 almost 23, but I can apparently pass for a middle schooler so it all balances itself out in the end.
So news for this week. On Friday I woke up sick. That was not a fun couple of days. On Saturday it felt like someone had said "Hulk, smash!" into my brain! So I don't really recall anything too exciting from those days. I did manage to pull through and am all back to normal.
So on Sunday I told you how we sit there and after sacrament the Branch presidency gets up and tells which one of us is going to be talking. Well I had this little suspicion all morning that I was going to get called and sure enough my name was first on the list. The subject was on the Holy Ghost and it went really well. I felt prepared and my spanish felt pretty good, but hey if it was bad there is no one that really speaks spanish that well yet, so nobody could call me out on it! The hermanas also sang I know that my redeemer lives in spanish. From what I could tell it sounded nice. It was the first time I have sang in church minus choir since I was 12 years old and sang child's prayer with Amanda Hallenbeck and completely butchered the last note. Oh the things that haunt you 10 years later. Well we must have sounded good because the 1st counselor stood up and looked at the Elders and said "that sounded like angels" I love singing hymns in Spanish.
We also had our temple walk again and it's always nice to get off the MTC grounds for a little while. We like to joke that Provo is the bubble. Well, I'm here to tell you that the MTC is the steel bubble! :) It's all worth it though because the spirit that is here can't be found anywhere else...I mean wow! Sunday we also watched the Joseph Smith movie and I didn't know that you can access them right on the LDS website, so if you haven't seen it, watching it could be a great family home evening activity. It's about an hour long. Then we had a fireside and the speaker showed us all these old Latter-day saint commercials (like the family. isn't it about time) some of them were kinda cheesy, but we had fun watching them and then discussing the messages behind these commercials.
I've told you on Tuesdays at 6:25 we have service. It makes me laugh that every night in a monotone voice a person will come and tell us that 10:15 is quiet time and lights are to be off and all missionaries are to be in bed by 10:30. I have no doubt this can be a helpful reminder to some, but luckily my room is very good about being to bed on time. However, I do find it humorous that the MTC is so strict with bedtime, but they have no problem having us get up before the day's official start at 6:30. I just tell myself it's building character! Anyway so this week we took out the garbage in the building we clean. Which funny enough is the building where Brandon Pickett teaches at the MTC. After we pick up all the garbage we take it out back to this huge compressor and I was thoroughly entertained throwing in the garbage bags and having them squished. I will admit I had a star wars flash back! Oh the nerd in me. The other funny thing while serving was we were cleaning bathroom sinks and mirrors and we were in a men's restroom. We were about half way done when an elder walked in and the look on his face was comical. I think he thought he had walked into a girls restroom and it looked like he was going to panic. We told him we were almost done, but funny enough he decided not to wait to use our bathroom and I didn't see him again.
For those that are interested I want to let you know that Nemo lives on. I am never disappointed that buscar Nemo works for every single spanish tense we have learned so far! Our teacher probably thinks my companion and I are a little nuts but that's ok. I'm use to people thinking I'm a little odd. So in spanish study sometimes we can get a little distracted after hours of studying and sometimes the Elders will go off on some tanget and it reminds me of the movie Up. So I decided to look up the spanish word for squirrel. Now sometimes we will randomly stop what we are saying and say ardilla! Oh spanish! I continue to be amazed about how much I am learning. I think I have officially learned more in a month here then I did in 3 years in high school. I can't believe what I can already say! I know I have a long way to go, but I am so excited with my progress. I can't wait to get to the field and put my spanish to work. Tomorrow's lesson I am actually giving my first analogy in spanish so wish me luck!
So for our tuesday devotional guess who was the speaker?! Elder Gavarret of the 70. It was so neat to have him come and speak to us since he was the General authority that came to my home stake and spoke the Sunday before I entered the MTC. I felt the spirit so strongly at Stake conference and was excited to listen to him again feel that same spirit.
Another great thing at the MTC is how you walk around and more often then not someone is humming or singing softly a church hymn. 9 times out of 10 someone around them will start humming the same song. My companion and I have decided to name this Song bombing. We now have great fun humming church songs and now Christmas songs trying to get those around us to start singing the same song. We have song bombed the Elders mutliple times and it is a lot of fun and uplifting because who doesn't want to be humming hark the herald angels sing?!
So the crowning achievement of this week happened yesterday. First some background. During class time this week our teacher said vaya vaya vaya to one of the Elders and the elder thought he said bye-ya! We had a good chuckle at that. Also I have been working on mastering the finger slap for the last month. Yesterday the sisters were in the room and we were talking when the teacher walked in and we paused. I think he thought we were talking about something important, but not really and he said he was just grabbing a pen, which we joked and said was fine. As he was rushing out I called out vaya vaya vaya and then did the finger slap and it was so loud and perfect! All of the hermanas have been trying, but I nailed it! It was just too perfect. We all busted up laughing because we were so surprised it worked! I don't know if actual spanish speakers snap their fingers but it seems to be a right of passage for a missionary speaking spanish. Basically I felt like a native!
Ok well my time almost up. One last thing. We had a workshop on studying the language. While we were sitting there I had this overwhelming desire to just get out and serve! I am so ready to go and help and serve the people of New Mexico! It is going to be an amazing experience. It already has been amazing and I have been here for a month! What a wonderful time to dedicate myself to the Lord. I will be teaching lessons or practicing teaching and the spirits hits you so strongly about how this is his work. I know that my Father in Heaven is pleased with me for serving a mission, but more importantly I know that I am his daughter and that he loves me! I am special in his eyes just like all of you! I am so excited to be spending the holidays in the MTC feasting upon the gospel! I hope everyone has a great week! Love you bunches and bunches!
Mucho Amor,
Hermana Klaus
AHHHHHHHH What did I get myself into?! Oh yeah the best decision I have ever made! Ok look at me - 4 weeks and now officially an "upper classman" at the MTC. Oh yeah!
Ok so sad to report that Elder Holland does not have any grandsons up for grabs. His oldest grandchild is a granddaughter and she is going to Italy on her mission in March I think. I want to say the oldest grandson was only 14 or 15, so I'll have to find another apostle and see if they have any grandsons at an acceptable age. :)
Typing this has made me remember just how old I really am in the MTC. I am surprised they haven't given me a special pass to the elevator or have a cushy seat in devotionals like the Senior couples because I am so old! One funny thing that the Elders got a kick out of was the fact that I graduated from high school when they were in 8th grade...just let that sink in. Hahaha it's all good! I may be a whomping 22 almost 23, but I can apparently pass for a middle schooler so it all balances itself out in the end.
So news for this week. On Friday I woke up sick. That was not a fun couple of days. On Saturday it felt like someone had said "Hulk, smash!" into my brain! So I don't really recall anything too exciting from those days. I did manage to pull through and am all back to normal.
So on Sunday I told you how we sit there and after sacrament the Branch presidency gets up and tells which one of us is going to be talking. Well I had this little suspicion all morning that I was going to get called and sure enough my name was first on the list. The subject was on the Holy Ghost and it went really well. I felt prepared and my spanish felt pretty good, but hey if it was bad there is no one that really speaks spanish that well yet, so nobody could call me out on it! The hermanas also sang I know that my redeemer lives in spanish. From what I could tell it sounded nice. It was the first time I have sang in church minus choir since I was 12 years old and sang child's prayer with Amanda Hallenbeck and completely butchered the last note. Oh the things that haunt you 10 years later. Well we must have sounded good because the 1st counselor stood up and looked at the Elders and said "that sounded like angels" I love singing hymns in Spanish.
We also had our temple walk again and it's always nice to get off the MTC grounds for a little while. We like to joke that Provo is the bubble. Well, I'm here to tell you that the MTC is the steel bubble! :) It's all worth it though because the spirit that is here can't be found anywhere else...I mean wow! Sunday we also watched the Joseph Smith movie and I didn't know that you can access them right on the LDS website, so if you haven't seen it, watching it could be a great family home evening activity. It's about an hour long. Then we had a fireside and the speaker showed us all these old Latter-day saint commercials (like the family. isn't it about time) some of them were kinda cheesy, but we had fun watching them and then discussing the messages behind these commercials.
I've told you on Tuesdays at 6:25 we have service. It makes me laugh that every night in a monotone voice a person will come and tell us that 10:15 is quiet time and lights are to be off and all missionaries are to be in bed by 10:30. I have no doubt this can be a helpful reminder to some, but luckily my room is very good about being to bed on time. However, I do find it humorous that the MTC is so strict with bedtime, but they have no problem having us get up before the day's official start at 6:30. I just tell myself it's building character! Anyway so this week we took out the garbage in the building we clean. Which funny enough is the building where Brandon Pickett teaches at the MTC. After we pick up all the garbage we take it out back to this huge compressor and I was thoroughly entertained throwing in the garbage bags and having them squished. I will admit I had a star wars flash back! Oh the nerd in me. The other funny thing while serving was we were cleaning bathroom sinks and mirrors and we were in a men's restroom. We were about half way done when an elder walked in and the look on his face was comical. I think he thought he had walked into a girls restroom and it looked like he was going to panic. We told him we were almost done, but funny enough he decided not to wait to use our bathroom and I didn't see him again.
For those that are interested I want to let you know that Nemo lives on. I am never disappointed that buscar Nemo works for every single spanish tense we have learned so far! Our teacher probably thinks my companion and I are a little nuts but that's ok. I'm use to people thinking I'm a little odd. So in spanish study sometimes we can get a little distracted after hours of studying and sometimes the Elders will go off on some tanget and it reminds me of the movie Up. So I decided to look up the spanish word for squirrel. Now sometimes we will randomly stop what we are saying and say ardilla! Oh spanish! I continue to be amazed about how much I am learning. I think I have officially learned more in a month here then I did in 3 years in high school. I can't believe what I can already say! I know I have a long way to go, but I am so excited with my progress. I can't wait to get to the field and put my spanish to work. Tomorrow's lesson I am actually giving my first analogy in spanish so wish me luck!
So for our tuesday devotional guess who was the speaker?! Elder Gavarret of the 70. It was so neat to have him come and speak to us since he was the General authority that came to my home stake and spoke the Sunday before I entered the MTC. I felt the spirit so strongly at Stake conference and was excited to listen to him again feel that same spirit.
Another great thing at the MTC is how you walk around and more often then not someone is humming or singing softly a church hymn. 9 times out of 10 someone around them will start humming the same song. My companion and I have decided to name this Song bombing. We now have great fun humming church songs and now Christmas songs trying to get those around us to start singing the same song. We have song bombed the Elders mutliple times and it is a lot of fun and uplifting because who doesn't want to be humming hark the herald angels sing?!
So the crowning achievement of this week happened yesterday. First some background. During class time this week our teacher said vaya vaya vaya to one of the Elders and the elder thought he said bye-ya! We had a good chuckle at that. Also I have been working on mastering the finger slap for the last month. Yesterday the sisters were in the room and we were talking when the teacher walked in and we paused. I think he thought we were talking about something important, but not really and he said he was just grabbing a pen, which we joked and said was fine. As he was rushing out I called out vaya vaya vaya and then did the finger slap and it was so loud and perfect! All of the hermanas have been trying, but I nailed it! It was just too perfect. We all busted up laughing because we were so surprised it worked! I don't know if actual spanish speakers snap their fingers but it seems to be a right of passage for a missionary speaking spanish. Basically I felt like a native!
Ok well my time almost up. One last thing. We had a workshop on studying the language. While we were sitting there I had this overwhelming desire to just get out and serve! I am so ready to go and help and serve the people of New Mexico! It is going to be an amazing experience. It already has been amazing and I have been here for a month! What a wonderful time to dedicate myself to the Lord. I will be teaching lessons or practicing teaching and the spirits hits you so strongly about how this is his work. I know that my Father in Heaven is pleased with me for serving a mission, but more importantly I know that I am his daughter and that he loves me! I am special in his eyes just like all of you! I am so excited to be spending the holidays in the MTC feasting upon the gospel! I hope everyone has a great week! Love you bunches and bunches!
Mucho Amor,
Hermana Klaus
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Thanksgiving Day 2012
Familia,
Ok, so I decided I couldn’t wait till next week's email to
tell you about Thanksgiving. I
already told you how I was up at 5:30 AM to do laundry. It was pretty crazy and I was so happy
we didn’t have to wait for hours to finish. Then first on the agenda was the morning devotional. Guess Who??? That’s right…….ELDER
HOLLAND!!!!
It was the best devotional. He brought his family and his grandkids, they sang and gave
short testimonies. Then Elder and
Sister Holland stood up holding hands at the microphone (sooooo cute!) and told
us they loved us and that we have no agency in the matter and are now all their
adopted children for the day. They
said it multiple times and I know the missionaries felt special. They told us we were the beginning of
something wonderful. What a great
time to be a missionary, ushering in a new era of church history! A few of the things that stood out to
me in Elder Holland’s talk: He
asked us to ponder the question, “What does it mean to have what I have?” He also told us never to say, ”When I
get back to the real world…..” He
boldly (and I mean Elder Holland BOLDLY) said that, “THIS is ‘REAL Life’
”. “It doesn’t get anymore real
than this!” He closed by
testifying to each of us that God loves us and knows us by name! I am so grateful that I know that I am
a child of God. I know the Lord
loves me. I have felt his arms
encircle me with that love. To everyone reading this, I know you are a child of
God, He knows you by name and He loves you. The spirit and power present in that devotional was
incredible. During one part of the
devotional, the Hymn “I’ll Go Where You Want Me To Go Dear Lord” began to run through my mind. The answer of, “I will, Lord” burned
within me. I love this
Gospel. What a blessing it was to
listen to an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ on this beautiful Thanksgiving
Day. When Elder Holland left, all
the missionaries stood and we just basked in the spirit of the moment.
After
devotional we had Thanksgiving dinner.
It was good. Not like home
cooked good and the rolls had nothing on you mom, but it was good. After dinner we went and packed a sack
dinner. Then we had a humanitarian
service presentation. They showed
a wonderful message about helping and serving others. They talked about how one of the ways members of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints worship is through giving service to our
fellowman. They showed us the
“Helping Hands” video again. If
you haven’t watched it, DO! I
think you can find it on YouTube –mormonhelpinghandsnyc. I am inspired to find people to serve
every day on my mission.
After
that presentation we went to the cafeteria to make over 4,000 educational bags
and 4,000 hygiene kits for the people of Mali. It was so fun working together knowing how important these
simple items will be to the recipients.
We finished a little early and the table behind us found a roll of tape
and they were blowing this roll of tape up and down the 30-40 foot table
cheering if they made it without falling off. He,he – oh, missionaries, we are so easily entertained! Then we ate dinner in our residencies
which basically was cookies and candies because the sandwiches were kinda warm
and soggy. Hermana Pearson and I
made our turkey decorations mom sent.
They are so cute!
Then
we went to a special musical program.
There were some great instrumental pieces and singers, but the best part
was when the entire audience sang “Over the river and through the woods to
Grandmother’s house we go…” Who
knew there were three verses! Ok, seriously, who knew there was more beyond the
first line. :) We also enjoyed a
Thanksgiving skit. The characters
when their part/name was called would have to say a little line. For example, the turkey’s gobbled, the
pilgrim women said, “Mercy me”.
The best one was the preacher who said, “ Hallellujah!” The first time
the preacher went no one said anything, but the last time he shouted, the
audience shouted back, “Amen!” It
was such a fun program.
The
final surprise of the night (which I had my suspicions about from mid-day
because of the time frame) …a Movie!
The best part was President Brown saying we have popcorn for you. Then they gave each missionary a decent
sized bag of delicious kettle corn.
We’re talkin’ the real stuff.
The movie we watched was, “17 Miracles”. Church history, the MTC spirit and me = basically cried the
whole movie. Even Elders were
tearing up. Every time I watch
that movie I am so touched by the sacrifice and faith of those early
saints. It really hit me hard
because I have a better understanding of what it means to sacrifice almost
everything for the gospel. I am
giving up 18 months of my life to serve the people of New Mexico. The last line in the movie says it all,
“It will all be worth it.” I know
that these 18 months serving the Lord will be the best months of my life.
So
that was my Thanksgiving. Even
though I was away from my family and friends I had a great experience. It was a spiritually enriching day and a day I will never forget. Ok,
well, I love everyone lots. I hope your Thanksgiving was filled with gratitude
as we remember the great things the Lord has done for us.
Mucho
Amor,
Hermana
Klaus
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Week 3
Hola Familia y Amigos!
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone has a great day! I am looking forward to spending my day here in the good ole MTC. I doing great. I am still loving missionary life and apart from being tired most of the time, I am in very good spirits! Yesterday in class I had a good laugh because we had a substitute teacher and when I looked around, all of the elders except one were either asleep or in the process of falling asleep. We sometimes complain because our Spanish building has these tiny hard desks and the English speakers have these nice comfy leather seated chairs, but I am thankful because if I had a nice comfy chair I would be joining the elders in what they have dubbed praying! :) It is really funny when an Elder has fallen asleep and when he wakes up he says "I wasn't asleep I was simply praying very deeply." They even schedule in 4 hour prayer times on P-day in their planners. They are trying to become like Enos. The elders make me laugh! The other great thing the Elders have been doing this week was taught to them by one of the teachers here. The word for repentance in Spanish is arrepentimiento and they were having a hard time remembering all the syllables. however, this word exactly fits to the tune of ice ice baby. So it is very common to hear anyone in the district heading to meals laundry or in between class break out into song/rap of "arrepentimiento cha" It is very catching and has been stuck in my head for the last week. I know I will never forgot how to say repentance in Spanish, but I might not remember how to say it without rapping!
So in other news we got a new elder in our district. He is going to the New Jersey Morristown Mission - the same as my companion. We are sad to say goodbye to Elder Essig and Elder Bennett as they are going to the Dominican Republic MTC to finish their training there. The rest of us are normal and still pressing forward with Spanish.
The Spanish update. I am doing well. I think that the MTC basically has taught me what I learned in Spanish 1-3 in high school! I know I am learning tons, but right now my brain is on overload trying to work on the different tenses, so it is harder to speak than when I was just focusing on the present tense. I also believe that I am not going to be able to read and write in English any time soon because my brain is one big mixed up mess! In addition, I probably will no longer to spell in English but lets face it, I couldn't spell in English to begin with... :) I am happy to be learning the Spanish language and can't wait to be able to preach the gospel in New Mexico!
This week I also went to the MTC health clinic for the first time. My companion hasn't been feeling very good, so she went to have a check-up. When we got to the waiting room there were these little toys that spin around when you move them back and forth (bunnies, kitties and cute animals). My companion wondered what they were for because there are no kids that come to the MTC. I said it was to keep the elders occupied. So she went back and I was still sitting in the waiting room with about 3 other sisters and we all were reading different study materials when this companionship of elders walked in. The one companion went back to see the doctor and the other companion made a beeline towards the bunny toy! I nearly busted a gut trying not to laugh. It was too perfect. However, in the elder's defense when we went back later that day one of the bunny toys was sitting next to me and I couldn't resist trying it out and I will admit it is very fun. Now we must keep this in context that we are all missionaries that study for 14 hours a day, so it makes sense when we come a across any sort of toy that we would be entertained regardless of how mundane.
Hmm what else... Oh my teachers are great. They have the perfect balance of spiritual time and fun time. They are good explaining Spanish concepts, but my favorite are their sayings. One teacher always asks us if we are pumped and the other one after we had finished studying Spanish and were about to study the gospel told us we were about to have "a chin wag" Only the sister from Brigham City had ever heard of a chin wag, but the best part was watching everyone in the class start wagging their chin as they contemplated the phrase chin wag instead of saying "discussion". Yes the MTC is a special place!
Kara this one is for you. After relief society on Sunday the sisters had a health and wellness meeting. During that meeting the sister speaking taught us about deep breathing to help relieve stress. So all the sisters began deep belly breathing and I thought about you having to deep breath in English and I smiled. So now whenever you are deep breathing remember your sister is deep breathing and thinking about you. That night at the devotional, the speaker actually had everyone doing it, including the elders, so we don't succumb to the stress of missionary life.
I have 3 great videos that have been shown in devotionals or in firesides if anyone is interested. One of them is called "Sanctify yourselves" it's a mormon message. The other one was a short video on the life of a man named John Tanner who really understood the law of consecration. Finally the last one was about all the LDS ward members and missionaries in New York helping out those that had been effected by hurricane Sandy. It was neat to hear people's reaction and my favorite line was you don't even need to wear those yellow vests because people know who you are and they want your help. It makes me feel so blessed to belong to a Church that does so much to help those that are in need all over the world.
I will give more details about thanksgiving next week, but what I do know is that a good portion of our day has been scheduled for humanitarian service! What a huge blessing to be able to give on this special holiday. Oh and I am pretty sure that an apostle of the Lord will be giving this morning's devotional, so that is also very exciting! I love love love this gospel! What a joy it is to have in my life. I know that by living the commandments of the Lord we will blessed. I know that the Lord loves each and everyone of us and he wants us to return and live with him again. Again I love all of you so so much! Have a Happy Thanksgiving and may the blessing of the Lord rest on each of us this day!
Mucho amor,
Hermana Klaus
PS: I forgot to mention that because thanksgiving is on Thursday, I don't have p-day this week! Kind of a bummer, but the craziest part was that I was up at 5:30 this morning - not to bake a turkey or whip up a batch of rolls - but instead to fight the masses in the laundry room. Woohoo nothing like laundry at 5:30 in the morning! The Lord gave my companion and I a tender mercy this morning because we were there literally two minutes before a huge rush came. It was a blessing because I couldn't have gone another week without laundry! My companion and I were able to look on the bright side and give a sigh of relief that Christmas is on Tuesday!
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone has a great day! I am looking forward to spending my day here in the good ole MTC. I doing great. I am still loving missionary life and apart from being tired most of the time, I am in very good spirits! Yesterday in class I had a good laugh because we had a substitute teacher and when I looked around, all of the elders except one were either asleep or in the process of falling asleep. We sometimes complain because our Spanish building has these tiny hard desks and the English speakers have these nice comfy leather seated chairs, but I am thankful because if I had a nice comfy chair I would be joining the elders in what they have dubbed praying! :) It is really funny when an Elder has fallen asleep and when he wakes up he says "I wasn't asleep I was simply praying very deeply." They even schedule in 4 hour prayer times on P-day in their planners. They are trying to become like Enos. The elders make me laugh! The other great thing the Elders have been doing this week was taught to them by one of the teachers here. The word for repentance in Spanish is arrepentimiento and they were having a hard time remembering all the syllables. however, this word exactly fits to the tune of ice ice baby. So it is very common to hear anyone in the district heading to meals laundry or in between class break out into song/rap of "arrepentimiento cha" It is very catching and has been stuck in my head for the last week. I know I will never forgot how to say repentance in Spanish, but I might not remember how to say it without rapping!
So in other news we got a new elder in our district. He is going to the New Jersey Morristown Mission - the same as my companion. We are sad to say goodbye to Elder Essig and Elder Bennett as they are going to the Dominican Republic MTC to finish their training there. The rest of us are normal and still pressing forward with Spanish.
The Spanish update. I am doing well. I think that the MTC basically has taught me what I learned in Spanish 1-3 in high school! I know I am learning tons, but right now my brain is on overload trying to work on the different tenses, so it is harder to speak than when I was just focusing on the present tense. I also believe that I am not going to be able to read and write in English any time soon because my brain is one big mixed up mess! In addition, I probably will no longer to spell in English but lets face it, I couldn't spell in English to begin with... :) I am happy to be learning the Spanish language and can't wait to be able to preach the gospel in New Mexico!
This week I also went to the MTC health clinic for the first time. My companion hasn't been feeling very good, so she went to have a check-up. When we got to the waiting room there were these little toys that spin around when you move them back and forth (bunnies, kitties and cute animals). My companion wondered what they were for because there are no kids that come to the MTC. I said it was to keep the elders occupied. So she went back and I was still sitting in the waiting room with about 3 other sisters and we all were reading different study materials when this companionship of elders walked in. The one companion went back to see the doctor and the other companion made a beeline towards the bunny toy! I nearly busted a gut trying not to laugh. It was too perfect. However, in the elder's defense when we went back later that day one of the bunny toys was sitting next to me and I couldn't resist trying it out and I will admit it is very fun. Now we must keep this in context that we are all missionaries that study for 14 hours a day, so it makes sense when we come a across any sort of toy that we would be entertained regardless of how mundane.
Hmm what else... Oh my teachers are great. They have the perfect balance of spiritual time and fun time. They are good explaining Spanish concepts, but my favorite are their sayings. One teacher always asks us if we are pumped and the other one after we had finished studying Spanish and were about to study the gospel told us we were about to have "a chin wag" Only the sister from Brigham City had ever heard of a chin wag, but the best part was watching everyone in the class start wagging their chin as they contemplated the phrase chin wag instead of saying "discussion". Yes the MTC is a special place!
Kara this one is for you. After relief society on Sunday the sisters had a health and wellness meeting. During that meeting the sister speaking taught us about deep breathing to help relieve stress. So all the sisters began deep belly breathing and I thought about you having to deep breath in English and I smiled. So now whenever you are deep breathing remember your sister is deep breathing and thinking about you. That night at the devotional, the speaker actually had everyone doing it, including the elders, so we don't succumb to the stress of missionary life.
I have 3 great videos that have been shown in devotionals or in firesides if anyone is interested. One of them is called "Sanctify yourselves" it's a mormon message. The other one was a short video on the life of a man named John Tanner who really understood the law of consecration. Finally the last one was about all the LDS ward members and missionaries in New York helping out those that had been effected by hurricane Sandy. It was neat to hear people's reaction and my favorite line was you don't even need to wear those yellow vests because people know who you are and they want your help. It makes me feel so blessed to belong to a Church that does so much to help those that are in need all over the world.
I will give more details about thanksgiving next week, but what I do know is that a good portion of our day has been scheduled for humanitarian service! What a huge blessing to be able to give on this special holiday. Oh and I am pretty sure that an apostle of the Lord will be giving this morning's devotional, so that is also very exciting! I love love love this gospel! What a joy it is to have in my life. I know that by living the commandments of the Lord we will blessed. I know that the Lord loves each and everyone of us and he wants us to return and live with him again. Again I love all of you so so much! Have a Happy Thanksgiving and may the blessing of the Lord rest on each of us this day!
Mucho amor,
Hermana Klaus
PS: I forgot to mention that because thanksgiving is on Thursday, I don't have p-day this week! Kind of a bummer, but the craziest part was that I was up at 5:30 this morning - not to bake a turkey or whip up a batch of rolls - but instead to fight the masses in the laundry room. Woohoo nothing like laundry at 5:30 in the morning! The Lord gave my companion and I a tender mercy this morning because we were there literally two minutes before a huge rush came. It was a blessing because I couldn't have gone another week without laundry! My companion and I were able to look on the bright side and give a sigh of relief that Christmas is on Tuesday!
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Week 2
Hola Familia y Amigos!
Ok so another week at the great MTC! To start off i am going to answer questions that have been posed to me. First off the welcome bag was more a like a welcome envelope. It contains your placa, your schedule and some little welcome information. Don't worry mom, I am plenty warm with my blankets and even gave Hermana Pearson the slightly sad blanket the MTC provides because she was freezing at night. You can take off the dork dot after the first day, which is a relief because when you have it on everyone grins at you and welcomes you to the MTC, which is nice, but if you didn't know they truly meant it, it could be a little unnerving! My companion hermana Pearson is going to Morristown, New Jersey. Finally celestial breakfast is when we eat in the temple cafeteria after doing a session! Ok so now on to the letter.
On Thursday it snowed like crazy and we still have some of the leftover snow almost a week later. The worst part about cold weather here is that we are outside for maybe 5 minutes at a time walking between class and if you don't have your coat you are freezing, but the classrooms are super warm. Anyway it is a constant daily battle to decide whether or not I bring my coat. I basically have the same schedule Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Which includes gym, personal study, breakfast, additional study, companion study, class, lunch, additional study, class, dinner, language study, additional study, TALL which is language study on the computer, daily planning and then we have about an hour at night to write in our journals and prepare for bed. The other days have slight variations of the order but it is basically all the same stuff. Mainly I study for 12+ hours a day! It is awesome! I love learning about the gospel and I love learning Spanish. I am amazed at how much my Spanish keeps improving and that I am understanding what the teachers are saying to me.
Sundays are a little bit different from the rest of the week. We have a lot of personal study time. The sisters all go to music and the spoken word on Sundays followed by relief society. This week Sister Esplin of the General Primary Presidency came and spoke to us and did a great job! Then we have sacrament. Each week we have to have a 5 minute talk prepared in Spanish on a topic they have assigned, such as baptism and then right after sacrament the Branch president stands up and tells us which two or three of us will be speaking today! It is slightly nerve racking, but at least I will have 9 talks prepared before I hit the mission field. Sunday devotionals are great. We finally sang Called to Serve and it was fantastic! The only problem is that it drives me crazy that we sit when we sing that song. I felt like we need to stand up like we did in primary and sing our joy straight to heaven.
In the devotionals and firesides they all speak about missionary work...of course! One of the general authorities told us that there are 5 times the normal number of applications from sisters in right now than there are sisters in the field. Then he basically told us to be ready because we are going to be the trainers. They tell us that we will be trained and then we will train. It's a little nerve racking, but I am so excited the Lord had me wait to serve at this time when missionary work is booming. They also talk about the inspiration that goes into a mission call and it makes you really feel that the Lord knows us and he knows where we can do the most good. To illustrate the growing missionary numbers...my week there were 270 missionaries (about 40 or so sisters mom), but yesterday over 700 missionaries arrived! It's insane right! I hope that there are enough washing machines to go around!
So for some fun news for the week. In Spanish class they often ask us to create sentences about what we have learned. We were learning tener que which means to have to do something. We were going around the classroom giving our answers when the perfect sentence came into my head. Tenemos que buscar a Nemo! The whole district was laughing and now finding Nemo is a go-to answer when we need to make creative sentences. Basically crazy things happen to your brain when you study a foreign language for hours and hours a day! Along with Disney, the elders have a strange attraction to pokemon. We have these 3 different Spanish books and they are small medium and large. The elders have affectionately named them Charmander, Chamealon, and Charzard. Whenever we are told to get one of our books the elders will pipe in Charzard! Sadly even us sisters sometimes forget and call the books by their pokemon names. The Katie story of the week happened in Spanish class. I was feeling really tired and I'm not sure why...? :) Anyway one of the hermanas had dark chocolate so she gave me a mini piece and I unwrapped it and put it into my mouth. The teacher was on a little story and wasn't asking us anything so I felt safe eating it. Just when the chocolate was in the perfect half solid half melted phase in my mouth the teacher turned and asked me a question and about a split second before he did I knew he was going to ask me a question. The sisters all knew what was happening so they all started laughing and I quickly had to duck my head to ensure no chocolate drool would escape my mouth. The teacher taking pity on me called on an elder instead, but I have learned to be more sneaky in my chocolate consumption and to eat smaller pieces.
Another fun note one of my teachers Hermano Clarke went to the same mission as Brandon Pickett and they know each other. So it's a small mission world.
On Tuesdays we have service in the mornings and when I say mornings I mean we are there at 6:20 sharp to begin vacuuming, cleaning toilets and my personal favorite mopping. Hermana Pearson and I have both named the vacuums harry and speedy gonzales. The best part was mopping the floors. We created the song mop-maker to the tune of match-maker and had a grand time mopping the floor. Then we turned mopping into an olympic sport and had commentary on our great mopping technique. Thus a testament that even service at the MTC can be fun when you have the right attitude!
Even though lots of fun happens at the MTC the spirit is incredible here. Everyday I am almost overwhelmed at the love I feel from my Heavenly Father and my Savior. It is most powerful when we are teaching our lessons. Even though it is hard to teach in a foreign language I can still feel the power of the spirit behind the words I am speaking. Yesterday Hermana Pearson and I were getting very frustrated trying to figure out what to teach when one of the tutors started talking to us and reminded us about the power of listening and loving. So for that lesson we went in and just asked our investigator how he was doing and listened as he talked about his family. I felt the love the Savior had for him and at the very end we were able to bear simple testimonies about God's love for us and the fact that families can be together forever. I felt such joy when I was testifying of these things. Families are central to God's creation and plan for us and what a comfort it is to know that I can be with my family forever. I love my Savior, so much and each day I am humbled and honored that he has called and entrusted me to this great work! I love you all and I am praying for you daily!
Mucho Amor,
Hermana Klaus
Ok so another week at the great MTC! To start off i am going to answer questions that have been posed to me. First off the welcome bag was more a like a welcome envelope. It contains your placa, your schedule and some little welcome information. Don't worry mom, I am plenty warm with my blankets and even gave Hermana Pearson the slightly sad blanket the MTC provides because she was freezing at night. You can take off the dork dot after the first day, which is a relief because when you have it on everyone grins at you and welcomes you to the MTC, which is nice, but if you didn't know they truly meant it, it could be a little unnerving! My companion hermana Pearson is going to Morristown, New Jersey. Finally celestial breakfast is when we eat in the temple cafeteria after doing a session! Ok so now on to the letter.
On Thursday it snowed like crazy and we still have some of the leftover snow almost a week later. The worst part about cold weather here is that we are outside for maybe 5 minutes at a time walking between class and if you don't have your coat you are freezing, but the classrooms are super warm. Anyway it is a constant daily battle to decide whether or not I bring my coat. I basically have the same schedule Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Which includes gym, personal study, breakfast, additional study, companion study, class, lunch, additional study, class, dinner, language study, additional study, TALL which is language study on the computer, daily planning and then we have about an hour at night to write in our journals and prepare for bed. The other days have slight variations of the order but it is basically all the same stuff. Mainly I study for 12+ hours a day! It is awesome! I love learning about the gospel and I love learning Spanish. I am amazed at how much my Spanish keeps improving and that I am understanding what the teachers are saying to me.
Sundays are a little bit different from the rest of the week. We have a lot of personal study time. The sisters all go to music and the spoken word on Sundays followed by relief society. This week Sister Esplin of the General Primary Presidency came and spoke to us and did a great job! Then we have sacrament. Each week we have to have a 5 minute talk prepared in Spanish on a topic they have assigned, such as baptism and then right after sacrament the Branch president stands up and tells us which two or three of us will be speaking today! It is slightly nerve racking, but at least I will have 9 talks prepared before I hit the mission field. Sunday devotionals are great. We finally sang Called to Serve and it was fantastic! The only problem is that it drives me crazy that we sit when we sing that song. I felt like we need to stand up like we did in primary and sing our joy straight to heaven.
In the devotionals and firesides they all speak about missionary work...of course! One of the general authorities told us that there are 5 times the normal number of applications from sisters in right now than there are sisters in the field. Then he basically told us to be ready because we are going to be the trainers. They tell us that we will be trained and then we will train. It's a little nerve racking, but I am so excited the Lord had me wait to serve at this time when missionary work is booming. They also talk about the inspiration that goes into a mission call and it makes you really feel that the Lord knows us and he knows where we can do the most good. To illustrate the growing missionary numbers...my week there were 270 missionaries (about 40 or so sisters mom), but yesterday over 700 missionaries arrived! It's insane right! I hope that there are enough washing machines to go around!
So for some fun news for the week. In Spanish class they often ask us to create sentences about what we have learned. We were learning tener que which means to have to do something. We were going around the classroom giving our answers when the perfect sentence came into my head. Tenemos que buscar a Nemo! The whole district was laughing and now finding Nemo is a go-to answer when we need to make creative sentences. Basically crazy things happen to your brain when you study a foreign language for hours and hours a day! Along with Disney, the elders have a strange attraction to pokemon. We have these 3 different Spanish books and they are small medium and large. The elders have affectionately named them Charmander, Chamealon, and Charzard. Whenever we are told to get one of our books the elders will pipe in Charzard! Sadly even us sisters sometimes forget and call the books by their pokemon names. The Katie story of the week happened in Spanish class. I was feeling really tired and I'm not sure why...? :) Anyway one of the hermanas had dark chocolate so she gave me a mini piece and I unwrapped it and put it into my mouth. The teacher was on a little story and wasn't asking us anything so I felt safe eating it. Just when the chocolate was in the perfect half solid half melted phase in my mouth the teacher turned and asked me a question and about a split second before he did I knew he was going to ask me a question. The sisters all knew what was happening so they all started laughing and I quickly had to duck my head to ensure no chocolate drool would escape my mouth. The teacher taking pity on me called on an elder instead, but I have learned to be more sneaky in my chocolate consumption and to eat smaller pieces.
Another fun note one of my teachers Hermano Clarke went to the same mission as Brandon Pickett and they know each other. So it's a small mission world.
On Tuesdays we have service in the mornings and when I say mornings I mean we are there at 6:20 sharp to begin vacuuming, cleaning toilets and my personal favorite mopping. Hermana Pearson and I have both named the vacuums harry and speedy gonzales. The best part was mopping the floors. We created the song mop-maker to the tune of match-maker and had a grand time mopping the floor. Then we turned mopping into an olympic sport and had commentary on our great mopping technique. Thus a testament that even service at the MTC can be fun when you have the right attitude!
Even though lots of fun happens at the MTC the spirit is incredible here. Everyday I am almost overwhelmed at the love I feel from my Heavenly Father and my Savior. It is most powerful when we are teaching our lessons. Even though it is hard to teach in a foreign language I can still feel the power of the spirit behind the words I am speaking. Yesterday Hermana Pearson and I were getting very frustrated trying to figure out what to teach when one of the tutors started talking to us and reminded us about the power of listening and loving. So for that lesson we went in and just asked our investigator how he was doing and listened as he talked about his family. I felt the love the Savior had for him and at the very end we were able to bear simple testimonies about God's love for us and the fact that families can be together forever. I felt such joy when I was testifying of these things. Families are central to God's creation and plan for us and what a comfort it is to know that I can be with my family forever. I love my Savior, so much and each day I am humbled and honored that he has called and entrusted me to this great work! I love you all and I am praying for you daily!
Mucho Amor,
Hermana Klaus
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Week 1
Hola!
Hello everyone! I hope everyone is doing well and you should know that I miss all of you. I have had an excellent week, which I am going to tell you all about. First off on Wednesday it was hard to say good-bye but what a blessing it has been! When we get out of the car, they take us to a main room where they have a whole bunch of little tables set up. Then they give you your welcome bag and then you move to another line and they put your nametag on you. What a cool experience having that placa placed on your left shoulder. The only downside is yes they still have the dork dots! Beautiful bright beacons of insecurity. It really made it official! Then it was off to another table to take a picture for your life card at the MTC and of course my picture is pretty much like stepping-back-into-the-7th-grade bad. Then you drop of the bags that nearly kill you trying to get up the stairs in the room and then off to get not 12 but 30 pounds of books! :) You are taken to a classroom, which at that point you don't know, but will pretty much your life for the next 9 weeks and have a cute little orientation movie on the MTC and gym time. Then you meet the companion! My companion is awesome! Her name is Hermana Pearson and she is from Colorado. Your companion enters the MTC the same day you do so we both had dork dots making us twice as noticiable. We are getting along great. We have had some comical moments even in the short week we've been companions. The rest of the day comprises classes, orientation from the MTC presidency, dinner and then you start right into a teaching simulation, which was neat. I was able to bear my testimony about forever families to one gentlemen (in english of course). Then it's off to bed right? Wrong, because if you're me you know you haven't been welcomed to the MTC until something goes wrong. That something was my placa. The story of the missing placa goes as follows. We were taken back to our room by a nice coordinating sister who was telling us everything will be fine and you'll love it here, and all of us are thinking what did I just get myself into. Then we get back to the room and as I am taking off my coat, my green magnet falls out but not my placa and I am thinking oh no! Yep I start looking everywhere and my placa is not in the room, so finally I tell the coordinating sister my placa's gone so she says no problem lets retrace our steps and look for it. We start walking and no placa. We are all kinda giggling at this point because we are trying to find a missing placa, and they are saying if we don't find it I'll have to go the office lost and found, when all of the sudden it hits me! My placa not only has my name letting the world know who lost it, but it also has a bright orange dot! In horror I realize that anyone who finds my placa is going to have the laugh of their life as they have this placa belonging to a new missionary. We went all the way back to the classroom and no placa and we decided it must have been picked up. My companion decided that it must be back at the room because while we were looking for it two elders needed to bear their testimonies so we were suppose to be out and about so they could find someone to bear it to. Sure enough when I got back to the room and started to finish unpacking there under a book and a scarf was my missing placa. I don't even remember opening that bag, but just goes to show the tender mercies of the Lord in sparing me the humiliation of picking up my dork dotted placa! All in all it was a great way to break the ice at the MTC. The other two girls in my room are Hermana Thompson going to San Diego and Hermana Farnsworth going to Argentina. Both are great and it's been fun getting to know them.
The rest of week was basically filled with studying spanish, studying the gospel, a little sleeping, and eating. Sometimes it feels all we do is study and eat study and eat, so don't ever believe any elder who says they are starving at the MTC because it is a lie! On Thursday I was also made to feel really old when the teacher (talking about when he served his mission) asked who was born before 1991 and my lone hand entered the air. He thanked me for keeping him young and I thanked him for marking me as old.
Spanish is going really well so far. It is hard and sometimes my brain hurts from trying to think and speak in spanish, but wow the results are amazing. I can now pray and bear my testimony in decent spanish. This truly is the Lord's work and the gift of tongues is manifest all around. Sunday was fast sunday and it went well. We had a missionary conference where the MTC president and others speak to us. Then we went to sacrament meeting and I decided to be brave and try bearing my testimony in spanish. I stood up and I said Yo tengo butterflies. The congregation chuckled and the branch president supplied me with the word mariposas. I thanked him and continued on without any other english incidents. Later on sunday we had a fireside and there is nothing quite like 2000 missionaries singing together. It gave me goose bumps.
You cannot be shy to be a missionary because you are teaching in spanish on the third day. The "investigator" we have was named Julio. We taught him and it was going great, but on the lesson about baptism right before I bore my testimony the spirit hit me like a freight train. I know that my savior lives and that he loves me. I knew that even though my spanish was simple the spirit was strong.
The rest of my district and zone are good. We have 3 sets of elders and they are definitely 19 year old boys. For example, one day in the lunch room they decided to have a half gallon chocolate milk challenge with not so great results. I mean really, these boys are going to teach the gospel?! Then they stand and bear their testimonies and you know why the Lord is sending them out. Powerful testimonies of Christ.
For all of you wanting my spanish humor to manifest, I have officially told my first joke in spanish. It is, que dice un libro de matimatica a otro libro de matimatica? Yo tengo problemas! ja ja ja ja :)
Today has been a great pday. Went to the temple this morning and what a beautiful spirit that is felt inside the temple walls. Then the hermanas in my district and I had what is dubbed celestial breakfeast in the MTC.
I love being a missionary already. This is the best feeling in the world. I get to wear the name of Christ at all times and my entire purpose is to invite them to come unto him! I have already memorized my purpose, the first vision and the baptism inviation all in spanish!
Ok well that's all I have time for so love you lots! Please Dear Elder me letters! Even short notes are good because the elders and their girlfriends are creaming us sisters in letters received. I love you guys so much!
Mucho Amor
Hermana Klaus
Hello everyone! I hope everyone is doing well and you should know that I miss all of you. I have had an excellent week, which I am going to tell you all about. First off on Wednesday it was hard to say good-bye but what a blessing it has been! When we get out of the car, they take us to a main room where they have a whole bunch of little tables set up. Then they give you your welcome bag and then you move to another line and they put your nametag on you. What a cool experience having that placa placed on your left shoulder. The only downside is yes they still have the dork dots! Beautiful bright beacons of insecurity. It really made it official! Then it was off to another table to take a picture for your life card at the MTC and of course my picture is pretty much like stepping-back-into-the-7th-grade bad. Then you drop of the bags that nearly kill you trying to get up the stairs in the room and then off to get not 12 but 30 pounds of books! :) You are taken to a classroom, which at that point you don't know, but will pretty much your life for the next 9 weeks and have a cute little orientation movie on the MTC and gym time. Then you meet the companion! My companion is awesome! Her name is Hermana Pearson and she is from Colorado. Your companion enters the MTC the same day you do so we both had dork dots making us twice as noticiable. We are getting along great. We have had some comical moments even in the short week we've been companions. The rest of the day comprises classes, orientation from the MTC presidency, dinner and then you start right into a teaching simulation, which was neat. I was able to bear my testimony about forever families to one gentlemen (in english of course). Then it's off to bed right? Wrong, because if you're me you know you haven't been welcomed to the MTC until something goes wrong. That something was my placa. The story of the missing placa goes as follows. We were taken back to our room by a nice coordinating sister who was telling us everything will be fine and you'll love it here, and all of us are thinking what did I just get myself into. Then we get back to the room and as I am taking off my coat, my green magnet falls out but not my placa and I am thinking oh no! Yep I start looking everywhere and my placa is not in the room, so finally I tell the coordinating sister my placa's gone so she says no problem lets retrace our steps and look for it. We start walking and no placa. We are all kinda giggling at this point because we are trying to find a missing placa, and they are saying if we don't find it I'll have to go the office lost and found, when all of the sudden it hits me! My placa not only has my name letting the world know who lost it, but it also has a bright orange dot! In horror I realize that anyone who finds my placa is going to have the laugh of their life as they have this placa belonging to a new missionary. We went all the way back to the classroom and no placa and we decided it must have been picked up. My companion decided that it must be back at the room because while we were looking for it two elders needed to bear their testimonies so we were suppose to be out and about so they could find someone to bear it to. Sure enough when I got back to the room and started to finish unpacking there under a book and a scarf was my missing placa. I don't even remember opening that bag, but just goes to show the tender mercies of the Lord in sparing me the humiliation of picking up my dork dotted placa! All in all it was a great way to break the ice at the MTC. The other two girls in my room are Hermana Thompson going to San Diego and Hermana Farnsworth going to Argentina. Both are great and it's been fun getting to know them.
The rest of week was basically filled with studying spanish, studying the gospel, a little sleeping, and eating. Sometimes it feels all we do is study and eat study and eat, so don't ever believe any elder who says they are starving at the MTC because it is a lie! On Thursday I was also made to feel really old when the teacher (talking about when he served his mission) asked who was born before 1991 and my lone hand entered the air. He thanked me for keeping him young and I thanked him for marking me as old.
Spanish is going really well so far. It is hard and sometimes my brain hurts from trying to think and speak in spanish, but wow the results are amazing. I can now pray and bear my testimony in decent spanish. This truly is the Lord's work and the gift of tongues is manifest all around. Sunday was fast sunday and it went well. We had a missionary conference where the MTC president and others speak to us. Then we went to sacrament meeting and I decided to be brave and try bearing my testimony in spanish. I stood up and I said Yo tengo butterflies. The congregation chuckled and the branch president supplied me with the word mariposas. I thanked him and continued on without any other english incidents. Later on sunday we had a fireside and there is nothing quite like 2000 missionaries singing together. It gave me goose bumps.
You cannot be shy to be a missionary because you are teaching in spanish on the third day. The "investigator" we have was named Julio. We taught him and it was going great, but on the lesson about baptism right before I bore my testimony the spirit hit me like a freight train. I know that my savior lives and that he loves me. I knew that even though my spanish was simple the spirit was strong.
The rest of my district and zone are good. We have 3 sets of elders and they are definitely 19 year old boys. For example, one day in the lunch room they decided to have a half gallon chocolate milk challenge with not so great results. I mean really, these boys are going to teach the gospel?! Then they stand and bear their testimonies and you know why the Lord is sending them out. Powerful testimonies of Christ.
For all of you wanting my spanish humor to manifest, I have officially told my first joke in spanish. It is, que dice un libro de matimatica a otro libro de matimatica? Yo tengo problemas! ja ja ja ja :)
Today has been a great pday. Went to the temple this morning and what a beautiful spirit that is felt inside the temple walls. Then the hermanas in my district and I had what is dubbed celestial breakfeast in the MTC.
I love being a missionary already. This is the best feeling in the world. I get to wear the name of Christ at all times and my entire purpose is to invite them to come unto him! I have already memorized my purpose, the first vision and the baptism inviation all in spanish!
Ok well that's all I have time for so love you lots! Please Dear Elder me letters! Even short notes are good because the elders and their girlfriends are creaming us sisters in letters received. I love you guys so much!
Mucho Amor
Hermana Klaus
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)