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