Liebe Familie,

 

First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Isn't it so cool I get to e-mail on your birthday?!?!?!?!

 

I have almost made it in the MTC a week! Woot and a half:] People kept telling us two things. 1) If you can make it to Sunday, you can make it the rest of the time in the MTC. 2) The days feel like months; the months feel like days; the weeks feel like weeks. I am starting to see what they mean! These days are crazy long! But Sunday was excellent, and yesterday was not so bad. We are starting to get into the flow of things.

I am in a drei. Everyone keeps telling us how hard dreis are, but I have nothing to compare it to, so I can't agree or disagree. My companions' names are Sister Young and Sister Perkins.  Sister Young is from Prince George, BC. She has a slight accent, but it isn't too strong.  She is very cute and nice, and she and I get along very well. We listened to a lot of the same music, watched a lot of the same movies, took German classes before coming to the MTC, and have the same taste in ties. Sister Perkins is on the plump side, is from New Jersey (she doesn't have the accent, but she can do it), and is very nice. She has never taken a German class in her life and is very discouraged that she will never learn since she is not at the level of Sister Young or myself. We try to be supportive and encouraging, but sometimes...

We share a room with another drei, and they are very cool. Sister Diedrich reminds me so much of Missy, it is insane. Sister Heindel is very sweet and cute as well. Sister Stoddard is very sweet and real.  She is so genuine, loving, and has such a strong testimony of the gospel. They fly out July 16, or something, so they have been here awhile and teach us the tricks of the trade. They also keep us up late sometimes tellings us stories of their last roommate, Sister Fish. We are a little bit sad we never got to meet her. She sounds crazy! She had crazy red hair, and would put socks on her hands to reenact her lesson with the investigator from that day. Sister Diedrich showed us the video she took of it. It was hilarious!

We have two teachers for our district, Sister Covey, and Brother Corey. Sister Covey got back from her mission about a year ago and served in the Alpine mission!! Brother Corey is 22 (and already married, whoa) and served in the Berlin mission. They are so great and energetic about teaching us! The classes are a little boring, but I'm learning so many gospel words, too. We have 8 elders in our district. They won't talk to us! We sisters think it's kind of funny, in all honesty. The teachers will tell us to get up and go around the room, talking to each other, to practice a skill we just learned. We sisters always wind up on the edge of the circle in the corner of the room while the elders talk to each other. So we have to talk to each other more often than not. The best was the day Brother Corey asked a question to an elder who was supposed to answer the question, then ask a question to another missionary. Elder after Elder got asked. When the last elder had answered, he looked at the teacher to move on, as he could find no one else to ask. Brother Corey and Sister Covey looked at us sisters and said, "The Sisters need to answer still..." The Elder looked over like, "Oh?" Then he stumbled for a minute before he settled on asking Sister Perkins. A few days ago, we sisters started doing a best tie contest. We would write the winner's name on the board. After this, they started wearing their best ties everyday, and they have started recognizing our existence! Our roommates said they had the same problem in their district and to not worry, as they will eventually come around.

The other elders in our zone are very friendly, though. We like them. We have 7 German-speaking districts. And that is our zone - all of the German-speaking districts. Sacrament meeting was entirely in German on Sunday, which was very cool because I understood it all!

I can't think of what else to report on, so I suppose I will end my letter by saying I am so excited to finally be here!  And as long as the days are, it's still been such a great experience so far!

Denke an dich!

 

Sister Reid

 

P.S. Turns out our nametags say "Sister," as opposed to "Schwester" because Schwester is associated with nuns. Fun fact of the day. In church, the members will call us Schwester, but on the streets, I am Sister Reid. :]