Letter: Week 3 in the MTC

Instead of just making bullet points - I'll just include the real thing.



Hola!



So I don't have any stories that I can think of off the top of my head this week. Funny stuff happens but I never remember it, all the days blur together.



Lets see...so this week is sad, we are losing four of our Elders to Peru. Well actually only 3 because one is having visa problems and is going to have to wait for them to figure it out before he goes to the *MTC in Peru. Our favorite ones are leaving. It's going to be quiet and not as fun. :(

So our district all sits together in the cafeteria and there is a picture of a group of missionaries right above where we sit and its from like, the 70's. They all have big hair and comb-overs and it's perfect because there are 7 Elders and 3 Sisters in the picture just like our district. They all kind of look like us, there is a big tall redhead like Elder Crovetti, or as we call him "Crovi," so we decided to reenact the picture before they left and we did a pretty dang good job! I will send you pictures. One of the Elders has been trying to grow out his hair so he can comb it over, but then he got a trim yesterday and the lady messed it up.

So 2 of the Elders are from *Thatcher, Arizona and I asked Grandma and Grandpa Norton about them. They sent me some names of people they know or we are related to in Thatcher and one of them is Elder Elkin's great uncle. So now he tells everyone we are cousins...close cousins. Ha ha! Apparently we are having a family reunion when we get back!

Since those Elders are leaving, on Sundays they have the group that is leaving sing a farewell song in *Sacrament. Our Elders are weird so they sang "Hark the Harold Angels Sing" and they made themselves solos. I seriously thought I was going to pee my pants in Sacrament. The *Branch President thought they were serious so they were trying not to laugh considering none of them have good voices and the whole thing was in Spanish. Almost all the Spanish hymns are off because they don't directly translate, so they kept singing the wrong words or they skipped words completely. I wish I had my camera but anytime anything funny happens it always happens in the building we can't bring our *cameras. They also gave a goodbye testimony last night and it was extremely sad. We are not looking forward to saying bye tonight, especially because we can't hug them! It's weird how close we have all gotten in a few weeks - Week 3!!!

So Hermano Hale (her original Spanish teacher) came back and gave us a farewell lesson because he is quitting as a teacher and is just going to be a tutor. For the longest time he wouldn't tell us why he was leaving. He just kept saying he would tell us later and make it into a lesson, which ended up being really cool. So the Monday before our district came to the MTC, he tried out for the BYU Football team for the second time and he didn't make it. But suprisingly, he wasn't that disappointed. He had decided he wasn't going to teach at the MTC anymore and needed to focus on school and kept praying about it and kept getting the feeling it was time to leave. So he scheduled a meeting with his boss to quit Thursday night after our first class with him. But after he met us he didn't want to quit. He went to the meeting with his boss but couldn't spit out why he was there and started breaking down and crying and he explained that he planned to quit but couldn't because he loved our district so much. And the man is not the crying type at all!

So his boss told him he had a day to make up his mind and he prayed about it again and got a clear answer that he shouldn't teach anymore, but maybe just tutor. But there weren't any tutor positions open. He made it all into a lesson, comparing how he felt when his dream of playing football was crushed and how he wasn't disappointed as he was when he had to quit teaching at the MTC. He gave us his advice as a missionary and how to be successful and tied together a ton of scriptures. I have them all in my notebook, my mind is blanking but it was really powerful and cool, we were all in shock. He had the whole thing planned out so well.

So after he got moved from our district, the last two weeks he has been teaching the district that came in the week after us down the hall, whom we like to call the "Dud" district because they are all kind of nerdy and weird. Christ-like of us, huh? But the teachers are the ones who admitted it!! So we could tell he missed us because anytime their class had *MDT he would sneak into our room. We found out he only gave us the farewell lesson and prepared that just for our district. The other district he taught after us, who he had taught for longer, he just told them not to worry about why he was leaving. That district said "He freaking loves you guys, he doesn't care about us at all!" It's fun, we are everyone's favorites. Our district has a funny sense of humor, so our teachers always talk about how lucky they are. Sometimes we don't get a lot done though. Now that the funny Elders are leaving, it's going to be boring.

Our roommates are leaving tomorrow too, which is sad. Even though we only spend an hour a night with them, we've all become close. We have fun at night, technically we're supposed to be writing in our journals and studying for the last hour at night...but we all end up staying up talking and goofing off. The other night we were telling stories and around midnight they turned into scary stories and we all got scared. We ended up taking all of our mattresses off the bunk beds and putting them on the floor together and sleeping on the floor. The next day was SUPER fun with four hours of sleep.

Last night was funny too. Hermana Tonga was teaching Hermana Krambule how to speak FAB (Fresh of the Boat - New Zealand accent) and Krambule was so bad at it, I honestly thought I was going to die laughing. All of our bunks were shaking and squeaking because we all couldn't stop laughing. She made everything sound Jamaican - like Joey from Friends!!

We get two new roommates on Wednesday and we're scared. Cool sisters are rare! They had to give a lesson in Relief Society about not dressing like polygamists. Some girls kind of look like it - they braid their hair and have buns - they had to ban those hairstyles - LOL. They said you must try to look cute. They also gave a lesson to big boob sisters and taught about how "When much is given, much is expected," by the Lord and about covering up the tatas! I feel pretty modest. It's pretty obvious when Elders are checking us out. They literally stare for a full minute. We've been instructed to be mean. *They told us not to smile at Elders or laugh too loud! Literally - it's a rule since they always think we are flirting with them. Little do they know we only flirt with teachers...

Well I can't think of anything else and I am out of time. This week was good! Time is flying. I've learned a lot and I'm glad to be here, I've realized how important the work is and what an opportunity it is to be here!

Love,

Kaitlyn


*Week 4 letter is next!


Extra Info:

*Peru MTC: There are actually 15 MTC (Missionary Traning Center) locations worldwide. The one in Provo is the flagship location.

*Thatcher, Arizona is a small town that our Grandpa grew up in.

*Sacrament meeting is part of weekly Sunday church service. To learn more click here.

*To learn about what a Branch President and what that entails click here.

*Cameras and video aren't allowed in church meetings out of respect.

*MDT is Missionary Directed Time when a missionary and their companion can choose between a few activities like going to a language lab, teaching resource center, teaching evaluation center, learning resource center, or use Technology Assisted Language learning software.

*Elders and Sisters who are on LDS missions are not allowed to date during the duration of their mission.