Week 1 - Aye!!!

There's so much to write about! I don't even know where to begin...

So, Utah is pretty cold, and I wasn't prepared at all for it. I brought one sweater, two cardigans, a hat, and a scarf, and they don't do a ton for me. I'll be getting more, of course, but it takes a little time, so I'm getting by. The other sisters let me borrow things when I need to, thank goodness.

The other sisters! Actually, in french, they're "Soeurs", which is pronounced like "sir". There are sixteen missionaries in our district, which means we're all going to Tahiti, learning the languages, and doing most other things together when we can. This is a pretty big district - we've heard rumors that it's the biggest the Provo MTC has ever had, which is so crazy. Makes us feel kinda special. There's six soeurs, and we all share a room in the residence halls. Then, there are 10 elders, who are all absolute goofballs (I'll give you some proof later on in the email). I don't have any pictures of them yet, but as soon as I do I'll send one out and tell you their names.

From our first day in

Soeur Hamilton (from New South Wales, AU), Soeur Morrill (from Rexburg, ID), me, Soeur Sanderson (from Ohio), Soeur Allen (from Boston, MA), and Soeur Boseman (from near Dallas, TX)

After our first full day

The soeurs are SO sweet [tres sympa] and we already feel like a family. We do everything together, and are working our hardest to be the best we can as a group. Last night, our branch president said that "you won't be able to have anyone ahead of anyone else. You all must learn together - no missionary left behind." I'm so sure that's going to prove true.

Our room has three sets of bunk beds, six wardrobe/closets, and three desks. I share a bunk with my companion [ma collegue] Soeur Sanderson, who is SO funny and SO sweet. She loves cats, loves to be outside, and every time we see the mountains when we walk outside, we point at them and yell "MOUNTAINS". We have so much fun together and are feeling the Holy Ghost touch our hearts all the time in very similar ways. If you don't already know, as a missionary you're not allowed to be out of sight or hearing of your companion - so we do everything together. On our first day, we did a lot more walking around outside than we thought we would, and Soeur Sanderson didn't have a coat. I mean, neither did I, but I was wearing my scarf (which, by the way, is becoming my trademark out here - I've worn it every day so far). Since the scarf is pretty long, I gave her one end to wrap around her neck, and I got one end to wrap around mine. It actually helped, but it was funny for us to be "yoked together" by my purple scarf, and a couple sisters we didn't even know saw us walking and shouted "COMPANIONSHIP GOALS". It actually made my day.

Flexing on what is definitely more than twelve pounds of books

The Spirit is so strong in every meeting we have - we end up sitting for hours at a time, listening to people tell us everything - from rules, to lessons, to french... The list goes on and on. After our first full day yesterday, my butt was sore from sitting so much.

We have classes all hours of the day - as soon as we're done with one thing, we move to the next. We're only in our room at the very beginning and very end of the day. Three meals a day, and the food here isn't that bad! Yesterday we had chicken wings for dinner, and brownies... And they have Vitamin Water, so I can have juice and chocolate milk as often as I want! Quite honestly, I should probably drink more water (why did no one tell me it was so cold and dry in Utah?!).

Having to learn two languages is clearly not going to be easy. We have 6 weeks of French and 3 of Tahitian, but we’re starting with French. We picked up our books for studying in the next days... well, a picture is worth a thousand words....

We actually ended up with an hour of free time because the schedule was messed up yesterday, so our district all came to our french classroom and tried to speak to each other in french. Then, we learned each others' names the best we could... Which is not very good, sometimes. However, one of the elders made a joke that the elders were just "elders" while the sisters got to be "knights of the round table" (because soeur sounds so much like sir). You can probably imagine how much I liked that idea!

We’ve got a lot to learn....

We had our first real class of french yesterday, where we learned Moroni 10:5 en francais: [in French]

Et par le pouvoir du Saint-Esprit, vous pouvez connaitre la veritee de toutes choses. [And by the power of the Holy Ghost, ye shall know the truth of all things.]

It took us a good twenty minutes, but by the end of it, all sixteen of us could recite the verse from memory (though some with a Texan accent, some with sneaky looks at the board). The Spirit of joy in the room was so strong - truly, as we were being taught, we were uplifted and edified together. We also learned vowel sounds, so sister Thomas listed a bunch of vowel combinations on the board and grouped them by sound. It turns out, there's a lot of vowel combinations that result in an "aye" sound, as in "cape" - and we had to repeat them after Soeur Thomas listed them, so you can imagine how that turned out. Each time another vowel combination was put in that section, the elders would shout "AYE", and after the eighth chorus of "AYYEE"s, most of us were laughing so hard our guts hurt. We really are getting close, and it's only our second full day here.

This morning we had the opportunity to go to the temple, and it was so good to relax and feel the Spirit in a way we were all familiar with. However, our entire District (and way more) went, because so many other missionaries have Preparation Day on Friday. The Provo temple is huge, and there were probably around 40 or 50 of both brothers and sisters, so around 100 attending just in that session. We also got to eat at the cafeteria there, which I'm going to risk saying is just slightly better than the MTC cafeteria (they're really both very good).

As an elder said last night in our testimony meeting, it's so amazing to know that we have been called specifically to teach others, because it's a solid fact that we know about ourselves. In the world we live in, those are hard to come by... But, every day at the MTC, I feel the Spirit manifest to me (through feelings of HUGE excitement, love, peace, and pure joy) that I am where I need to be.[J'adore etre une missionaire!]

Please feel free to email me! I am allowed to check my emails all throughout the week, but can only respond on Friday - so know that they're being read and that I will email soon! 

Beaucoup d'amour, [much love]

Soeur Sperry (a real live knight of the round table)