Yesterday Letter

Dear Fambley,
So that email count down thingy on the computers is not a nice way to write anything. It was so stressful! But anyway I hope you got that email because it took a lot out of me – I was FREAKING out when the clock started flashing. Okay, the good news is; it's all pretty much great news. Hermana Thomas is doing much, much better now that we've settled into a normal schedule. Last week when she was having her doubts and feeling especially homesick, she made a little mistake though . She wrote home to her father about her feelings. Her dad is also her Stake President and as her Stake President he took it upon himself to set up some therapy sessions for her here at the MTC. She says she wishes she hadn't said anything since she's doing much better now. She even came up with an adorable little fairy tale for us: basically, in her mind with her new positive outlook the MTC is a fortress and we are among the choice princesses who train inside the fortress until we're ready to go out and serve our people. We have a beautiful white castle across the street that we're allowed to visit once a week with a battalion of guards – who like us, have sworn an oath to our king (this would be the Elders in our zone). One day a white knight will find us and we'll go to that white castle together (not all of us and the same knight though. We stopped that nonsense along time ago.) We can only do this after we've learned to become queens and serve our people and our king. Sweet, isn't she! I told her she should write a short book for aspiring sisters. Or ----- I'll just steal the idea, maybe.
Sister Gurney's taste in music has turned out to be much better than it initially seemed. She's started playing more instrumental stuff and we basically pretend like all the EFY CD's don't exist. Hermana Gurney is also a piano genius it turns out. On Sunday during our free time, we all went to our chapel and Hermana Gurney played the piano for a while, while Sister Thomas and I listened and studied. It was so pleasant ---- it's just too bad that Hermana Gurney is one of those girls who constantly denys her own apparent brilliance. Hopefully, some really conceited person like we are can rub off on her a little. She's got a sort of quiet strength -- or not so quiet. She's also a volleyball genius, which I thought daddy would appreciate about her.
I really love being in a “trinity” as some of the Elders referred to us. They are wonderful young men. Right now we're the only girls in our whole zone, which means we're ALWAYS surrounded by these tall Elders dressed in black. Hermana Thomas pointed out earlier that we've basically taken the place of their mothers and sisters. We've always telling them what to do/how to do it, but we at least try not to be annoying. All of our Elders are unique and wonderful in different ways, but sometimes it's all too apparent that they are 19 year old “guys” (yes, I said the illegal word). Our section of the cafeteria is the loudest and the wildest. Everyone is always shouting en Espanol and jumping up to cross over and talk to people down the seats. I imagine it's about like sitting at the so called “popular” table at a high school. Being the only girls in that group is awkward sometimes but they always clean up our trays for us and jump up from their seat when we come to or leave the table. The other day Elder Williams was flirting with a girl who worked in the cafeteria. It caused a huge scene, actually and another district got involved and the whole thing was really juvenile.
Whenever an Elder is caught flirting, they get a napkin with the page number from the missionary hand book that talks about flirting being a big “NO”, handed to them They think they are being subtle but it really doesn't help the problem. Now, I just notice whenever an Elder is talking to me or my Hermanas and someone slips a napkin into their hand and then it's awkward. This seems to happen at every single mealtime too.
The Elders are great but sometimes (read, most of the time) us Hermanas need to get away. We found a special place just for us. Mom it was so great that you mentioned Jane Eyre because we made the same connection and our little sanctuary is called “El quarto Rojo” (the red room). So called, because one wall is painted a vibrant shade of blood red. We usually go there during our study time to work away from the constant chatter of loud 19 yr old voices speaking in 52 different languages.
Actually the diversity of the MTC is one thing I can really appreciate. There are so many different people from so many different countries studying here and I love talking to them and staring at them shamelessly. The Russian sisters are GORGEOUS. They all have this same intense Eastern European look and their hair always seems to be bleached white blonde or dyed the darkest black #1. I really admire their determination with language study, too. There is only one sister who still uses the translation headsets to meetings and her English is coming along.
The Polynesian sisters might be my favorite people ever though. There is one girl on our floor who sings Tongan songs in the shower every night, so loudly! It's gorgeous to hear. They are just so fun and their broken Tong-lish is the most adorable thing to hear – except maybe for the Japanese sisters who are trying to learn English.
You can just walk around the cafeteria and find people from all over the world to talk to. When I get a little better at Spanish I'm going to try to find some native speakers to talk with me – since I'm pretty sure that's what's been happening with all of these other sisters talking to me.
I LOVE Spanish! I wish I could invent that machine from the matrix and download it into my head though – it's so frustrating when you can't think of a word or when you conjugate something incorrectly. But I think I can safely say I'm doing well for only speaking it properly for 2 weeks. I pray in Spanish and I testify in Spanish and tomorrow I've got to write some stuff on faith in Spanish. It's a gorgeous language.
My notes are turning into a whole different monster. I may end up writing a book after all while I'm here, just by compiling my notes and journal entries and letters.
As you (hopefully) already know ---Elder Holland spoke at the devotional Tuesday night! (He also spoke at BYU earlier, so Jensen may have heard him, too, Maybe?) It was incredible! (By the way, it turns out that we don't go to BYU devotionals on a regular basis. Ill let you know if anything funky happens though. Some of the Elders talked about going to something at BYU but I can never tell if they are joking.
Yeah ---so Elder Holland's talk was one of the most incredible things ever! I took like 20+ pages of notes. The gist of it was that we're examples to the children, specifically our younger brothers and sisters and that we have to be good missionaries to the point of coming home in pieces – not just to honor our earthy families but our Father in Heaven and our brother, Jesus Christ as well. And, to see the wide eyes of the children. It was very moving. And funny. He made his adorable 14(?) year old grandson come on stage to represent the proverbial wide-eyed youngster.
I had an excellent seat, too, because I joined the choir with my two companions. It was a bit of a distraction though. My face came up right away on the big screen right at the beginning and I almost missed my cue.
I can tell you guys are praying for me because I feel your presence with me as evenly as I feel the spirit sometimes. This place is amazing because it inexplicably manages to be cut off from the world while simultaneously staying close to so many far away comforts.
We got to visit the temple this morning. It was so lovely to be there with my companions. We watched the other movies, too – the one I hadn't seen. I'm so lucky to constantly be in this pure environment. Everything we do and say is related to the work. At night, we've been having “Bedtime Stories”. Hermana Thomas boyfriend (?) is a writer and he is writing a sort of book/memoir about his mission in Peru. We've been reading a little bit every night. It's so inspiring!And a relief too, that I'm not going to Lima.
I was so smart to go to Mission Prep as much as I did. Thanks for telling me about it. We had to teach the first discussion (in English) to pretend investigators his week and it was really second nature for me because of how many times I'd already done it. Mission Prep was such a great experience. They really did am amazing job getting us ready for this.
So, I hope daddy is feeling better after his colon yuckisppy. I felt bad that I forgot to ask about it last week and had to wait 2 whole other week before I could say anything.
Really, the best thing I can talk about this week was Elder Holland's amazing talk. You could really feel the truth of missionary work and his love for all of us. The scripture that was on my mind this week was 3rd Nephi 5:13.
At the end of Elder Holland's talk he said that we are disciples of Christ. We don't have to suffer the atonement, but as missionaries we have to experience a little. We have to walk around the edges of Gethsemene and try to at least stay awake. We have to take a few steps toward the cross. We have to get up at 6:30 and study a little. And it's worth it. It's not too much to ask.
It's still difficult sometimes. I was very homesick last night, but lying in my bed I had an epiphany. I've never been away from you before. (A fact which gained some sympathy from people.)
So – I've never felt like this before. I'm so lonely without my family and I'm just now slowly learning how to deal with the separatio. The only similar feelings I ever remember experiencing are to a certain degree, the grief at death, but that's a bit different, and the sort of ache that I feel sometimes when I'm praying to my father in heaven. I think that some part of me remembers my true home in heaven and being homesick in the temporal world is reminding me of the homesickness I feel for my father in heaven's home.
A mission and a lifetime share similarities in that way. In my prayers I hear myself say “I miss you so much, and I want to come home,” and I realize I was speaking directly to my Father in Heaven and saying the same things I might say to you, my dear parents. But, like life, my mission happened for a reason. I have to perform honorably and to the best of my abilities. My focus is on the work for the most part, it's just at the end of the day that I start to feel blue.
Every morning, I wake up (at 6 which isn't so bad) completely refreshed and ready to dominate whatever my task is for the day. Sometimes I try to do something really foolish. Like on Wednesday when I decided to have a go at memorizing all Spanish verbs (dumb) or like last Tuesday when I thought I could write down everything I knew about baptism during my 1 hour of personal time. Still – I'm determined to dominate this language and preach the gospel. The scriptures that they gave us in Spanish are GORGEOUS. I got pretty colored covers for mine. And started reading/marking them already. I'm hoping to soon get to the point where I can put my English stuff in the shelf for a while. I'm actually not too far off if you can believe it.
Um, yeah, I really miss my Ipod. If you haven't sent it already, could you possibly get me a copy of “Children will listen” from Into the Woods! It just really fits well with Elder Holland's talk.
I love you guys – I love hearing from you, and don't worry about me. I'm not homesick to the point of being a cripple and letters really help because then home doesn't seem so far away.
The other day I took a shower at the gym and I thought I was all alone in the bathroom until I heard water in the stall next to me and Hermana Thomas voice singing “Heavenly father, are you really there?” I let her do a solo for a bit and then at the right moment I came in with “Pray, he is there”. It was way fun spontaneously it turns out we weren't alone in there. Afterwards, Hermana Gurney was Like “was that you guys!?”
Spontaneous shower duets are just art of MTC. I better close this epistle now, before I think of something else to say. I love you all so much, the church is true and heavenly Father is watching over all of us after all.
Hermana Lirioblanco