Last 30 Minute Email

I'm excited, because after today when I write messages to you on e-mail, I won't have the creepy blinking counter giving me a heartattack with it's red flashing glory.

This week has been really quite awesome and incredible... I'm sort of freaking out now, because we'll be leaving to actually go out to the mission-field on Wednesday! That's five days! I can count that on one hand. I'm freaking out.

RC has become really cool. We've started doing Spanish phone calls, which is very entertaining. The other night we sat down and started dialing and Hermana Thomas suddenly gasped and looked at me in horror. "Como?" i asked her, to which she replied, "I just realise... I don't know Spanish!"

We did alright though. It's harder on the phone that in person, because they talk faster when they can't see that you don't understand them, also, you can't read body language or anything. I talked to a couple of really nice people though, who slowed down for me. One guy stopped every coupld of seconds and asked, "Entiende?" And I was like, "Si, yo pienso." it was very silly.

It's really amazing that I've managed to learn as much Spanish as I have. Thank you all so much for your prayers, they are definately helping. I'm not sure my faith is sufficient enough to account for my level of Spanish. I'm not really confident that I'll be able to talk to people the second I hit Texas soil, but I am confident that I'm learning it, and not more slowly than I should be... In fact, I think this is like lightning-speed, rapido learning that's going on here. Every once in a while I toy with the idea of quitting English entirely, but I'm not sure that's going to be possible until I get to Houston, since I still have to talk to so many people here who don't speak Spanish.

I had a nasty scare this week. It was about ten o'clock at night and a voice came over the intercom and said my full name, not just Hermana Lillywhite, and they told me I needed to go to the Wilford Woodriff building and up to the front desk. I was terrified, I was sure that someone was hurt/dead or i was being transfered to a Poland Mission or that Texas had split from the US and now we had to get Visas and mine wasn't coming through so I had to stay an extra month! I threw on a coat over my pijamas and ran through the darkened lanes of the MTC with Hermana Gurney behind me, concerned and in her slippers. We got up to the front desk and they returned my nametag.

How lame is that? I think I've lost my name-tag about three times since I've been here, but they usually just put it in my mailbox. Why did they have to get me out of bed like that? Que es eso, donde esta mi fiesta? Seriously, it was junk.

I've got one more funny story before I talk about something... arguably more serious.

So, I've changed A LOT since I've gotten here. But this week, something happened that made me realise I haven't changed that much.

We went to the TRC for an appointment with one of the evaluators. We were supposed to do a pretend door-contact and then come inside and teach the first lesson in Spanish. So, our teacher was totally nice, and he warned us that he was going to be completely realistic and stop along they way if we happened to "dig ourselves into a hole". So, he shuts the door with us on the other side and I knock. I coudl hear him inside and (we were all speaking in spanish but I'm going to write in English to save time) he's all "Who's there?" and I said, "The missionaries!" and then he said something else, but it was hard to hear through the door. I asked him what he'd said and he said something else, still not intelligable through the door, but I thought he's said to come in "entre", so I opened the door and smacked him in the head with said door.

Instead of having a laugh and starting over he decided to play it for real and started telling us off in Spanish. I apologised and even managed a hacked explination for why I'd opened the door, and he was using I word I didn't know "grosera" Hermana Gurney said she thought it meant grocer, but I pointed out that it made absolutely no sense for him to call us grocers because I had attacked him, so I assumed the word meant rude, and sure enough I was right.

Anyway, he begrudgingly let us in after I apologised for about a million years. Don't worry, I only leave for the field in a few days, then I can really smack people in the heads with their front doors. Seriously, I am going to "Astonish people" but not in the right ways, I'm a bit worried.

Really though, It was good, I learned something to never, ever do. I for sure would have done in out in the field if I hadn't gotten it over with here, that's just me, I think.

The last thing was just a small incident that turned into kind of a big deal. It also displays that some things about me will probably never change. I was in the sort of longue with my companions planning for the following day and we were in there alone, so I had my feet up a little on the couch-cusion next to me. My feet weren't actually on the pillow, but my legs were still slightly elevated, and keep in mind, I'm a missionary so I'm wearing a pretty long skirt--anyway, there's some Elders around us planning too, probably like eight people in all and this teacher comes up to me and says VERY LOUDLY "Sister, put your legs down. This is a consecrated building and we want to treat it with respect."

First off... I don't even know this punk. Seriously, I'd never seen this teacher around before, and I've been trapped here for 2 months, so who is he and why is he barking at me? Then there's all these missionaries around looking sort of shocked by how rude he was and also nervous because they've got their legs elevated a little too... Anyway, I don't want to go on about it for ages, but at the time, I did go on about it. I was really mad. He was right--sure, but that just wasn't enough for me... and then I had an epiphany. I'm going to be asking people to make major life changes.

I can't just walk up to them and yell. There is a right way and a wrong way to ask for something, and thus far in my life, I haven't figured out how to ask, the RIGHT way. A request, no matter how small, will not be headed if you don't ask it with love and real concern for the person, minus the pride at being 'in the right'. Just knowing that I've got the rules on my side isn't going to be of any comfort to them. Look how angry I got when someone asked for me to do something really simple in a way that I didn't like?

So, I thought about how Hermana Saylow might have asked me to put my legs down... I realised then that my method is a bit more like whatever-that-guys-nametag-said. I need to develope the ability to show people that they can be better, instead of just telling them that they're wrong.

I've got thirty seconds left, I'd better sign off! I love you all so much.