Okay so-I entered the MTC and I'm living on the main campus right now, but rumer has it the French speaking program is moving to Wyview in September, so we'll see what happens. My French teacher is Frere Asay, Jill's brother from philmont, which was a huge tender mercy to me to see a familiar face right off the bat. Also, Rafael Sion is in the class next to me and he ran over and said hi to me too (he's going to the marshall islands.) Frere Asay doesn't talk to us in English AT ALL unless teaching grammer even to the people that have no French background. Luckily for me, Madame Munoz de Revera prepared me well and I can actually understand most of what he says, I'm still just working on being able to speak. The first couple days I was in a foursome becuase there were supposed to be five Soeurs (Sisters) in my district, but one got engaged and didn't show up so My threesome stuck with Soeur Naylor who didn't have a companion. We split up into twos and now my companion is Soeur Fisher from Cottenwood Heights, Utah. My district is great and I love all the people going to Tahiti with me in my zone. Our zone is made up of a lot of French speaking missions going all over the place. Oh yeah, I'm spending the first six weeks learning French and the second six weeks learning Tahitian. She's a great missionary and I have a great story to come about her. We taught our first two disscussions in French this week. The first one went really well, but we weren't as prepared for the second one so we couldn't understand the investigator's questions and it didn't go quite as well, although I felt the Spirit very strongly as I bore my testimony in French that I know I need to learn the language for him (our investigator) and all the people I will teach. It was so cool becuase I truly feel like I have had angels protecting me from ANY fear or homesickness or anxiety and even that day, I felt the Spirit so strongly comforting me so that I did not get to the point where I could not handle it anymore. Anyways, we had a service project in which we cleaned some bathrooms. Wooh! I've seen lots of people I know all over the place everyday! To name a few: Chrissy, Mariah Jackson, Jacob, Shannon Green, Rafael, and lots of friends from BYU. The spirit is so strong here! It's electrifying sometimes when I sit in meetings and listen and think about what I'm doing. I joined the choir which was fantastic and we got to listen to an MTC devotional recorded a few years ago by Elder Bednar called the "Charactor of Christ". It was sooo powerful. He told us our missions are not about us and that in the words of Elder Maxwell, "They're would have been no atoning sacrifice without the character of Christ." One of the crowning atributes of Christ's character is that in all times when the natural man would turn inward with self pitty, He ALWAYS turned outwards. Such a good talk!
Today, my first p-day was insane!!! I had to go with about nine other people going to Tahiti in my zone to San Fransisco and back to Provo all today! We woke up at two in the morning, got on a bus at 2:30 with a bunch of other missionaries who are leaving for the field and when to the airport. It was cool seeing those leaving the MTC becuase they were so pumped and excited to go. A girl from my BYU ward sat in front of me on the bus which was cool because she had been sitting outside with me when I was going in to get my mission bishop's interview and she's leaving for her mission in Tokyo or Korea or something today. We got on the plane at 5:30 and flew for about 1.5 hours to San Fransisco and after a little trouble finding our shuttle, we went down town to find the consolate. (The MTC gave us two cell phones, our information for our visas and passport, and each of us $10 for lunch and a page of instructions haha.) There were some French people talking in there and they talk so fast! We ate at this awesome little bakery in downtown....seriously downtown...tall buildings everywhere, taxies, buses, people walking on all the streets, etc. and then went to the consolate. Souer Fisher, my companion just started talking to everyone in there and as we were about to leave, she asked the security gaurd if he would like to learn more about the church from the missionaries and he said yes so we got his info! YAY!! We talked to some other people and I felt like I should give this one girl a pass-along card but didn't do it in the consolate. As we walked out, we saw her across the street and I told my collegue missionaire that I wanted to give her the card. We had to stick with the group so we decided to wait and see if she'd cross the street. we got distracted and I barely saw her turn a corner so off me and my collegue missionaire chased after her. She was waving down a taxi and I ran up and said I had something for her and it was so good to talk to her. The rest of our zone placed all the pass along cards we'd brought and talked to this really nice family from Ohio who are practicing Buddism, but we bumped into them three times at the airport and were on the same flight :) We also were on the same flight as an elder entering the MTC this week and met this sweet little elder who was i think from Guam who was sitting all alone in San Fransisco and hardly spoke any english and we sat by him and tried to talk to him. So we got back to Utah and then it took us two hours to get back to Provo by the shuttle train thing. We got to talk to this sweet lady though who had served a mission and she was fun to talk to. I wish I could tell you every detail of what's gone on the past week, but it has been great. There are four sisters and five elders in my district so my room has three empty beds right now which is nice. It's so fun seeing people I know here. I miss my family, but I know that I'm supposed to be here and I'm really enjoying the MTC!
