First Letter! 25 Oct 2011

Here is Katelyn's first letter/email!

Hello Family!

How are you allll?! So surprise, it's my P-Day on Tuesdays! And I already love this day :) Favorite days at the MTC are Tuesdays and Sundays. It's been a crazy week, let me tell you all about it :)

So I got here Wednesday and it was insane. Our life is very scheduled. Which is fine, but when you can't even catch your breath the first day, with all emotions wrapped up inside of you, it's hard to sit. But I got my tags, my information, my room, met my district and my companion. Oh by the way, 3 of our elders from our district already got their visa, so they are flying to Brazil right now. Pretty cool! So hopefully not before too long I'm down there too. And then after we had about an hour lesson from an teacher who only spoke Portuguese to us, we had a new missionary meeting with all the new missionaries. It was cool to be all together. I figured out after the first day, my favorite part of the day is at 9:30 at night where we just relax and get out of our dresses. We can write in our journals, do whatever. Our room is full. It has 6 girls living it in. It's cool because all 6 of us are speaking Portuguese. 2 sisters have been here for almost 3 weeks, the other set has been here for almost 2, and then us, we have been in here 1! But it just happened like that. It's also really nice because all of us are really good at waking up on time. A couple of sisters wake up at like 6:15 every morning so we are all up definitely by 6:30. Also, family, don't worry. I've worn make up and fixed my hair every day :)

The food here is decent. I mean what can you expect with cafeteria food right? I'm finally figuring out the ropes around here. Like where everything is, all the rules, how best to use our time.

I'm sure you're all wondering about the language. Um...it's tough. It's really tough. I'm learning words, but I'm not able to coherently put together sentences. The 3rd day of class we had a "progressing investigator". Which means that a teacher (which we aren't supposed to know is a teacher) here at the MTC comes and we teach them like a regular investigator. Problem considering he only speaks Portuguese. Haha. So we had to use the books that we had, in Portuguese, to be able to get our points across. It's been really frustrating because we can't say what we want. Yesterday we had a tough lesson. It was hard because he started asking us questions that we could only partly understand. And once we finally figured out what he was asking, I couldn't find the right words in Portuguese to say. I didn't have an answer that I could find in my language book I had. The good thing is that I can almost pray without looking at the book in Portuguese.

People I've seen: I did not know there was so many people at the MTC that I know! I did see Stephanie. She knew where my classroom is so she stopped by to say hi. She isn't my teacher, but it was really good to see her. Elder Dane Eskilsen (sp?) is actually in my zone! So I see him all the time. He just got reassigned (his 9 weeks are up) to Tulsa, OK. But he's hoping (like the rest of us) that his visa is on his way. Also, as weird as this is, my friend Elder Snarr's classroom is down the hall from me. So I see him every day. On Sunday, I saw Bryan Brown's mom. Her husband is in a branch presidency at the MTC and it was SO nice to see her there. I love her a lot!

I found caffiene free Mountain Dew at the bookstore at the MTC. I'm too scared to try it. I think it would pretty much taste like water without caffiene.

We have a devotional tonight. Sunday and Tuesday nights, we have visitors come and give the whole MTC a devotional. Tuesday nights is a general authority, Sundays, it's different people. Last Sunday was awesome. To be honest, the first 4 days in the MTC were sooo much harder then I ever thought it would be. Sunday was so nice to take a break from trying to learn the gospel in Portuguese along with the other stuff we had to do. So we all go into the gym with seating for 2600 missionaries (about) and it was so cool to be able to be there with all of us. Strong and trying to do what's best. So this is the deal. All the elders have to wear the suit jackets at the firesides unless directed by the speaker. So the speaker (Stephen Allen I think, the marketing director for missionaries in SLC) as soon as he got up, said that all the elders could take off their jackets. So about 2000 missionaries stood up and took off their jackets. So when they sat down it was so much brighter. It was such a great visual for me to see all of us together, sitting. Strong missionaries together.

This is hard...really hard. But I know Heavenly Father is sustaining me and I know that there are a lot of prayers coming my way. I love you all and please keep writing! Carly and Wendy, I'll write you a little letter soon.

The gospel is true! Love you alllllll!