I hope you're all doing well. You sound in your letters like you're getting along fine. Thank you Dad, Mom, Grandma Springer, Sarah, Amanda, Ashley, and Teresa for your letters this week. It's so great to go back to class at 6:30 after dinner and ALWAYS have a DearElder waiting on my desk (I can't read letters until 9:30pm but it gives me something to look forward to at the end of the day). On Saturday nobody in our district got any letters. We were all really depressed. But then yesterday I got four pages worth of DearElders, so you're all forgiven. :) It makes me feel guilty when others in my district don't get mail, though, and we all rejoice in each others' letters. If you ever send me a package, please consider including something that I can share with Hma. Yingling, Elder Croft, and Elder Andreasen. And my teachers Hmo. Alder and Hmo. Concha if you're feeling especially charitable. :) By the way, I've been advised to tell you that if you ever send packages to me in Paraguay you should put MISSIONARY PACKAGE in huge letters and/or put a picture of Christ on the outside. Apparently that way it's less likely to get stolen.
Hma. Yingling is NOT oriental, just to clear up any confusion. If you ask her about her name, she'll tell you her biological parents died and she was adopted by a Chinese couple at infancy, but actually her biological parents and five siblings are very much alive. They're from Alpine, Utah, and they're of German descent. Ellis Island messed with their ancestral name, Yungleg or something like that. So no, I don't have an Asian companion. We are actually very much alike in height and European features as you'll see in the pictures that I"m mailing soon (you should get them Saturday-ish, I was late in ordering them).
So this week has been amazing. No moment here has been NOT amazing, but this week had some especially good times. We finally got our other permanent teacher, Hmo. Concha. He grew up in Mexico City but you'd never guess it by teh way he speaks. The past five years at BYU have given him an extremely good American accent, and he tends to talk in Spanish less than Hmo. Alder, our Utahn teacher. I love both my teachers. Hmo. Alder is so in-tune to the Spirit and Hmo. Concha is so fun. They've been working hard this week to teach us how to do door contacts and teach bits of Lesson 1 in Spanish. I'm so bad at approaching people where Hma. Yingling is soo good at it, and she blanks when she speaks Spanish but I remember well how to say things. Together we make a good team. :)
We had our first evaluation on Tuesday and I thought it went really well (Hma. Y would say otherwise--she's hard on us and always strives to improve, which is good because otherwise I might be fine with "just passing.") For the evaluation, we approached a volunteer in a "park" (a tiny classroom), shared a message in Spanish, and set an appointment to come back and teach him more fully. The volunteer, "Dave," was really sweet and eager to talk about his many grandchildren. But he gave us a real scare when we went back for the "appointment." We said, "Nos permite hablar en Ingles?" and he said, "No hablo Ingles!" We'd been told we wouldn't have to teach the lesson in Spanish so we weren't prepared at all. But before we could fully panic, he laughed and said, "Just kidding. English, it is."
Our Spanish is really improving, though. The four of us in our district are trying to become the district known for never speaking in English. We keep forgetting, but we do speak in Spanish A LOT together, and it really helps to just practice. I can almost roll my "r"s on command, now. When I don't think about it I can roll my "r"s perfectly, like when I'm reading. Again, I just need to practice. The other morning my friend and roommate, Hma. Gomez, said, "Hermana Springer, you talked in your sleep last night." I groaned and felt my face immediately turn red (I HATE when that happens!), but then she added, "You were speaking in Spanish." My shame immediately turned to happiness. :)
We had our first Service Day this week, which I didn't know we would do at the MTC. I guess I'm too used to paid janitors cleaning everything, but here the missionaries do ALL the cleaning. It teaches us the value of hard work, and after mopping five floors of stairs in the health building (with herds of missionaries coming through every five seconds because we're not supposed to use the elevators--another way they keep us from growing lazy), I will never again take janitors for granted. I'm not looking forward to the service day when we have to clean the bathroom in the women's residence hall. *Shudder*
To give you a glimpse of how much we work and are moved by the Spirit, I've stopped wearing makeup because I sweat and cry so frequently that it's just too much of a hassle to keep re-applying. I still make sure to look cute, though, no worries. :) Anyways, Sunday was especially spiritual (of course). I went to choir as Laurel and Teresa suggested, and it IS so cool to have more men than women singing! Plus when you sing solely to invite the Spirit to a devotional or fireside, and not for performance or personal glory, it's so much more passionate and stirring to sing.
Temple trips are always great, too. I discovered on Sunday that the Provo temple has a "backyard." How had I lived here for two years without noticing that?? It's so pretty, and it was great to see my familiar temple from a different, equally as beautiful angle. And it was really fun to watch all the Polynesian missionaries rolling around in the snow on the hill back there. They were having a great time. And today Hma. Y and I went to the temple to do endowments. As we left, a temple worker stopped us and asked if we were missionaries (we didn't have our tags on at that point). She said she could tell that we were because of our "glowing countenances." And yeah, she could have very easily guessed (the MTC IS right across the street, after all), but it still made me super happy to be identified as a servant of God even without the badge.
The best part of Sunday, though, is Relief Society, the fireside in the evening, and the movie before bed. At Relief Society this week we heard from Cathy Clayton, who spoke about writing our life story. She advised us to erase all the negative aspects of our story and rewrite them as learning opportunities and growing moments, essentially putting the bad things behind us (and it was a writing analogy! Yay for writing!). It was a really great lesson, but I especially loved it because in the middle of it Sister Clayton started relating a story. I thought, "This sounds really familiar..." and then I realized that she was telling a story that Nana had told me from her life! She was totally talking about Nana! I asked Sis. Clayton afterwards to confirm, and while she didn't seem to really know Nana very well, it was still so happy to hear that little story about my Grandma at a random church meeting. It was great.
And during the fireside by the MTC director (the man who takes care of all our housing, food, and travel arrangments--brave man), he had every missionary stand up who had only been in the church for two years or less. There were at least twenty-five, and he had each of them take a few seconds to share their conversion stories. It was hilarious how many of the men had been converted by their girlfriends, but so inspiring all the same to hear how the missionaries changed their lives not through their eloquent lessons or perfect language skills, but through their love and friendship. I'M a missionary! I can do that! It's incredible.
Then that night we watched "The Testaments," which I haven't seen in a while. With my greater appreciation for the Savior, His Atonement, and the great prophets of the Book of Mormon and today, I predictably balwed like a baby and didn't stop until after we'd gone back to the dorm room and I'd had a good cry on my bed. I SO wish you were all here with me learning the things I'm learning. I wish they published a magazine for all the MTC devotionals so you could hear what I hear, but while they have archives, I don't think they're accessible outside of the MTC. :( Would it be too much or me to ask you to read Preach My Gospel and really take time every day to ponder and find gratitude for the gospel? That's really all that I'm doing, and I've grown so much as a person and as a Daughter of God. I want you to all grow right along with me so that when I come home we can continue the work together. In the meantime, while you're at it, read the Book of Mormon, too. That's always a good thing to do.
I love you all so much. Sorry this letter is shorter (okay, SLIGHTLY shorter) than the last one. I'm gonna try this week to snail mail some more personal letters, and I journal a lot so I'm not sure how much to tell you or what I've already told you. Anyways, continue strong in the faith. Remember who we are and by whose name we live. I trust God wholeheartedly to take care of you while I"m away, and I trust all of you to be just as amazing when I get back. :) Thanks a thousand times over for all your love, support, and letters! I love hearing from you and want to know how you are so keep the DearElders coming. Be safe and be happy! I love you!
Hermana Springer
P.S. Mom or Dad, could you please send me my vaccination records (the yellow fold-out ones I left on my shelf)? I need them with me when I travel to Paraguay. No hurry, though. Seven weeks to go! :)
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