(Like No Seriously We Get 24 More Every Day)
HI!
I am much less stressed out than I was last week so hopefully this letter will go better. In response to questions you wrote, Mom, people in my district generally learned German either in high school or high school + university. A few have visited before, and one Sister lived there for 7 years because her dad's in the military.
Elder Krieger, our zone leader, mentioned in his first email home that another Sister and I didn't get mail on the first day (it's cool, I got plenty on the second) and so his mother wrote us letters and sent us cinnamon rolls (more on that later)! It was so nice! He was pretty embarrassed, but I think I'm going to keep writing her. Partially to bug him and partially because she seems really cool.
My week has been crazy but I finally settled into the schedule and have really been enjoying myself! In class we just learn how to teach and what to teach, and class is in 3 hour chunks. Sometimes we have 2 in one day. Then the rest of the time is meals, other teaching practice, gym, and a LOT of study time, both individual and as a companionship. We only got to teach in the TRC once, which is where you get an actor who plays a certain investigator role several times, because no one knows what to do with our group for some reason. But Sis. Woodward and I make a great team and although we have a lot to work on, we've never had a bad lesson in class or the TRC or in other practice times. It's just really hard to translate "Wow that's a great idea I'm going to use that in my lesson!" into actually using it in the lesson.
In Relief Society, which is the church meeting for women, all the Sisters in the whole MTC meet in the gym (which is also an auditorium) and have a guest speaker. Ours was Cheryl Lind and she talked about involving children in your lessons by giving them their very own copy of the Book of Mormon and helping them to follow along. Then they won't be distracting their parents, children are often more receptive, and they need to know that God loves them just as much as their parents do. Also, paying attention to your investigators' children will help your investigator see how much you love and care about them and what you have to teach them.
I struggle with all the roleplay we have to do because it's harder to teach someone when they're not real, and it's hard for me to pretend they're real and see past my friend who's actually sitting there. But at church our branch president said, just in passing, "It's a roleplay, but life is a roleplay." and just like "all the world's a stage", there's some truth in that. But I'd like there to be as little truth in that as possible. I want the version of me people interact with and the real me to be the same. And people can tell when you're faking anyway.
Our Sunday afternoon temple walk was canceled because of all the snow so we had to spend our only Sunday as a whole district on MTC campus. But don't worry, we took a LOT of group photos! I'm not going to bother with uploading photos until next next Monday which is probably my next Prep Day, when I'll be on a real computer.
I have like 10 more things starred in my journal, but I'll just leave with this:
We talk about "progressing investigators" or people who are looking into the Church and making progress towards conversion and baptism, but really everyone is progressing. We have to have faith, repent, be baptized, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and then endure to the end, right? But what I think enduring to the end really means is that we have to start all over again. Find a new principle or doctrine that you don't understand, and have faith, repent, renew your baptismal covenants, let the holy ghost testify to you about that principle, and pick a new one. We're not just bringing people into the Church, we're teaching them the pattern they have to follow throughout their lives as they continue to come unto Christ and become more and more converted.
As much as I'm enjoying myself more than I expected, I can't wait to leave on Tuesday! I hope I have an aisle seat.
Sister Teusch
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