#3 from the MTC

Ahoj! This week was kind of crazy. There are now 3052 missionaries here--1000 new ones came in on Wednesday! So the lines at dinner are ridiculous-we've been leaving 10 min early so we can actually get food. The food's gone downhill too because there are so many more people, which is pretty lame, but oh well. We just got back from the Temple, I got to be a child in sealings which was super cool, and there were some Coopers, from Tennessee. Don't know if we are related or not but that was cool. And I met an Elder Cooper last night too so that was cool. Monica sent me a photo calendar and I LOVE it cause I didn't have any recent photos of the family, so thanks Monica! We taught at the TRC for the first time this week which was interesting. It definitely reminded me that I really don't know Czech haha. The whole class is convinced that me and Starsi Howell are super good with the language, which I think is funny--it's just because I memorize vocab well. We finally learned past tense this week, which was so helpful. Now that we can actually put together slightly coherent sentences, lessons are a lot easier. Bro Thompson said that we are doing a really good job teaching to "Honza"'s needs, so that was exciting. And Sis Austin said that my Czech is coming along pretty well, so I should just keep doing what I'm doing. So that was really nice to hear. We did have some pretty hilarious mistakes this week though. Sis Hicken called the two guys we were teaching in the TRC "kamaradka" which means friends who are girls, and I asked them to turn to verse 80 instead of 18 haha. The funniest one was Sis Hicken explaining to "Petra" that "God helps us sin" hahaha. (Buh pomaha hrich) she realized right as she said it and was wait no! but 'no' is short for 'ano' which means yes in Czech. haha good times. The Starsi figured out how to say "like a boss" in Czech (jako sef-sounds like yako chef) so they've been adding that to like every sentence haha. I've had the song from the Best Two Years "Will I ever learn this language" stuck in my head all week. But it's coming along. We are planning on only bringing our English lesson plan into the lessons this week with a list of vocab and verbs that we need to use so that it's more of a conversation. We also did SYL for the first time on Wednesday, haha that was interesting cause we didn't know hardly any verbs. But the rest of the week we learned a ton so that should be better this Wednesday. What else...Oh we got to listen to Elder Bednar's talk "The Character of Christ" last night in the films--so amazing. I'll write you about that, he always blows my mind. His basic point was that when we would turn in and feel sorry for ourselves, Christ always turned out to serve others. We have our room to ourselves for now which has been sooo nice. But we are probably going to get new roommates on Wednesday when the newbies come in. I can't believe it's almost been 3 weeks! That's ridiculous. But it also feels like months. Time is really weird here. Oh cool quote that Sis Hicken's mom sent her: from Elder Bowen of the seventy being interviewed about the age change in missionary service: "We always need to remember that Heavenly Father communicates spirit to spirit and these spirits aren't 18 years old. Their spirits have been with Him a long, long time, and if they tune in, he can direct them spirit to spirit." I thought that was really neat. Sorry I don't have too much to say this week. Friday and Saturday took fooorever, we were all so tired. So the week is kind of a blur. Saturday the Starsi counted up how many hours we were in the classroom-- 10 1/2. That's more than the amount of time we got to sleep the night before haha. Ridiculous. We were all falling asleep so Bro Marchado took us on a walk in the snow and we learned our directions haha. By the end of the night I was cracking up about nothing--you know when it's 3 in the morning and everything is funny for no reason? That's what happened except it was only like 8 pm. So Bro Thompson just put on some music and had us study the atonement by ourselves--that was really nice. Sunday's are kind of crazy here, we have sacrament, then breakfast, then an hour, then Music and the Spoken Word, then Relief Society (Cherly Lant came yesterday) then study time for a couple hours, district meeting, the temple walk (except it was cancelled yesterday) then dinner and then we have to get to the devotional more than a half an hour before because there are only enough seats for about 2000 missionaries. I love P-day though, it is so nice. Mom you asked about PMG--I love the chapter on Christ-like attributes, there is a little quiz you can take in the back to figure out which one you want to work on. Also, comp inventory is amazing--that's in the chapter about using time wisely, it's been so helpful. All my RM friends always talked about how they wanted to use that when they got married and now I understand what they meant haha. Anyways...I love it here. It's exhausting but awesome and I'm learning so much. We've gotten to practice teaching in English more this week and that's been super helpful. It reminds me that I actually do know the gospel well, and I can actually explain it simply and powerfully in English. So that's been really helpful-those teaching skills I can translate over into Czech, like asking inspired questions and things. love you all! Sestra Cooper