Letter #5

Ahoj! Well this week has been not that interesting. All I do is study, eat study some more and sleep. Dad you were wondering about mail-- Dear Elder prints them off the day after, so if you write on a Friday I don't get it until Monday night, and we don't get any on holidays. Loved the MTC journal excerpts that made me feel a lot better haha. Maybe someday I'll look back at it and laugh about how seriously I took everything haha. I hope so. Well we are halfway through with the MTC, finally. One of the directors of the Missionary Departement came and spoke to us last night, and he talked about the 4 stages missionaries go through: the honeymoon stage, hostile, grin and bear it and endure to the end. He pointed out that all missionaries go through this everytime they switch areas, or companions or whatever, so it's perfectly normal. That made me feel a lot better, cause I think I was in the hostile stage this week. The newness has worn off and now I'm just sick of the food, tired of not being able to communicate in Czech and my companion's driving me nuts. Haha wow that sounds super depressing, sorry. I'm getting out of it, slowly, but I will be so happy when we actually get to leave for the Czech Republic. I'm glad I have 4 more weeks to learn Czech cause I definitely need it, but I'm kind of over everything else. Ummm positive things--I've learned a ton of Czech this week. We learned all 7 cases, which was ridiculous. Also, I've learned a ton from the scriptures during personal study, which was really cool. I learned that I've always trusted in the Lord, because I know he CAN do all things, but I have trouble with having faith that he WILL do all things. So that was sort of an epiphany for me this week, I've been trying to improve my faith that He really does have all power and that my goals are exactly what He wants too. It was pretty cool cause I realized that I can't do anything to mess up His plans, even if I tried. He would always have a contingency plan, cause he's all-knowing. That was incredibly comforting to me for some reason, that no matter how badly I mess up, he could always fix it. So just think what I can do if I'm actually trying to help him accomplish his plans. So that was really neat to realize, it took some of the pressure off. What else...oh I was reading Alma 26 about the harvest analogy and it reminded me of Ruth, so I went and read that, and realized it can totally be read as an allegory of missionary work. SO COOL. especially verses 7-12. She is promised protection, she leaves her father and her mother to come to a land and people foreign to her, and she toils all day long. Anyways, I thought that was really cool. So then, I was reading the story of Ammon, and realized if you read the scattering of the flocks as a scattering of church members that go inactive, that it is really all about the rescue effort--Dad I thought you would like that. I don't know if that has already occurred to you, but I loved it. What else...oh we started teaching each other in Czech-I'm partnered up with Starsi Howell. It was really hard being the investigator, since all the Czech words I know are church-related I can't say anything normal really haha. But it went ok I think. And I got to do the whole study-plan-teach cycle with a teacher, so I learned a lot from that. He said the way I've been preparing lessons was great, but I learned more about faith. I'll write you about that. That's about it really....sorry this week wasn't really that interesting. We get 2 new districts on Wednesday--one speaking Polish and the others are Bulgarian speaking. So that will be fun to welcome them. And all of us sisters in the branch are doing a musical number on Sunday to welcome them. Sister Jones is singing a verse in Swedish, and Sister Belibi Myna is doing one in French. I know you're jealous mom haha. Sister Jones sings Swedish folk songs in the morning sometimes and they are so pretty!!! K I love you! Sestra Cooper