4th letter

ahoj! Hi!! aaah there's so much to say there's no way I can fit it all. But I will try. This week was ridiculous. First of all there are sooo many new missionaries, more than 1000 came in on Wednesday. Which means that every room is going to have 6 people in it, with 4 closets, that will be fun...we are going to move into the room with the other 4 sisters in our district today, so that will be interesting cramming all of us in that tiny room! Dinner got so crowded on Thursday that they wouldn't let us in to eat for about a 1/2 an hour, so we had to wait in the hallway because there were over 1000 in there and no seats open. haha it's just going to get worse...since we are here for another month. Wednesday is almost the halfway point of the mtc!!! Don't know how that happened, it's crazy. Mom, you asked about the love for the people-absolutely. I feel so much love for the Czech people and have ever since I got my call, it will be so nice actually be able to serve them in a little more than a month. aaah. Oh and you only have to wear the newbie dot your first day. Apparently this January was the coldest since 1949, so we aren't imagining things, it's freezing. The sun finally came out this week though! Dad, you asked about TALL (the computer language program) it's kind of annoying to learn new words because it's just online flashcards and I learn by writing them down, but it's helpful for review. It will say the word for you and you can record yourself and compare your accent. Apparently my pronounciation is getting really good, we had to read out of the KM (Kniha Mormonova) with our teacher and he only corrected me on a couple words, so yay! That was exciting. We finally started cases this week, they are a beast. And I still don't have past tense down all that well, so that should be interesting. Oh yeah, you were wondering about gym- there are two of them. 2M has ellipticals, weights, bikes and a rowing machine with church movies, and 19M has volleyball, foursquare, basketball, a track and other machines. I've been running a lot, which has been so nice. The food is going downhill cause they are cranking it out which is super lame. Luckily I haven't gained any weight yet, but it's hard when the food is so bad to eat healthy. Oh and Starsi Payne broke the MTC sit-up record, it was 571 and he did 1361 in 45 min on Saturday. All of the elders in our zone are hero worshiping him hahaha. But he wants to be Navy seal so it's hardly surpising haha. Thanks so much for your Valentine's package!! Everybody was super distracted cause it felt like a holiday and there was sooo much candy from all the packages haha. It was fun though, we all shared our food and wrote notes to each other. Dad you are judging Mr. Irish? That's awesome! Mom, I loved hearing about your MTC journal entries, that was so cool. Oh yesterday I got called on to talk in Sacrament, every week we have to prepare a talk just in case. I think it went pretty well, even though it wasn't my favorite talk I've ever written. And then I got asked to give the closing prayer in Relief Society, so I was up on the big screen in front of all the sisters in the MTC (they almost fill the whole bleachers and floor now) and I got to meet Linda Reeves cause she was the speaker, that was really cool. Mom I'm glad you read my letters multiple times too cause I definitely do! I've been a little homesick this week just cause Czech got really hard. And one of the sister's mom's in our zone keeps meeting her up at the temple, which you aren't supposed to do, I'm trying not to think about it, it's not like you are close by anyways. My companion is good, we have pretty different personalities but we get along just fine. I think she's normally pretty sarcastic like Annica but she's holding back so she just comes across as super indecisive, which means I have to make decisions haha. Comp inventory has been helpful for that. Mom, you got a Linguistics textbook?? I'm slightly jealous, that would be so helpful. I did learn that Czech is all in the front of the mouth like spanish, so that's been helpful. Oh, the longer I'm here the more I realize I really don't know anything about the gospel haha. I felt pretty good before leaving, but I learn so much from one hour of personal study it's kind of ridiculous. So good though. It doesn't discount what I knew before, but I'm learning so much. Our teacher taught us a method to get more out of scripture study the other week--we all wrote down a personal question and then started in 1 Nephi and stopped at every verse and applied to ourselves as missionaries. It was amazing how much I learned, and my question was answered every time without fail. So cool. Oh Mom- you asked about Dispensations, I have the perfect answer! I asked Bro Thompson about that cause I had the same question and he said that they show us that God will never give up on us. No matter how many times we mess up, reject the prophets and the gospel, he always calls another prophet and gives us another chance. Isn't that cool? I loved that application--God never gives up on me either, no matter how many times I don't get it right. The speaker on the Sunday fireside was from the Missionary Department, so he gets to sit with the apostles when they assign calls, he told some pretty cool stories. But he and his wife talked about Mormon 9, about how God is the perfect father, and he will do anything to help his children have the righteous desires of our hearts. So if we have enough faith, he will perform miracles through us. A miracle can be as small as bringing someone closer to Christ, but if you think about it, that is the most important thing we can do. So the MTC is good. It feels like I'm going to be here forever, but the last month went by pretty quickly. The days are weeks and the weeks are days! Love you!! Sestra Cooper

#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

MTC letter #2

Letter #2 HI! I can't believe it's been another week, I don't know where the time went. This week has been sooo much better than the first one. Everybody kept saying that you just have to make it to Sunday, and it was definitely true. Oh I forgot to tell you last week, we leave March 25 now, not the 26th, so I think I'll still be able to call you from the airport! We just buy a prepaid card here, and then I'm assuming we call at some point--I won't know the time until we get our itineraries. I got the photos, but don't have any way of printing them out, so it would be awesome if you could send a hard copy, also a more recent picture of the family, everybody keeps wanting to see them. Thanks so much for the packages, you are awesome. The trail mix and chocolate were so nice, I'm always hungry in between meals. The lines at dinner are ridiculous, so we've been leaving 10 min early from the classroom so that we can actually get food, I get what you meant about the cereal! My room is probably exactly the same as when you were here, long with 3 sets of bunk beds, the bathrooms are communal and ancient, definitely built in the 60s, same with our classroom building. I live in 3M and have class in 10M if you remember what campus looks like. Oh about the bags rule--it's because there are way too many missionaries, and they take up too much space. I guess my bag is fine cause it's more of a purse size, but they don't want big backpacks in the cafeteria or devotionals. Oh and the collapsable cup was a genius idea, thank you!! Do you think you could find a little thing of dish soap? They don't sell it here and my water bottle will get gross eventually. And I don't think I ever gave you the scripture for my plaque: I think I want Ether 12:6, I think that really expresses the hope that I want to share with others. We have to write a talk each Sunday in case we get called on, and this week's topic was enduring to the end, even though it was Fast Sunday so nobody actually gave it. But, I was looking up the word "endure" since that sounds so depressing, and it linked to steadfast, immovable, hope, and dependable. So then I started laughing and had the perfect personal experience to share with it haha. Hopefully that will translate when I get to give that talk in Czech at some point. Speaking of Czech, apparently I have a beautiful French accent, according to Sister Austin, one of our teachers. I just started laughing-I definitely predicted that one! She said it's not as strong as it was at first though, so that means my Czech is getting better, yay! And I'd much rather have a French accent than an American one--one of the Starsi (Elders) has a terrible American accent--I can even hear it haha. Oh my shoes--I've been wearing either the brown oxfords or my black boots every day since the other 3 aren't worn in and gave me blisters. I heard that if you put them on and use a blow dryer it softens them? So I might try that, no idea if it will work. Oh and we quote the Best Two Years like every day, it's the best thing ever. We were studying the Plan of Salvation lesson to teach it and I started cracking up cause I imagined the greenie saying: "Have you ever wondered where you come from, why you're here, and where your gooing?" hahaha love it. Oh we do still have "celestial service" but no one calls it that anymore, must have been an 80s thing haha. I didn't actually do it this Wednesday cause I was sick and slept in. It was just a cold though, so I was fine in a day or two, luckily I didn't get the flu or anything. What else....Oh you wanted to hear about my district. Can't remember what I wrote last week, so sorry if I repeat myself! I'll send a picture when we go to do laundry in a bit. There are 2 Slovak speaking sisters, Sestra Jones is from Wales and has an awesome accent, and Sestra Belibi Myna is from Lyon, France! Both of them speak French so I've been practicing, that's been really nice since I can actually communicate in French off the top of my head, not so much in Czech yet. However, I can bear my testimony, say a prayer and introduce myself in Czech without really looking which is awesome. Ethan was wondering about the investigators thing--so our first week we had "Petra", which I guessed was our teacher but they didn't tell us--she's actually Sister Austin. But what they do is figure out a persona to act as, usually someone they taught on their mission or someone they know really well, or a mix, so then we teach them as an investigator, and they respond as that person would. I thought it was a little weird at first, praying for "Petra" and asking for guidance from the spirit about what to teach her, when in the back of my mind, I knew that it's actually a member. But I've definitely gained a testimony of it, we had a really cool experience with her on Tuesday. So the lesson before this she had told us that she knows all about God and Jesus, but she doesn't understand why they would let her sister be sick with cancer, and not heal her, and then she asked us how the atonement was possible. So that was kind of hard. So after studying we felt like we should teach her about faith. So we prepared this whole lesson about faith and the plan of salvation, and were going to challenge her to pray. So we get there and asked her if she had any questions about Mosiah 24, since we had asked her to read that. She pointed at verse 15, and said I don't know if I want that. (about Christ lifting the burdens of Alma and his people when they are in bondage. So we asked why (this is all in Czech by the way) and she said pride, but we didn't understand and had to look up the word. But then she said, I want this for my sister. So I went completely off lesson plan and was flipping frantically thorough my TALL book to say what I wanted to say, that God has a plan for her and her sister, and that they can live together forever. So then I felt impressed to skip to the end of the lesson and ask her to read Alma 32, when it says that faith starts when you can only desire to believe, so I testified that that is her, and asked her if that was true, why she was meeting with us, and she said yes. And then Sestra Hicken bore her testimony (she wasn't really following what was going on) and I challenged her to pray and ask God if what we were teaching was true. And she did! She was whispering and I don't really understand Czech, so I have no idea what she said, but the spirit was there and she said it's true. So that was absolutely amazing, and it definitely felt real. I know that I needed that experience to give me confidence, and one day it will help me teach a real investigator in the Czech Republic. So I'm running out of time, I have to save some to upload pictures. The gospel is true! I love it here and I'm learning so much! Vim ze Buh je nas Nebesky Otec! Sestra Cooper (the pictures didn't come through)

1st MTC letter

Mon, Jan 28, 2013 Well I'm here, and it feels like a month since I left for sure! so much has happened i don't even know how to start! My companion is sestra hicken, she's from brigham city, and an el ed major at utah state, she's awesome. Reminds me of kendra a little bit, but we get along great. the only thing is that we are both indecisive so it's forcing me to make decisions haha. I'm the senior companion right now, we switch in 4 weeks. We have 4 sisters and 4 elders in my czech class, and then there are 2 slovak sisters and 1 slovak elder in my district. They are all awesome, the district leader is Starsi Payne, and he is such an example to me. Starsi Howell is crazy good with czech, he gets pronunciation really well. The first day we had class all in czech, which was ridiculous, but i have learned so much already. We have taught our "investigator"Petra twice already, and we are teaching her tonight again, all in czech. The first time was super stressful cause we didn't realize we should plan the lesson in english first, so we didn't have the spirit and just felt awful. Oh and our teacher had forgotten to tell us he wouldn't be there, and had given us the wrong room number, so none of us knew what to do. but after we had all taught,Daniel (I guess I should call him Brother Bodily) came into our classroom and gave us all some awesome advice, that was a little embarrassing cause he asked me how i was doing and i just started crying haha. But don't worry, it got a lot better. I've seen him a lot actually, he's sub-ing in our class on Tuesday too. My whole class loves when he comes in cause he always has the best advice of how to not stress out about it, they were all like, wow he is an awesome teacher. Anyways, the days feel like 2 in one, it's kind of ridiculous. On Saturday me and sestra hicken were convinced it was almost time to go to bed and then we looked at our watches and it was 2 pm. Oops. That's what happens when you are up at 6:30 and using every ounce of time to be productive! The spirit is so strong here, i absolutely love it, but it means that emotions are really strong, good and bad. We watched elder holland's mtc devotional from thanksgiving last night, and that was it, i was crying again, but it was happy of course. Ok funny day to day things: some girl burnt popcorn on the 2nd floor last night, so the fire alarm went off and everybody was half in pajamas, half in dresses in the snow haha. I felt bad for the girls that were in the shower! Oh also, on Saturday we were all so exhausted that we started to play hangman to review  czech words in the classroom, it was like 7:30 but it felt like 2 am. Anyways, if you guessed the word you had to use it in a sentence. So the word was book, and my brain was so tired I said I am book of mormon true, instead of i know the book of mormon is true. hahaha we laughed about that one for a while. it's been a bit of an adjustment getting used to all the rules, like you can't bring bags into some of the buildings, and stuff like that, I guess my rebellious side is coming out finally haha. But life is good. oh yeah and our district is getting followed by some research guy at the mtc so he's been sitting in on some of our stuff and asking us how we feel about getting thrown straight into czech. that was kind of hard cause he wanted us to be critical, but we were all trying to be positive, and that made us notice stuff we didn't like. But we haven't seen him since friday, so maybe he's only going to do it once  a week or so. Ok i'm out of time so i have to go, i'll add to your letters if i think of anything else. love you! send dear
elders, i get them after lunch and dinner! love you!! Sestra Cooper

2013

2013.

It still sounds so futuristic to me. This year will definitely be an adventure, but when is the new year not? 2012 was quite eventful since all this happened:

• 2 foreign countries (Guatemala and Guernsey)
• 14 plane rides
• Senior Thesis
• French minor
• 5 states (Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Montana)
• 2 BYU semesters and 1 term
• 2nd Spring of 4 in a row to be spent in Europe
• Mission Call
• the best BYU semester in 4 years

I've been rather lax on blogging lately, and I haven't taken too many pictures this semester, cause it was crazy. But here are some recent ones. First of all, I freaked out a little bit when I saw this:

18 days!!??? aaaaaah. Last time I looked at this it was at 30. That is really. really. soon. I'm very excited and very nervous and it goes back and forth. But lately I'm getting excited again, I'm ready to go. After all, I have been waiting since SEPTEMBER to leave. 5 months. I've known I was going to go to the Czech Republic for almost half a year. How crazy is that?? And I've been waiting to leave on a mission since I decided to go in May. I definitely needed that time to get ready but it's really strange that the wait is almost over. I now have all my clothes and I'm almost done with my list of things to get, so that's a little surreal.

It's also strange that all of my friends are heading back to BYU today and I'm not. I'm a little sad about it, but it's surprising that it doesn't bother me more I guess. I'm so ready for my mission that I don't regret not going back to school. Yes, it's sad that I won't see my friends for a year and a half, but I will see them when I get back, and a year goes by pretty quickly when you are busy. This Christmas vacation has been really nice. It's been good to hang out with my family, and to be in a house again. We went up to Willamette Pass last week and snowboarded--the powder was perfect so that was really fun. And we went rockclimbing the other day, I got to see some of my friends from high school, and there was Christmas of course. So all in all it's been great. I can't help feeling like it's the calm before the storm though--having nothing pressing to do is refreshing and I'm not going to have a moment like that for a loooong time. So for now I'm just trying to enjoy it :)

loving the powder

snowshoeing 

love this, they look 2 dimensional

Odette Lake

Dr Seuss trees

Snowboarding!

Grateful

I absolutely love Sundays, I think they are my favorite day of the week. Truly a day of rest. It's funny that I manage to forget how much I need that during the rest of the week. Church today was just amazing--everything I needed to hear and to be reminded of. I am so grateful for the blessings I have. This semester has been so great in so many ways--I honestly can say I've never been happier, especially in college. Just having the assurance that I'm doing exactly what God wants me to do right now is the best feeling in the world. I feel like I've finally grown into myself--I know who I am and who I want to be, and I am so so grateful for that. I've been thinking of this quote all day:

I just love the attitude that it captures. I'm optimistic about the future. I know some days will be really hard--that's life. But I also know that I am so blessed, and those blessings will only increase. Aaaah I just love life right now. I get to go home for Thanksgiving in 2 days and I can't wait. First of all I love that holiday, and I haven't seen my family since summer, and I get to go through the Portland Temple on Friday, which I've only been looking forward to for my entire life. So excited to see everybody, and it will be an awesome break from school. Oh and also I get to go shopping for missionary clothes, which will be so fun. Annica needs them too, and her mission call should get there while we are home! Which is so crazy, but awesome. 

Since I never have pictures on here anymore--I never take any during the school year--I thought I would post some pictures of the Czech Republic. They are gorgeous and it makes me so excited to live there!

Trilingual

Yesterday I looked up the masters program in Linguistics at BYU, and guess what the requirements are:

LING 330, the GRE, and 2 foreign languages, one at a 200 level, and one at 300.

I was like that's it?? Then mom reminded me that the 2 foreign languages requirement is kind of a big deal...and I got really excited, because I realized by the time I get back from my mission, I will be trilingual!! Aaaaah. I'm already at a 300 level for French, and after living in the Czech Republic for a year and a half, I will be at a 200 level in Czech (at least hopefully. I'm going to work for it). So. I'm petitioning to add a Linguistics minor, in addition to French. (Just last year I was wondering why I decided to minor in French, like that was ever going to help me get a job, but now it just might get me into grad school!). So that will give me a year to study for the GRE, try to get my thesis published, apply for grad schools and wrap up life as an undergrad. Pretty crazy. I can't believe it, but at the same time, I just want to have a job. It would be so nice to go to work and then not have to bring any of it home with me!! But that's all a couple years away, I'm sure I'll be ready by that point. Plus Linguistics is the only thing I've been excited about doing, so that's the plan for now.

Also, there are only 4 1/2 weeks left in the semester. Which is freaking me out. I have so much to do!!  The rough draft of my thesis is due on Monday. It's bittersweet. I'm so excited to go home and spend time with my family before I leave in January, but at the same time I'm having so much fun here. I absolutely love my ward and I have some pretty great friends--it will be sad to leave them because it will never be the same again. Most will probably be married by the time I get back, which is becoming more and more normal to me, strangely enough.  College is a strange transition, and I know it has to end at some point, and I want it to end. But it's still weird.

This semester has seriously been awesome though. One of the best I've ever had at BYU, honestly. It might even be THE best. I've had so much fun, I'm almost done with my major, I'm writing my senior thesis, and I'm going on a mission! So many things that make me happy. Life is good, and Thanksgiving is in 3 weeks. Also, Les Mis and the Hobbit come out next month. Get excited.