Woche 1 {Week 1}

 

Okay so maybe we went overboard on the pictures for the first week, no big deal. But they shooed us outside for a whole half hour and there was a beautiful temple a half mile away!!  

So to start, my language is much improved. By language I mean my English. The MTC president doesn't stand for any slang, diction lagging or 'simpified' American English. That means that 'cool' is for drinks and 'awesome bro' belongs in the junior high. I think some elders struggled in silence for the first few days but they found something else to say eventually.  

Things I love:

-Investigators for the church are called Freunden der Kirche in Germany {"Friends of the Church"} 

-There's a large goose that chases tall elders in the back of the MTC, no ones been bitten yet but I have hope (His name is Papa Goose) 

-They wake us up on Sundays with some powerful MoTab and it's amazingly amazing 

-Sometimes I wake up at 5:30 and start getting ready only to realize how early it is when my companion throws pillows at me  

-There's an elder here who plays the saxaphone and sits in our musical numbers. I had no idea there was a mix between a devotional and jazz club but welcome to the Preston MTC 

-TEMPLE TODAY! We had a packed session with the Manchester missionaries in the session right after. We had three elders going through for the first time and there were so many people there wasn't enough space in the celestial room! Then they gave us a tour of the temple but only if we got ready fast enough, so it ended being my companion and I and two sets of Elders haha The baptistry is remarkable and they got new paintings recently :)

Sister Riser and Sister Bader

-My companion!! Sister Bader is the sweetest! She's from Switzerland and her Muttersprache is German so that's how we started but she'll practice English with me now and again :) She's so patient with me and corrects me, which I love!! Most teachers and other missionaries are content to let me use the wrong tense or word order but she just holds up her finger to stop me hahaha 

-Our district! We have three sisters going to Frankfurt and one sister and two elders going to the Alpine mission. We're all here for two weeks so we're learning pretty quickly which I like :) 

-'Our Search For Happiness' by M. russell Ballard. I read a little before I left but I use it all the time!! 

-'Character of Christ' by David A. Bednar {not available online}

We watched his devotional for the Provo MTC on Sunday and I almost fell off my chair. It was just one of those moments where it clicks and you know there's a look on your face that makes it seem like you just invented portable Pop Tart toasters  

-MY FAMILY

You guys are just great. Cool. Poppin. Crackalackin. I love you. I talk about you all the time so if you ever meet anyone who happens to know there was a time in your life that you only ate chicken nuggets or you ran away from home to sit on a frozen lake- it wasn't me.

Sister Riser's District outside the Preston Temple 

I absolutely love it here. The spirit here is amazing and with only 33 missionaries, we've all got to know each other really well. I think there's 12 different languages at least with most of the missionaries from Utah, England or Germany! I love the mini impromptu testimony meetings. I love that districts become families for those who have never left home before. I love seeing how much our teachers want us to succeed. I especially love hearing about their experiences! I'm so glad I had the chance to serve in Sugarland before now because learning everything in German for the first time would have been crazy! I love to see the little ways the Lord prepares His children to do His work; especially the small things that we didn't think would ever matter. 

"The Spirit is the way the lesson stops being yours and becomes his."  

- Jeffrey R. Holland

There's so much we've learned in just a week that I don't know how to fit it in a novel let alone an email in 30 minutes! I know that there's so much that we need to know to be effective missionaries and I'm excited to learn more everyday that I'm a missionary and so long after that!!