Week 2

And now we bring you the second installment of The Life of Kristin the Missionary, by Jessica Jensen (soon to be a major motion picture!):


Guten Tag!

How are you all? I hope everything is going well at home. I have looooooved all of your letters. Mom and Jess, thanks for the Dear Elders! Those are always fun because they print them out and hand them out at the end of the day, and it's cool because I know you wrote them just a few hours ago! So fun.

So I am continuing to LOVE the MTC! It is such an amazing place. And I'm learning German crazy fast, which doesn't make sense because the way they teach here is insane and would never work in real life were it not for the Gift of Tongues. Seriously. I look at our syllabus and I'm like, "No way." We do things in a day that took me weeks/months to learn when I did Spanish. It helps that I'm in class ALL DAY EVERY DAY hahahahah. But apart from that it is so amazing to have so much spiritual development. I have several hours a day to just study the scriptures or study Preach My Gospel. I'm also working my way through Jesus the Christ which is such a wonderful book. It is helping me understand the Savior and the political/cultural environment during his life on earth! I"m learning lots of cool stuff about the temple, too.

Speaking of which, I went to the temple earlier today! We go once a week (on P-days) and it's really nice because it's a beautiful walk up there, and we get to go all together as a district. Also, it's free for misionaries to rent clothing, and they actually have really pretty dresses for the Sisters. :)

Oh.... what else...... OH! Mom, you'll appreciate this: I met SHERI DEW on Sunday! It was sooooo cool! Man she is such a strong woman. She came and talked at a fireside and they had all the sisters sit way up in the front, since we probably were way more excited to see Sheri Dew than the elders were. So yeah, I was literally in the front row staring strait up at her, and afterward we got to go talk to her and shake her hand and such, so that was cool.

Also, Elder Bednar came on Tuesday! That's our second Apostle in two weeks! (M. Russell Ballard was last week) I feel so blessed! I feel spoiled, actually. To get to hear two apostles speak directly to us is such a blessing. Elder Bednar's talk was super doctrinal and made so many things I've been studying completely clear in my mind. He is so smart. But one of my favorite quotes from the night was, "I don't have what it takes to be an apostle. I'm not strong enough, I'm not smart enough, I just don't have what it takes. But in the strength of the Lord I can do ALL things." It gave me chills. He also talked about some really practical things, like how to answer really tough questions from investigators (like if an investigator askes about polygamy or something hard like that). At the end he gave us a beautiful apostolic blessing.

My companions continue to be awesome. We have so much fun. I'm going to have rock hard abs just from all the laughing we do. I can't believe I've been here for two weeks already! New missionaries came in yesterday (although none going to Germany) and I was like, "Hey, new elders! Wait, that was US. Two weeks ago."

Oh, so I didn't have a lot of time last week to go into depth, but I'll fly out of Salt Lake on Dec. 27, so I'll still be in the MTC on Christmas and it's very unlikely that I'll get to call home :( but I will get to call home from the airport, so hopefull I'll have a really long layover somewhere and can just hop on a payphone. It'll be interesting to spend two holidays here (Thanksgiving and Christmas) and see what it's like. I'm a little sad that I won't be in Germany by Christmas, but the really cool thing is that I'll still be with Sister Cannon and Sister Deitrich, and they are already such good friends. So we'll make it fun. Plus I hear rumors that they have a really cool Christmas program planned, and they keep you really busy on holidays so that you don't sit around and mope hahah.

By the way, my teachers here are so cool. Bru. Naumann has only been home for 2 months (did I tell you this already?) and Bru. McCracken has been home for about a year, and he just got engaged! They're super fun. We goof off in class a lot and have all these inside jokes and stuff, and I feel like they're just another couple of elders. It's weird to think that they leave the MTC and go into the *outside world* after class hahaha.

Okay, I only have five minutes left on the clock, but I just want to say that I love you all soooooo much! I love getting letters from you. I hope everything is going well. Keep me updated on things at home and give all the pets snuggles for me.

The Church is true! I can't believe I'll be in Germany in less than two months! So exciting!

Lots of love,
Sister Jensen