Week 3

Sorry I'm a little late posting this one. -Jess


Hello family!

Today is yet another beautiful P-day. The weather here is gorgeous!

So we had an exciting week. My room originally had 6 girls in it, but on Tuesday three of them left for Germany! I was really excited for them, but our room is really quiet now without them. But anyway, they're in Germany now (Berlin Mission) and we got a new roommate yesterday. Her name is Sister Dye, and she's pretty cool. But yeah, three whole districts left this week, which means our branch is now about half the size it was. We'll get more German speakers in a couple weeks though.

Oh, so speaking of my branch, everything is in German! The Elders bless the sacrament in German, we sing in German, pray in German, and even in testimony meeting we had to speak German! It's kind of amazing to me how much I can already say. Also, they call the speakers by surprise, so you never know until after the sacrament whether you'll be speaking or not. Everyone prepares a talk on that week's topic (guess what! In German :)) in case they get called up. It's so stressful haha. But it's good, too, because I learn a lot by writing a talk. And they only have to be 5-10 minutes long.

Another cool thing my companions and I did today: there is a morning excercise class, JUST for the sisters, which is awesome, because it's stuff like yoga and kickboxing, and who wants to do that with Elders watching? Anyway, so we went this morning for the first time, and we did pilates, and it was super fun! The only downside is that it's at 6:00 am, and afterwards you only have about 20 minutes to shower and get ready for class. I think we're going to keep going, though, if for no other reason than that they play REAL MUSIC during the class!

Music is definitely the one thing I miss a LOT. We can't even listen to MoTab here. I brought a lot of CDs and music on my iPod, but apparently while you're at the MTC you can't even listen to that. They say it's so that when you get into the field it makes you appreciate music more, plus they've had problems with people coming in from the "outside world" with non-church music and so they decided to blanket ban music in the residence halls. But at the excercise class they play music!

I was keeping track yesterday, and I figured out that I sing, on average, 10 hymns a day, and pray at least that often (as a group. Not counting personal prayers, of course, which are occurring with ever-increasing frequency as the German gets harder.) I spend about 3 hours studying the scriptures, daily. I study teaching for 1-2 hours every day. The rest of my time goes to German! I love it so much. To me, it is a beautiful language. I love the sounds. Even the harsh-sounding ones. It's so fun to speak. My district has a new hobby: yelling in German. Hahahahah so fun. Suuuuuuch a good language to be angry in. (WAS BEDEUTET IHNEN?! NEIN! NEIN!)

Well, I'm running out of time, which is probably okay because I can't think of anything else to say. In general, this week was just another awesome week at the MTC! Love my companions, love my district, love my teachers! The food is starting to get a little boring, but I get to have all the Grape Nuts I could ever want for breakfast! Yessss!

Here's the missionary purpose in German:
Andere Einlade, zu Christus zu kommen, indem wir Ihnen helfen, das Wiederhergestellte Evangelium Jesu Christi anzunehmen. Dies Gescheit, Glauben an Jesus Christus und sein Suhnopfer uben, umkehren, sich taufen lassen, die Gabe des Heilege Geistes emfangen, und bis ans Ende ausharren.

On that note, I love you all! Talk to you again next week! (Thanksgiving!)

Sister Jensen

p.s. pardon all the spelling mistakes.