La Tercera Semana

Dear family,

It seems like it was just yesterday that we had P-day, and I was writing you guys. It is crazy to me that each day can feel so long but the weeks go so fast. This past week was a good but crazy one. It sounds like everyone is having a pretty good week and hopefully next week will be the same. 

This past week all of the new mission presidents came for training and ten of the apostles came to CCM. After I wrote on Saturday, I got to see Elder Bednar and Holland, which was very cool. For our Tuesday devotional the apostles came and Elder Bednar spoke about helping others learn through the Holy Ghost. It was a very neat experience and I'm grateful I got to be here for it. 

Some other big news is that I checked with the travel office this past Monday and I found out that I will be staying at the Provo MTC for the whole six weeks. I think it would have been a very different experience at the DR CCM in terms of Spanish, but I do really like my district here and am learning a lot. I am still getting used to the fact that I won't be moving, but hopefully that means that I will fly out with other missionaries after six weeks.  There are two sisters in my district that are leaving on Tuesday for the Columbia CCM. They found out yesterday and it has been kind of crazy since. I'm sad that they are leaving, it will be very different without them. They are also probably the most reverent of all the missionaries in my district, so I feel bad for our teachers. We also decided to have a (missionary) party yesterday night because it was the two sisters' last Friday night here. We made a bowling game out of 16 plastic bottles that we have been sneaking out of the cafeteria and a bowling ball made from tin foil and tape with a rock in the middle. Despite our last of resources we still had a lot of fun. Even while we are learning we still find lots of ways to have fun and laugh.

This week we started a teaching program called TRC (or training resource center), which is where students who are studying English as a second language at BYU can come to the CCM and missionaries practice teaching them. It is a cool program because we get to hear what a fluent Spanish speaker sounds like and many of them are not LDS. Teaching a TRC lesson feels a lot realistic, at least much more realistic than teaching our teachers. The student that my companion, Hermana Burton, and I are teaching is from Ecuador and her family is Catholic and she always asks really detailed questions about our religion, which makes our discussions really interesting. I make it sound awful, but I actually really like teaching the TRC lessons; they make me excited to go to the DR and teach. 

  

I hope that you all have a wonderful week! I also want to wish Sam a happy (early) birthday and a happy 4th of July to everyone! I'm not sure how we celebrate the 4th here at the MTC, but I will  tell you next week. :) I can't wait to hear from you next week and to hear how you all are! I love you!

-Hermana Schriever