Week One

Buenos Dias!

I have officially survived my first week of the mission and the MTC. I hear that it is one of the hardest weeks in the MTC and I hope that it true! It has been very hard but very good too. I have been so blessed with wonderful companions: Hermana Miller and Hermana Edwards. We are all on the same page and are here for the same reason. Thus far we have never argued...what a blessing! Being in a trio is interesting but I like it so far. It is amazing how quickly you can come to love people even when you haven't spent much time with them. I have been sick with a fever, chest congestion, and a cough since Monday and they have been so nice, accomadating, and understanding of my sickness. There are two other companionships in my district- one duo and one trio: Elder Shipp and Elder Harper-Smith and the trio is Elder Read, Elder Guthrie, and Elder Olenslager. They are nice but not really interested in us hermanas. But I think that we will eventually become more united as a district. Elder Shipp is 18. December 19th was the first day that 18 and 19 year old missionaries entered that MTC. According to rumor, the floods are coming starting in January. My stay here could be quite interesting and historic. :)

We have hours and hours each day to study and very little of it is supervised. After so long, it is easy to get tired and just start talking about other things. My district is really bad about this right now! Most of the time it is started by the Elders but I am always interested in their conversations so it is hard to tune them out and keep working. Elder Guthrie is from Florida and has an awesome southern accent. That accent, his facial expressions, and body language are hilarious to me! I have a hard time looking at him and not laughing! It is god to get some laughter in to brighten my day but there are times when it is inappropriate to laugh and that is when I struggle. :)

I feel like we have actually had very little Spanish instruction for how much they expect of us. We have already taught our "investigator" Enrique three times and also Ezekial once. Since we know so little Spanish we have to look up tons of words and have the lessons totally scripted out. That is all fine and dandy but every time you get to the lesson you have to understand what he is saying and asking. Trying to follow the spirit while teaching the lesson is very hard because we have so much that we want to say but we don't know how to say it. My companions don't get too nervous about our lessons because they know that Enrique is just acting but I worry a lot more. We barely finished translating our 2nd lesson in time and I was so stressed about it. As we started out and got into the meat of our pathetically short, simple lesson, all of the sudden I felt calm. I wasn't worried about looking like a fool. I was only worried about teaching Enrique what he needed to hear. I felt this love and concern for him so much that I just wanted to answer his questions and get to know him better. This amazed me! This was only the second time that I had ever even seen Enrique! I know that I could not have cultivated this love for him so quickly on my own. My Heavenly Father is here with me every day, helping me, teaching me and reminding me of his love for me. With God on my side, what can go wrong?!

I have received tender mercies every day! Some of them are as simple as walking into the cafeteria for dinner to find that Papa Johns pizza is for dinner. That completely made my day!! Food has been a struggle for me here. Nothing ever sounds good. And especially now that I am sick, nothing ever tastes good. My wonderful friends at the bookstore have given my many sweets but sweets don't sound good at all ever. I guess that part is a blessing. Ha! Elder Guthrie always gets packages and last night he got some beef jerky and shared it with me. It was the best tasting thing I have had all week! Oh the joys of the MTC.

Thank you everyone for your letters. I love to hear from you! I love and miss you all!

Hermana Heap

ps: I brought the wrong excercise pants. Mom do you think you could send me the black and gray capri pants in my bottom drawer please? I have ran out of time today but hopefully soon I will try to figure out the picture thing.