My dear sweet mother and father! Greetings from the MTC! Did you think I had forgotten about you since you haven't been able to hear from me in a full week? Well, I didn't. It just so happens that my P-Day is Tuesday, so I've had to wait this entire time to be able to write you.
You would not believe how insanely busy the life of a missionary is. To give you an idea of how scheduled we are, I had a letter from one of my friends that I brought with me to the MTC on Wednesday that I just barely got to reading this morning. No joke. When we aren't sleeping we're showering, eating, studying, attending class, eating, exercising, eating (we do a lot of that), going to devotionals/firesides and studying some more. Literally every moment is accounted for. I guess that's a good thing because then there's no time to sit around and worry about stuff. I can tell you that I"ve already had massive amounts of guilt pile up about all that time I wasted lounging about in pj's for those four months of waiting. Gotta make up for that on the mish, I guess.
Madre, Padre tells me you had a hard night the day you dropped me off. That's understandable. I am incredibly difficult to part with. :) Kidding. I'm sorry to cause you such grief, but I have to tell you something: this is exactly where I need to be right now. For the first time that I can remember, I'm not thinking about all the things I SHOULD be doing. This is it. I thought I'd be in tears constantly during my first week but I haven't even cried once. So I hope you have the same comfort I've been given. The only thing I regret is that I can't fit in all the things I want to to tell you about what's been going on here. My computer's counting down the minutes I have left (20:35 by the way) so I'll try to hustle.
CLASS- We study ALL THE TIME. And you know what? It's never enough.
There's so much to learn here. Sometimes I wonder how I ever even graduated
from college because I know I never worked this hard. It's humbling, it's
intimidating, it's fascinating. I know I have a LONG way to go, but I know
if I'm patient with myself and work hard, I'll eventually be able to say
exactly what I need to say when I need to say it. My district is fabulous.
My companion's name is Hermana Graham and she's from Burley, Idaho. I
swear, I couldn't have asked for a better companion! I hit the jackpot.
She actually reminds me a lot of Sara, which is funny. She's tall, cute and
ACTIVE. Remember how I said I was afraid of getting a companion who didn't
want to work out? Well, I actually got more than I bargained for. Since
she lives in Burley and that's where they have the Spudman triathlon every
year, she's a triathlete. During our gym sessions we'll run together and
then we do the ab workouts from P90X that she brought with her. She's
really whipping me into shape, I love it! Funny story: on the first day,
when my hair was straight, Hermana Graham told me that when she saw me her
first thought was, "Oh cool. I have a Chinese companion." Yeah. My
ethnicity continues to befuddle all. I think we decided I'm Chinese when my
hair's straight and I'm Panamanian when it's curly (which is pretty much all
the time now since I don't have a minute to make myself cute anymore).
We
have two other Hermanas in our room who are going to Panama: Hermana Ochs
from California and Hermana Kennedy from Missouri. They're both really
nice, really cute sisters. I've gotta say, I don't know why there's this
notion that all sister missionaries are frumpy and homely because I have yet
to meet one who fits that bill. All this sisters here are beautiful,
friendly and very well dressed, I might say (in fact, Madre, I might need
you and Angie to send me some more cute things...).
I've been able to run into a lot of people here. On the first day I ran
into Chris Hill, Sarah Hill's little brother who's my age. He's one of the
teachers here. I saw another boy I knew in jr. high who teaches here too.
I've also seen Elder Fabrizio and Sister Muhlestein from our stake several
times. One of my friends from elementary and high school, Sister Leah
Creswell of the 7th ward, just left today for Canada and we met up in the
residence halls a couple of nights. Paula's niece, Sister Sara Austin,
lived just down the hall from me, so we met up and took some pictures
together before she left for Nashville. There are so many awesome people
here! And you won't believe this--last night I ran into a Playmill star
from last summer! Remember the girl who played "Sarah" in Guys in Dolls?
The one Mom said looks like Jenny Redd? She lives on my floor and she's
going to France. I was talking with Sister Creswell out in the hallway last
night and when she came by to get some linens I told her she looked
familiar. She got really excited when I told her we were faithful Playmill
patrons and then she told me funny stories about having to be a stand-in for
Heidi one night in Footloose, which meant she had to kiss David
Walker...yeah...I laughed quite a bit. I'll try to pump her for more
details later. Oh, her name is Sister Smith, by the way. She says she
remodeled the girl's bathroom at the Playmill, too, so have the women folk
look for that this summer.
As far as learning Spanish goes, we really have come leaps and bounds in
just a few short days. We can pray and bear testimony in Spanish and we're
picking up some conversational things. Sister Graham and I actually decided
to memorize the first vision in Spanish on Sunday night and I'm proud to say
we got it down! We haven't told anyone yet, though because we want to
surprise our teachers when that time comes. "Does it go something like
THIS?....(yada, yada, yada)" I've caught myself speaking with a Spanish
accent sometimes. It's funny. But then it's humbling when we listen to
recordings of native speakers and realize we sound like 2 -year-olds still.
Lots of work to do. Our teachers, Hermano Bingham and Hermano Anderson, are
stellar. I absolute love them. They care about our purpose and about us
individually and their genuine concern for teaching the gospel is such a
motivator. Please don't get the false impression that I'm by any means an
expert on these thigns because I have so very, very far to go. But I'm
looking forward to it.
Oh dear...my time is running short and I have so much more to say...even on
P-day there's never enough time. We're getting ready to go to the temple
though, so I better skedaddle.
I love you all so very much and I pray for you daily--but I'm not worrying
about you, so I expect you not to worry about me either. Tell the fam hi
and pass along this message, will ya?
Gracias, mis padres! Hasta luego!
con amor,
Hermana Brewster
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