February 4, 2011

First, the MTC or Major Transformation Center as I like to call it. I would love to tell you all what I am learning, but that would literally take days. I have never felt the spirit of God so powerfully and all-consuming than I do here. It is literally everywhere you go and in everything you do. It is a humbling experience. I tend to vacillate between feeling like I could go out today and do a great job and feeling 100% inadequate to do anything at all. I really need to work on finding a happy medium.
I have learned something though: God loves every single one of us as individuals for our strengths AND our weaknesses. It might be easier to just say how I'm feeling about each of those things. My strengths: I have a solid work ethic and am addicted to keeping a schedule, I WANT to learn EVERYTHING I am taught RIGHT NOW! I know that Christ restored the fullness of His gospel. allowed another testament of His words and works the Book of Mormon, and that He still speaks to us today.
All I can say is thank goodness for the ten or twenty small miracles I witness every day, otherwise I might question why I'm here. I’ve learned that love and devotion to the Gospel isn't enough, because I definitely can't whip scriptures out of the top of my head. Spanish is coming, very slowly. I am able to recognize almost everything my teachers say (of course they are speaking slowly and over enunciating), but I have a hard time whipping words out of my head and forming sentences. I love the language though and I learn more every day (Rosetta Stone definitely gave me a great foundation and I am regretting my lack of commitment now).
My daily schedule is pretty much the same except Friday (P-day) and Sundays when I have no class, a great talk in the evening and then a church movie. EVERY morning we wake up at six-thirty, have three meals, lots of class, 50 minutes of gym, and MDT (which is short for comp and personal study as well as language. Planning at 9 and lights out at 10:30. I love the structure of my day, and the rich learning environment. The two things that get me through my day are telling myself that I will MAKE the next day great and hearing from you wonderful people.
We have a time-warp issue in the MTC. A day feels like a year and a week feels like an hour. Weird. As many notes and letters as you can send while I am here the better, I know it will be different in the field, but it is so important right now and we love being able to tell everyone we got something! The elders are great and they all reminding me a little bit of Erik, which makes me sad and happy at the same time. I love all of you.
Hermana Levanger