Letter dated May 25, 2013

Hola Familia!

Things are great here in the MTC. We are done teaching Ricardo, and next week we will start teaching David and Octavio (again, our teachers acting as investigators). Our teaching skills are improving, and we have found that if we help Hermana Braddy practice before the lessons, she participates more. Which is good, even if she is basically reciting memorized phrases and can't deviate, because at least she isn't just sitting there awkwardly. I feel bad for her because our teacher, Hermano Finley refuses to speak anything but Spanish to us while he teaches and I think she understands less than 10% of what he says where I understand 99.5% of what he says. Luckily Hermano Salisbury, our other teacher, speaks to us in English sometimes or there would be more breakdowns happening.

Our district is hilarious. Almost all of them are pretty great. We laugh a lot, which is awesome. Hermana Gwynn especially laughs a lot, and she has a loud laugh that is hard for her to stop. It is the kind of laugh that makes other people want to laugh too. Here is an example of a funny moment from our district.

Hermano Finley is teaching about some grammar principle, (indirect vs. direct object pronouns). He uses the word verbed in his explanation. Then he explains that lots of Spanish speakers don't follow this rule, so you will have to learn or modify your learning based on what you hear in the field so you can communicate well. Then Elder Ludlow complained about how ridiculous that was. Hermano Finley said that no one speaks well in English so why can you expect Spanish speakers to speak perfectly. Elder Ludlow: "At least I don't use the word "verbed"? (We all laugh). Then Hermano Salisbury says "Elder Ludlow, how are you doing?" And Elder Ludlow says: "I'm doing good?" And we all laugh more because he made one of the most common English mistakes ever.

Anyway, I'm sorry that it probably isn't that funny to read, it was funny at the time.

Hermana Ruesch tends to say things that she doesn't quite mean the exact way they come out and then the Elders twist her words to meet their own purposes. I think they have teased her about having a crush on half of our district and hating half of our district at this point even though that is not really true.

So our schedule is super wacky...

6:30 Wake up

6:45 Breakfast

7:15 Class

10:15 Personal Study

11:10 Lunch

11:55 Language Study Time

1:15 Additional Study Time

2:30 Gym Time

4:10 Dinner

4:55 Class
8:00 TALL (A computer program that helps us learn the language)

9:00 Daily Planning

9:30 Back to dorm rooms

10:15 lights our

10:30 Bed Times

This is just an example, our gym time switches every day. We get to go to the gym 4 days a week, then on the others we are supposed to exercise on our own. Meals are always at those times, and it is super early. Especially after dinner, but I don't mind too much because I am not one of those people who always needs to eat. Since we don't have much time to get ready, we try to wake up earlier. Or at least I do, so that I have a little bit of time to get ready. Showering either happens in the morning (very rarely), after gym time (we have half an hour to get ready) or at night. Its a demanding schedule, but since I am not very high maintenance, it doesn't normally both me. I have no problem getting ready really quickly, but it is frustrating to be ready on time then have to wait.

Nick, congratulations on the MAJOR AWARD. Now we have two major award winners in the family, I hope you got a trophy and placed it next to Mom's. Really, though, congratulations. You are an excellent lacrosse player. One of the other girls in my district, Hermana Reusch is from Layton and her boyfriend played lacrosse. I think they were D1 though, because I don't think you played them this year. I don't remember what high school he played for. Good luck with the rest of school! Enjoy it, because the day school gets out for the summer you will probably be bored. Haha

Thanks to everyone who wrote me letters! It is so fun to get mail in the MTC. We didn't get our first mail until Monday because our district leader was checking the wrong mailbox. On Monday when he came back with no mail, we kindly demanded that he go back and asked why no one in our district had gotten any mail haha.

Being in the MTC will be good for lots of things, right now, my Spanish is good enough that I can communicate with people and I can teach lessons. But, judging by how fast I have been learning and improving in the little time I have had here, I will be much better by the time I leave. We don't just study the language, we study the gospel to help us have more knowledge, and we study how to teach.

We taught a practice lesson to some of the other Elders in our zone last night. We had about thirty minutes to prepare, but we had been practing earlier to teach on Monday. It was one of the best lessons we have taught so far. Maybe it is because the other Elders have been here for 2 weeks longer than us, but our Spanish is better than theirs. Or maybe it is because it isn't as intimidating to teach them as it is to teach our teachers. Haha.

Ask me any questions you have for me, and I will try to answer them next week. It will probably be just as random as this though, sorry.

I have seen so many people that I know here! I saw Rachel Leishman (former roommate), Tessa Pitcher, Brittany Charlesworth, Sister Keele, the Robinsons obviously, several people from my last student ward, and lots of other random people that I know.

I haven't taken too many pictures, so I am not sending any yet, but I will try to send some soon. I have some pictures, but it just isn't worth trying to figure our how to hook up the camera to the computer.

Anyway, I need to go switch my laundry so that it will be clean. I am getting so sick of my clothes... Especially some of the skirts. They are long enough, but some of them are closer than others. With those, it is hard, because I have to try to be extra lady like as I go about my day. Write me letters throughout the week, and include any questions that you have for me.

I love you!

Hermana Bair