Week 1

Mi Quire and most precious family and friends,

   HOLA!!!!!! It's me Hermana Kugath:) I have officially survived 1 week here at the MTC. Wednesdays are my p-day so you can expect to hear from me about this time every week.
First let me start by saying thank you thank you thank you so much for all of the letters and dear elders ive recieved this week. You cant know how much they mean to me and how excited i am to recieve them! mail time is a blessing. However there is just one thing i need to tell you guys.... When i entered the MTC I made the decision that I was going to be as obedient as I could be because I know that the Lord will bless me, my companions and my district for doing so. One rule I learned (and am completely heartbroken about!:() is that we are only suppose to communicate - so email and hand written letters- with famil and friends on p day.. and so, in the spirit of obedience, my companions and I will only be writing any and all letters on wedensdays. But i don want everyone to know that i do recieve, read and cherish Each and Every letter and not I recieve. Okay... now that thats out of the way, I'm sure you all want to know what the MTC is really like, Verdad? (true.)

So first one thing you need to know is that I am on whats called West campus. Its really incredible for a number of reasons. 1.West campus is entirely Spanish speaking. everyone says Hola instead of hello and you can talk to anyone because were all speaking the same language. Its as close to real language immersion as you can get in Utah  2. we live in the wyview apartments and sooooo we have showers in our apartments!!! its not dorm style like the main campus MTC (which is super nice especially for us because were in a trio so we have the apartment to ourselves and thus only have to share the bathroom with 3 of us instead of 6 hermanas.)

 So heres a run down of my daily schedule:
  I wake up at 6:30 say morning prayers and get ready for the day.
at 7:30 we go to breakfast in the cafeteria.
8:00 is called study cycle in our classrooms. we do 1 hour of personal studay, 1 hour of companionship study and 1 hour of laugague study. thats our first block.
At 11:30 we got to gym time, which to me is the most sacred time because we finally get to work out!!! most of the time we go work out on the elliptical, bikes, free weights or just like sit ups push ups etc.
after gym time we get a sack lunch (cause theyre wayyyy healthier then whats being served in the cafeteria) and got back to the apartment to eat and have some personal time
at 2:00 its back to the class room where one of our teachers (hermanos bliler or meek) will help us to prepare for our "investigator lesson that evening. we also do spanish practice, grammar, learning etc for 3 hours until dinner.
5:20 is dinner and its usually the best meal of the day.
6:00 its back to the classroom where we again study and/or teach a lesson to an investigator.
9-9:15 we plan the next day
by 9:30 were back at our apartment and getting ready for bed
at 10 my companions and I get together to do what we call question of the day. its a fun thing we use to get to know each other better. Last night for example we told the stories of how our parents met. we also have companionship prayer.
10:15-10:30 is quiet time when we all write in our journals and say our personal prayers
and 10:30 is lights out!
There you go, the typical schedule for a missionary here at west campus.
basically we study/teach for about 9 hours a day, eat, workout, pray and sleep. you would not believe how much we pray here!! its awesome. we pray and sing a hymn before every class, lesson, devo, meeting, everything. it gives us a lot of practice because we say all our prayers in spanish. Si, I can do that already!

1 Thing i have to say is I'm sorry if I throw a spanish word in here or there in my letters. were asked to speak as much of our laguage as possible every day and so I'm getting used to saying certain things in spanish instead of English. Its incredible how much I've learned in just one week here! Kind of scary actually.. so sorry if theres some words you dont understand, theyre most likely Spanish.

Now on to something much more interesting! Mis Companeras!! Like I mentioned, I am currently in a trio and will be for the durration of the MTC. And thank heavens I am!!! My 2 comapanions are just exactly what I needed. We get along marvelously while still challenging and helping each other to be better at everything. Their names are Hermana Cook and Hermana Bratt (like brawt not Brat). and they are absolutely wonderful. Hermana Cook and I met on facebook before we came here but hermana bratt was a surprise for us both. theyre both from here in Utah, one from sandy and one from provo. Fortunately theyre both far more spiritual then I am and much better at the langauge too so I'm able to learn from them and their examples constantly each day. I love them already!

In my district theres our trio and the elders trio. The elders names are elder kepo'o (from Hawaii), Rodriguz (from las vegas) and workman (from texas). Elders kepo'o and rodriguz will be going to Costa Rica with us but elder workman is going to panama. We get along really well as a group and the elders are funny so it balances out our seriousness as sister. Not to mention we have the best teachers in the entire MTC! Hermano Bliler is our main spanish teacher but hermanos meek and thoresen come help sometimes. They almost never speak any english to us. the first day we walked in they literally didnt speak a word of english, that was overwhelming. but now when we got to class we can understand enough to get the jist of what hes saying. No one would believe how much we learn here. Everyday we memorize new vocabulary and figure our how to put sentences together. During gym and lunch time my companions and I only speak spanish (well spanglish) and were actually really good at it! Most of what we say is silly though.. when we get into lessons its really hard though because our investigators talk really fast and we never know the words we want to use to respond so it also gets a little frustrating.

But I tell you what, Sundays make it all worth it! If you can make it to sunday youre home free. I dont think i've ever had a sunday like this past one was. It was perfect. fast sunday of course.... but iwasnt even hungry until right before dinner! On fast sundays we have whats called mission conference, its a broadcast from main campus and all the MTC presidency speaks to us, its kind of like stake conference. after that we had sacrament meeting with our branch. Were the great branch at the MTC! no I'm not being prideful, just literal. We're branch number 149 and there is no branch greater (or higher) then 149. Also our "branch" is our zone and our zone is about 4 districts so theres maybe 30 missionaries plus branch presidency members. Anyways, sacrament meeting was awesome because it was testimony meeting. We also got introduced as new members. Then we had personal study, sunday walk and devo. Devo was really good but what I really want to talk about was the video we got to watch after that. It was president Bednars address to the MTC las christmas and holy guacamole it knocked my socks off!! it was exactly what me and my companions needed to hear. He talked alot about "Cookie monster" attitudes... (i want baptisms now, i want investigators now, i want to learn the language now)  and we learned that its not about us. he said" get over yourself so the lord can work through you" which was interesting because we really had been stressing about the whole spanish thing... he also taught us about turning out. whenever Christ was in a trying, difficult, or painful situation he always "turned out' to help others. Even in the aGraden of gethsemane and on the Cross he turned out and took care of his apostles, his mother, the man whose ear peter cut off, the thieves who hung on the crosses next to him. he was always turning outwards. Thats the attitude I'm trying to adopt here and on my mission. I'm trying to "get over myself" and turn out. Yo se que Jesu Cristo es el redentor y mi elsalvador. yo se que el es su iglesia. I am so grateful for my missiona call and you, my beloved family and friends for supporting me. Thank you again!!! I'll write next wednesday (I'm also writing letter letters today! yay!!)

   All My Love-    Hermana Kugath