Q&A Time!

The other two hermanas in your trio are going to Houston right? So are there any other hermanas with you in the CCM going to Chesapeake? Weren't there supposed to be four of you going in at the same time?

There are actually 5 of us going to Virginia Chesapeake on January 6th. There was supposed to be 6, but my companion didn't show up. We never found out what happened to her, we just joke that she got married.

When I was in the MTC my district was all going to the same mission. Is that true with your district?

Yes and no. We have 8 elderes and 3 hermanas in my district. You know where the girls are going, and two elders are going to Washington Vancouver, but all the rest are going to New York, New York North.

Tell us more of what you get to do on p-day.

P-Day is really up to the discretion of the companionship. We are required to clean our house, do laundry, and study in the morning and the evenings, but the rest is up to you. We personally like to take a little nap, play some sports, e-mail family and friends, take pictures (we can only take pictures on P-days) and visit La Tienda (the store) and maybe get a snack or two, but otherwise we just study. You can never study too much.

Do you ever get to go out into the city or are you confined to the church compound?

We are confined to the grounds. Once or twice during our stay we are bussed to the Temple and get to visit the visitors center and the shops right around it, but I won't get to go until next P-day I believe. keep you updated (lots of pictures!). The compound is huge though, I never feel claustrophobic.

Are you getting good sleep, and are you feeling healthy?

I sleep really well actually. It's surprisingly cold at night, so I steal all the extra blankets, and even though the beds are way harder than I'm used to, I'm tired enough that anything is comfy. As for health, the last few days have been a little iffy, but I don't have it too bad. One elder in my district suffered from the flu yesterday and was out of commission, another one received a terrible spider bite and couldn't even kneel. But we overcome.

Tell us more of what your day is like. What your schedule is. Do you also get exercise time?

Every day we wake up between 6 and 6:30am, depending on how much we are doing to get ready. We are in the classroom by 7, gym time (EVERY DAY :D), study for half an hour, then breakfast. More study for another hour and a half and then class time. This ranges from learning spanish, to Book of Mormon study, to teaching 'investigators'. This Thursday we start TRC (The teaching resource center) where we teach actual members, less actives, and sometimes investigators. The pressure is on! I'm very excited though. We break for lunch, then a little personal study, and then more class until about 6:00pm. Dinner, personal study, TALL (technology assisted language learning), district meeting, bed! Its a solid day, I like it. However, as the saying goes, every day is a week, every week is a day.

Are all your Sunday meetings in Spanish only?

They are not. The only Spanish meeting is Sacrament meeting. Almost everything else is english. Sometimes it is more important to learn the gospel and be edified than to practice the language. However, every Sunday you have to prepare a talk in spanish on a given topic. You don't know who is speaking until after the sacrament! Last sunday was testimony meeting though, and I got up! I read about half of it, and spoke the other half. Something I've really come to know the last week is:

La obedencia es el precio (Obedience is the price)

La fe es el poder (Faith is the power)

El Espiritu es la clave (the spirit is the key)

Y Cristo es la razon. (and Christ is the reason)

Now, some things I wanted to tell you:

We just finished teaching our first 'investigator' Ivan. He was so wonderful, and he is also a teacher on campus. He was supposed to be ours, but was assigned to another district. After our last lesson, we chased him down and got a picture with him. We will never forget him... Quien es Ivan!? He stopped by our classroom a few days ago and one of the elderes asked him, 'On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad was our spanish the first day?' his response? 'I loved you guys so so much.' hahaha.

Our first investigator, Ivan, with my whole district!

Another great story: So we are the only hermanas in our district, and we have three to five other elders NOT in our district we have a tendency to 'talk to' during meal time. Well our elders started noticing, and threatened us. Well, obviously we had to see what would happen. So the very next elder to walk near our table, we stopped and started to get to know him. ...this poor soul. All of our elders stood up and started snapping, west-side story like, straight faced, and gathered around this guy and started pushing him away. It was hilarious. And then when the hermanas got up to leave, they surrounded us and every time we would say "Buenas Noches, Elderes!" to anyone they would just glare. I was laughing so hard.

This is Elder Grisham, the elder that got west-side storied (and Hermana Barrus). We're friends now. It's cool.

Ah! there is so much to tell! I've been doing well with Spanish. I let myself get kind of discouraged there for a while, but then I taught a wonderfully spiritual lesson with mis companeras, and I realized I can do this. I might not be eloquent, but I can testify, and that's all that matters at this point in my mision.

The biggest thing I've learned this week: You need a good balance of humor and the spirit. Living without either one on the mission would drive you insane.

Have a wonderful week!

With Love,

Hermana Fletcher

So this is my district leader, Elder Coombs. He does handstands during gym time and can breakdance. Also, he's a red-head. My district leader is cooler than yours.

And this is 'code 33' boy, who loves to yell out "Code 33!" when someone looks like they are flirting. (the portion on flirting in the white handbook is on page 33, if you were wondering).

My Spanish Scripture case!

The coolest kid in the CCM, Elder Kummerman (he's leaving this week) We became black brother and sister when we preached to each other in a black accent.

And I found that kid from the temple! Elder Rush was another boy that got 'attacked by my elderes for talking to me, and in a patty-cake fight between him and my Zone Leader, Elder Rush won!