Week 1 complete...luggage finally arrived and Sister Martin is in HEAVEN!!

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Holy jetlag!!! What a week!!

Now that I survived the horrendous 25 hour trip here (1 delayed flight, 1 changed flight, and 2 missed connections later), and got my lost luggage (spent my 1st 3 days here without any luggage), things have been smooth sailing since!

I LOVE THE MTC! I'm learning more than I EVER thought possible! I just crave for classes to be longer; they're so fun and I have so much more to learn! The food is awesome! The MTC/temple grounds are gorgeous! The spirit is so incredibly strong here!! My teacher's are the funniest people alive! I was born to live in England! The sense of humour here is exactly like mine (enough sarcasm to kill a person!). Basically my days consist of my teachers and I taking sarcastic digs at each other at a million miles a minute! My district teachers and I have been having fun doing accent swaps during class...I speak English, and they speak N. American for the class!

My companion is Sister Cochran. She's from Brigham City, Utah (big shocker!!! haha). She's super awesome and we get along amazingly!! We do mock lessons a few times a day, and we often have disagreements on how to approach certain investigators at times; mainly because of the different experiences we've had with her growing up around members, and me not so much. Luckily we both communicate super well so we always manage to talk it out and find middle ground. Her and I are the biggest goofs ever and spend most of our long days just laughing our heads off.

Our roommates are Sister Hansen and Sister Tebao. Sis. H is from St. George Utah, and Sis. Tebao is from Kurabis (no clue how to spell it! It's an island in the Pacific Islands....way cool!). They're both super nice! It's been interesting living with Sis. Tebao. Huge cultural differences! Her English is amazing! She is the funniest girl ever and I love her to bits!

I seriously do love the MTC. It's beautiful! We're exhausted ALL of the time, but it's a great feeling! It took me a couple of days to get over the jetlag but I'm doing ok now. My teachers are Brother Lloynes and Brother Rajas. They're both recently returned missionaries (served in Greece and London South) and incredible teachers! Funniest people I've probably ever met too! My district is the Ammon district. There's 5 sets of companions in it. (2 sisters, and 3 Elders). All of our district comes from Utah or Alberta, except for Sis. Tabeo and myself! Our elders are quiet, but are the sweetest boys ever! Actually our entire district is really quiet, except me! I'm the chatty, sarcastic one in the class ha ha!

There are 18 sisters here and approx 25 elders at the MTC right now. It's so nice having such a small group of sisters, because we all know each other so well! We're all becoming great friends, and have a blast chatting away as we all get ready for the day together in the toilet (not washroom!! haha). A highlight of the week was going for a jog down a little running path by the MTC; it takes you down a channel, which has the cutest little houses bordering both sides of the channel. It looks like it comes out of a picture book!!! So charming!

Our lessons are interesting. They actually have video cameras in the rooms where we teach, so we get to watch our lessons after we've taught them. Excellent way to analyze areas we need to work on! Our mission pres. is President Edwards. He's served as an area seventy in the Phillipeans, and as a mission president in Zimbabwe! He's so incredible, along with his wife!!

Things are definitely a bit different in England! I'm still not used to the cars on the wrong side of the road! I'm still getting used to the lingo (toilet, rubbish etc.); with time I'll adjust. A ton of the sisters swear that I'm already picking up a bit of an accent....but then again, they're American, so maybe it's just that they're mixing up my Canadian accent with my supposed English accent. Guess we'll see if I end up with a weird, hyrbrid accent at the end of the 18 months.

I can't think of anything else to type......such limited time, my brain is freezing trying to think what else. Email me with any questions if I missed anything super obvious!

Til next P-day!

Sister Martin :)

Her District:

Her room-mates - Sister Martin, Sister Cochran, Sister Tebao and Sister Hansen

Preston MTC

Sister Martin

Sister Martin - England Missionary Training Centre

Sister Martin and Sister Cochran

Here they are again...

View from her MTC bedroom window

View from the MTC cafeteria

She's a Missionary!!