I don't have long to write, but thought I'd drop a quick not to y'all. This week has been an...interesting roller coaster. All the stress of the last 13 weeks about how I'd be able to handle the MTC was finally alleviated on Wednesday. However, once I got into class, I learned how terrified I am of French. Holy flip, I have a long way to go. Our teacher spent the entire time with us speaking purely French ( not exactly a surprise, but overwelming all the same). To make the situation even more intimidating, it seems like everyone in our district is already fluent. Luckily my companion and I are about in the same place. So we should hopefully be able to work through this learning adventure together pretty equally.
Other than French, all thoughout the day, my companion and I kept thinking, "Hey, I think I may actually be able to do this." We were absolutely exhausted at the end of the day, still in shock and just trying to get where we needed to be, but felt better than either of us expected to.
Unfortunately, Thursday was a bit harder. It's hard to explain, but all day long I was just dying every time I thought about the fact that I have 18 months of this. The work wasn't any harder the second day, but emotionally and mentally it was night and day from Wednesday. I did everything I could to look at the positive side, but nothing helped more than as we were getting ready for bed, I explained how I was feeling to my companion only to learn that she was feeling exactly the same as I was. It was such a blessing to know that I wasn't alone in that state of mind. Soeur Woodruff has been such a blessing. Only three days in, but every time I've felt as though I may be out of the norm, she's been in the exact same place.
It's hard not to get discouraged about the language. We get new French missionaries every three weeks. So we can have three separate set of missionaries at a time (We are here for nine weeks). But the most recent group to come in had no sisters. And the group before that had ten. But for our district, Soeur Woodruff and myself are the only sisters. So when we go back to our residences in the evening, all the sisters are speaking perfect (seemingly) French. And then it jumps to Soeur Woodruff and me. So we can't see any levels of progression. We can only hope that somehow we'll be able to get anywhere near where they are now.
I love our district! Our elders are just the bomb. However, it seems weird to me that we have more internationals than my companion or I expected we would. We have on elder from Idaho Falls, another from Centerville and Soeur Woodruff is from West Jordan. Other than the four of us, everyone else is an international. Elder Bennallack and Elder McLean are both from Australia. Elder Wolfart is Swiss and Elder Humphry is from England. They are absolutely hilarious. As stressful and crazy as these days get, just being around the elders brightens our day. We never stop laughing with them.=)
Love you,
Kim
