"The Lost District"

Hola mi familia! Como estan? Well, my first few days at the MTC have been wonderful! I love it here. I love my district and I love my companeras! Yes, I have 2 companions:) Hermana Woolley y Hermana Tu'Uakalau! Mom! Hermana Woolley is the sister that I was friends with before my mission! And remember Hermana Morris? She's in the same apartment as me!! so, there are 5 of us in our Residence Hall :) Me and my companions, Hermana Morris y Hermana Pukahi. Hermana Morris is from CA, Hermana Pukahi is from Hawaii, Hermana Woolley is from Orem and Hermana Tu'uakalau is from New Zealand :) I love them and it's great because when it's tim eto sit down and learn Spanish or study the gospel, we do that but we also have so much fun other times. I live in the West Campus of the MTC and now all of the Spanish speaking missionaries live in the West campus and do everything there (eat, study, gym) so it's fun to walk around and say Hola como esta? to every missionary you see. Hmm let's see I have all of my Spanish lessons with my district and we spend basically all day together. My district is my 2 companions,, Elder Royster, Elder Anderson, Elder Evans and Eder Giliam. We're all going to Argentina, minus Hermana Tu'uakalu! She's going to Texas. Yesterday we gave our firt lesson in Spanish to an Hermana called Anna Maria. My companeras y yo were so so terrified I think we said 3 prayers before we went in to teach her. The name of our church is so hard to say in Spanish. So so long and we practiced it for a good 25 minutes before our whole district got it down. It's amazing how much the Spirit guided us in the lesson yesterday. The words just come to you and you find ways to say things in Spanish that you wouldn't be able to come up with on your own. Amazing. Also, the spirit is so strong everywhere you go - even during gym time. Everyday we have gym from 10:40 to 11:30 and Hermana Morris WORKS us. I am so sore right now. We do workouts on the elliptical, we don't have tredmills in the West campus and we go to these high levels where my legs feel like they're going to fall off! True story. Then we go over to the yoga mats and do pushups and situps and leg lifts and planks and all of these crazy workouts and Hermana Morris is no push-over...she makes sure we all do every part of our workout! Which is good, getting in shape is good. Why does it have to be so hard haha hot dang! I love it though I'm super grateful for her. I tol her she needs to be a  personal trainer when she gets home from the mish.

Spanish is coming along well. We learned how to pray in spanish yesterday!! I said the closing prayer and I nailed it! Disclamer: I was looking at the board the whole time shhh don't tell my district :) But for real though, people in my district tell me I have spanish down and Elder Giliam told me the other day that he wished he could understand and speak spanish as well as I can, only to get a lecture from our teacher, Hermano Hammond, to not compare your progress to other people - to only compare your progress to yourself. I really liked that. My valley girl accent is going away I'm kinda sad! As I focus on how Hermano Hammond speaks and sounds, I try to speak like him and the accent comes along with that. Also, Heavenly Father probably knows that the Argentines wouldn't understand my spanish if I spoke with a valley girl accent. I'm digging the new accent though, I sound a little bit cool.

Okay let me tell you about my district. First of all, Hermano * is such a sweet spirit and he really lightens the mood when we're all serious. Yesterday night we were all trying to read the missionary handbook together our loud and Elder Evans was reading - all of the sudden Elder * completely and so loudly rips one hard core and we all looked around not knowing what to do and we just started busting up it was hilarious and Elder * just looked around the room and laughed inside of his hands hahaha. Good thing it didn't smell gross. And the rest of the time Elder Royster kept looking at Hermana Woolley and me and we couldn't even take it. Elder * is something else but we embrace his uniqueness!! We're all so different in my district but I think that's what brings us closer together. If we were all the same that would be so boring. My district is like my family out here. The Elders really watch out for us and make sure everything is going alright and they're all great. Hermana Tu'uakalau is so funny man. She is polynesian with a New Zealand accent and it is SO awesome. I just want her to talk all of the time because her accent is so intriguing! She always tells me and Hermana Woolley "I keep tellin you Hermanas, I'm not your average sistah" She is polynesian and she tells us thhat she might as well be a guy because she's big and strong haha and also, she tells me "Hermana Rome! You are your mothers daughter you seriously look like her twin" And she saw a picture of me, Kait and Mom and she's like, "how do i tell you all apart? Your like twins!" That made me feel good! I always take it as a huge compliment whenever someone tells me I look like my mom and sister :) Oh and a lot of people in my district call me Hermana Rome because they say it's hard to say my last name! And that's Rome with a spanish accent, like Ro-may. :) Oh another funny thing that happened on Thursday!! My district and I had to go to a meeting, but we got the church buildings mixed up and took a bus to this other church way far away and the buses only come every 30 minutes, so we were stuck and realized it was at the church building right by our Residence Halls. Woops. and we got to the class and the maestro said, "I've been preparing all week to teach you this lesson now we only have 15 minutes for it. First, let me send a text to someone who went out in Provo to look for you" So after that, we call ourselves the lost district. Clever, no? o si?

Oh and I got called to be the Senior companion out of my trio companionship!! Basically it sounds like a cool name but it's  not that different than a junior companion - I just write reports and give them to my Zone leaders, Elder Evans and Elder Giliam. I'll send pictures if I can...the older missionarie never taught us how to put pictures on here so we're all trying to figure it out.

The food is...okay haha definitely not gourmet in the weest campus. I remember Connor telling me that there were a ton of options, but in the West campus, since it's smaller, we only have a select amount of things to choose from. But i normally always have like, a salad and they always have vegetables and what not and the food isn't actually that bad. I think by the end of 6 weeks though, I'll be ready to try something else :)

My time's almost up, but I love you all!! Thank you for all of your support and love and mom thank you for the dear elder letters! I am going to reply to them later today after I do laundry and what not. Also, I want to point out if you do write dear elder letters, I will get them everyday but I can only reply to letters on my Pdays. I don't think I need anything out here..I have all my basic needs taken care of and I am totally content! So after reading this mom, don't worry! I'm not dead or sick or sad or anything like that so just know I'm safe and so so happy and don't worry :) I love you. and I love all of you guys!! Dear elder letters!! I love getting them so if you write them I'll be so so so os o sooooo grateful :) It's seriously like Christmas day on Pday. OH!! And don't worry how long your emails are. I'll have time to read them. Every pday Morning we go to the temple at 7 and then go printoff all of our emails and bring them home and read them before our hour of emailing starts so we can use it all to write people back. So, tell me all baout your lives I want to know everything!!! I love hearing how you are all doing and it keeps me going to know that the people I love are doing happy things. So write away!!! :)

I love you guys so much :)
Until next Saturday,
Hermana Romeril, o Hermana Rome :)

PS i can't remember if I told you but my Pdays in theMTC will always be on Saturdays!!:)

PS again, I can't remember what that Ps was for but I'm sure it was important. I'll tell you next week if I remember! :):)

Hasta Luego! Tienen un gran semana. :)
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The Elders got lost...again so these are the sisters in my zone :)

Hermana Woolley, me, Hermana Tu'uakalau

Hermana Woolley, me, Hermana Morris all going to Cordoba Argentina!!  

                                                      

        Elder Evans, Elder Giliam, Elder Royster, Elder Anderson on the top
Hermana Pukahi, Hermana Morris, Hermana Woolley, Hermana Tu'uakalau

The middle one is Hermana Yates, she's our senior training leader. The left, Hermana Pukahi, me, Hermana Woolley, Hermana Yates, Hermana Morris y Hermana Tu'uakalau