First letter

Excerpts from her 1st letter which was mailed to us ...

October 31, 2010

Familie,

First off Happy Birthday to Dad today and happy Halloween. My feeling with the MTC varies every once in a while, but I'm still hanging in there. It doesn't really feel like I'm on a mission really ... all we really do is eat, go to class, eat, go to class, etc.

My companion is Schwester Peltier. She is from Vernal, Utah and no she does not know the Matthews. Also sharing our room is Schwester Browne and Schwester Smith. Browne is from Ireland and we are so much alike, not to mention her awesome accent. She is a convert of 20 months. We all entered the MTC on Wednesday and are all going to Berlin. We sure do love to laugh, in fact someone who spoke on Wednesday said "if you're not laughing, you're doing it wrong". There are 7 of us sisters going to Berlin, three are leaving in a couple weeks .. Schwester Reisenmay, Stewart, and Wickfield. I've just finished my fourth day and I'm so overwhelmed. I'm trying to understand and learn German, but it's just not coming to me. Our teachers spend a lot of time just speaking German and I never know what's going on. The Elders in my district seem to know quite a bit. I'm in District F and Branch 19. My branch president is Kevin Curtis. He seems really cool and yesterday I got called as the Senior companion, but it's hard because Schwester Peltier isn't as outgoing and talkative as I can be so when we teach our investigator/teacher Stephan, I'm doing most of the talking. In fact, we just taught him the whole restoration. The Elders in my district are Elder Birth, who is our district leader and Elder Harris, Elder Myers (he always seems to have a trick up his sleeve), Elder Richards, Elder Davis, Elder Healy, Elder Marshall (a know it all), Elder Bullera, and Elder Krieger ... They are definitely 19 year old boys. Us sisters have to keep them on schedule.

Only my district is doing a new teaching method. We have a video camera in our room for that and we are the only ones. So far I don't like it because the new method isn't getting me anywhere. It seems like the other German districts are learning more German than we are. I'm just so lost right now and keep praying that this language comes to me. All day yesterday I just felt like breaking down and crying and finally in our last class with Brother Zeibti, I just started crying when I was supposed to bear my testimony in German... I'm just so overwhelmed and lost. ... Well hopefully today is much better. Everyone says once you get to Sunday things get so much better. Anyways I miss y'all and I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I really do need a hug.

Love always,

Schwester Brittany Anderson