I am so excited to be writing you. We look forward to writing these emails all week long, and then when it comes I feel super anxious because there's so much I want to say and so little time! I had to write and outline of my email before to make sure its organized haha...so let's see how it turns out!
First of all, I apparently did not get some of the emails you guys sent me...but I got them all now as you resent them! So if anyone sent me an email you might want to try to resend it (Family, I got all of yours now :) ) Also, I did not get some of the dear elder letters you sent me...I only got one from Mom (the first one) and the one from alissa about when lucy got out. Dad, thank you for the letter in my suitcase! That was very nice to see my first night. Emily Sciammarella also sent me an email! That was so sweet of her to check in on me!! And thank you for sending me letters through dear elder - **If there is anyone who wants to email me, you should use dearelder.com! You write it as an email but then they print it out for me and I can read it that day! Otherwise I wont be able to read it until P-Day. It's like Christmas when we missionaries get a letter haha. But emails are great too :)
SO, my first day definitely started out crazy. For those who havent heard, my plane was delayed FOUR hours, and had to get a new flight. So I was way late to the MTC (training center in provo) but it all turned out completely fine of course :) I am on West Campus instead of the Main MTC campus and am soo glad...everything is outside except the classrooms and apartments and what not just like a college campus so that is wayy nice. We can study outside in the beautiful utah summer weather and also only spanish speaking missionaries live here! So it's much smaller, everyone is trying to speak spanish, and everyone is super friendly. Yes the food is sooo good! Really. But...(alissa and jordan you will enjoy this) I heard a rumor they put extra fiber in all your food. That is not a rumor. Everyone feels it....hahaha I wont go into detail. Except for that the orange juice apparantly has laxatives in it as well..
I have seen lots of people I know here! A couple people from BYU, Aanika Fraga, and I see Jacob Farnsworth all the time! We have all our meals together and we talk a lot, so that is so nice to have a familiar face here to talk to. He's been here like 3 weeks, so he helps me know all the ins and outs of the MTC.
So I am in the advanced group right? There's only about 20 in the whole West campus right now. And I'm the only one going to Costa Rica in the group. Most are native speakers, but there are a few like me which is good.
I absolutely love my teachers, Brother Dean and Brother Adlish. Served in Argentina and Chile, and are way good. And they make you feel really good when you give a mediocre comment in spanish..haha. Btw, Brother Dean is Lee Whatcott's nephew! How crazy is that. At first I was way too scared to give comment in class because everyone's spanish is so good, but I've gotten better and now have no fear! That's a relief. Also, when giving lessons to fake investigators (actually our teachers) I wrote down word for word what I was going to say the whole lesson. But yesterday, all I wrote down was the topics we would talk about. So cool that after only 6 days here I feel comfortable to do that! Time has gone by really fast, but it also seems like I was in San Diego a lifetime ago. In a good way! We have class for 6 hours a day, and then study for 3 hours a day. I love it not going to lie haha.
My companion is Hermana Francom, from Idaho. (Btw mom, her mom served in Dallas Texas! Sister Balarezo) She's way nice and a great first companion. Her mom is peruvian so she's totally fluent which is good because she can help me get better and always helps me correct myself. We teach really well together! We both agree on what to say and we get really excited and passionate when we teach and when we plan what to teach. I get really nervous when we're about to go teach someone a lesson, but afterwards I feel so good. I struggle saying what I want to say in spanish - Seriously if I was teaching in English, it would be a piece of cake (or so I think). Because I have the perfect response in my head but cannot formulate it in spanish. But I am getting better, and yesterday when teaching "Martin" I went off my outline and just tried to speak what came to my heart. Brother Adlish gave us some feedback and he said my spanish is really good, but of course he is just trying to make me feel better ;)
I love my district (the people I go to class with everyday). Another pair of sisters and then a trio of elders. The elders are way funny - one is from the DR but moved her a while ago.
So here's something exciting....a few days ago everyone in my district got their flight information to their missions except me. I am going to cut a very long story very short: they are still working on my visa. First time I went in to talk to them they said I might have to stay in the MTC for six weeks because I might not get my visa in time. WHAT?! I was not about to let that happen! But, I had no doubt that whatever happened was what the Lord wanted to happen and that I would learn so much either way. I went in again today, and the verdict is that I actually will be leaving next week!! They just don't know when, and I might not know until the day of. So that's a little crazy, and I will just have to be prepared to leave whenever. The two other sisters in my district just got reassigned to the states for 6 weeks because their countries just changed their visa requirements. So i'm lucky Costa Rica isn't too hard to get into.
So today is Preparation day! We got up early, went to the temple, and then went to Brigham's Landing and ate at Burger Supreme. It was SO FUN to see jessica there!! She's too sweet! I loved being able to talk to her!!
On Sunday night we went to Main Campus to go to the devotional/watch a film. We watched a recording of a devotional given by the apostle David. A Bednar, called "Character of Christ." Seriously, it is profound. I dont know where you can find the video but please everyone go try and find it and watch it. It is so amazing and will change the way you think about yourself and others. It talks about how in the very moment we would turn in to ourselves and think selfishly about us, Christ would turn out and think of others. For example, when Christ was betrayed by Judas, Peter cut of a guard's ear, right? Christ had just gone through so much pain in the Garden of Gethsemane and had just been betrayed by his apostle. That is a moment where any normal person would not even care or think about the guard's ear, but instead would think about themselves and how much despair they were feeling. But the only thing Christ did was heal the guard's ear. How amazing is that. That is the character of Christ.
I'm sorry this email is so crazy and long...ahh its hard to know I wont be able to tell you anything else for a week, but all is well! I love you all sooo much and i miss you! But i love it here.
Love,
Hermana Geis :)
"THANK YOU MOM"
"Jessica generously gave me a free loaf of (my favorite) pumpkin chocolate bread!"
