Excerpts from a mailbox letter

March 1, 2013

Brown Family!!

Thanks for the St. Patrick’s Day package.  I loved all the notes and pictures.  I’ve gotten so much fun mail this week.  I love it.  Lisa S. sent me an enormous package of homemade treats.  She is an amazing baker.  It all tastes so good.  She sent a little note that they were all nut free too! It was totally unexpected.  She’s a crazy lady.  I wrote her a thank you.

Speaking of nuts…Sunday night is Ice Cream Sundae Sunday with BYU Creamery ice cream. Just so everyone is aware, the dark chocolate one has nuts. Yeah. A few Benadryl solved the problem. Great way to keep fast Sunday interesting.

To clarify about the investigators, the progressing investigators (ones we teach multiple times) are MTC German teachers. So pretty much German returned missionaries. We get to teach them and they take on the role of someone they really taught on their mission.  We teach in the TRC once a week too.  This is where volunteers come and we just teach them once. We also teach each other in our district.  Everyone picked a role of someone to be and assignments were made for that too.  Marcus, Chu and Thorsten are my current progressing investigators.  So there’s that. Hopefully that clarifies the confusion.  We are not tracting the streets of Provo looking for German speakers, although that would be cool too.

I prayed in Sacrament meeting this week. I got my German scriptures engraved. And I am learning how to whistle.  I want to become a professional whistler. Who can name that quote??

Mom! I’m so excited to hear about your job. That was such fun news. All the sisters here were excited to hear about it too. You’ve won over a fan club with the lanyards. Side note: don’t worry about those rings for the lanyards. They work just fine as is.

I know you will be a great teacher and you will have so much fun with the kids. You are a really good teacher and think of all the fun stories you will have to share!

Ok, well that’s all for tonight. I need to go to bed!

I’ll write more on p-day!

Sister Brown

Oh and PS the blog has gone crazy.  Everyone here keeps getting DearElder.com letters saying their moms found it and love all the pics or whatever. That’s great and I’m glad to help. Thanks for keeping that up for me. 

 

Two for One

Two letters in the mailbox today!

First this:

Family!

I made it to another P-day! Sundays and p-days are great.  It is almost like our weekend but Monday just got thrown in there too.

Anyways, we’ve continued to have teaching adventures. Currently we are teaching 2 progressing investigators, Marcus and Thorsten.  They are both in very different places with the gospel.  A few days ago we got a lesson planned for Thorsten.  We felt good about it and prayed about it and felt ready to go.  Then on the way out to dinner our teacher told us they had made a mistake and after dinner, in 50 minutes, we would be teaching Marcus.

It would be safe to say we didn’t do much eating at dinner.  We prayed and planned and prayed come more. We really have to prepare for these lessons because we don’t know a lot of German.

We usually plan lessons by picking the commitment we want to extend and then deciding what doctrine would best help the investigator accept our commitment.  Then we make an outline in English.  Then we find all the German words we might need and don’t know and write those on index cards.  So we go in with an English outline and a card full of German vocab.

Anyways, we put together a lesson about faith in Christ for Marcus. We were both so nervous going into it.  We stood outside the door for a good 5 minutes before we got the courage to knock.

The lesson went so well.  The spirit was there the minute we started testifying of Christ. I was so grateful for that because we definitely needed the help.  In the end, Marcus was bearing his testimony to us about his Savior. It was so amazing. He accepted our invitation to come to church too.

One thing that has really surprised me is how real the teaching experiences feel. When our "investigators" accept our invitations, I am so happy. I seriously can’t stop smiling.  Usually I get so excited I switch to English or even sneak in some limb flailing. And then sometimes when we follow up and find out they didn’t keep commitments I feel so crushed.  It really makes us feel so sad.

Our teaching is getting better and better.  We keep learning every day new approaches and how to be more successful.  I was so naïve in thinking German was all I needed to learn.

Oh how I have been humbled!!

Sister Hansen and I have learned so much. Maybe the most important has been the importance of having the spirit. We’ve learned from experience it doesn’t matter how much we study our German words, if we walk in the door without the spirit, no one will learn.  On the flip side if we do have the spirit we are able to touch hearts with even the most slaughtered German known to man.  It has been amazing to watch.

Have a great week!

Thanks for all the dearelder.com letters!!

Sister Brown

And the adventure continues here:

Family!

We had another good teaching experience last night. We were teaching Marcus about baptism and trying to clear up some of his concerns. It wasn’t going well.

He wasn’t quite understanding why he needed to be baptized again. We tried the authority route, Christ’s example and immersion route, and even agency and the age of accountability.  Nothing.\

He was asking us question after question too. After floundering for a while we switched to testifying.  Sister Hansen did a great job and turned it to me.

I started bearing my testimony about baptism. I got like 5 words into it and then got stuck. I couldn’t remember my German words. I felt so flustered.

I stopped for a minute and then said, in German, “Marcus, I can’t answer your questions and I can’t even speak German but I know that our Heavenly Father knows you and loves you” I went on to finish up with my testimony.

After that we were able to get through. Both Sister Hansen and I were just crying. The lesson finished with him accepting our invitations and saying the prayer.

It was just one more testimony builder about the power of the spirit. I’ve honestly never felt what I feel when I’m teaching someone the gospel. I feel the spirit but it’s in a different way. I just feel so much love for these people we are teaching. They aren’t even real! They are just German RM’s acting out a bio they made up. I can’t wait until it is real people I’m teaching.

I just know these truths we teach are true! So that’s why I stick it out when we have long hard days.

The end.

Sister Brown

P.S. The MTC is almost a prison compound and we have no idea what is going on in the outside world. So… a few questions:

1. Did they really just open like 300 new missions?

2. What’s up with the Pope?

3. Did Jim and Pam (The Office) get a divorce?

4. Did a meteor kill a bunch of people in Russia?

We can never tell if the Elders are faking us out or sharing real current events.

Thanks!
Sister Brown

February 19, 2013

Meine Familie
I wanted to write you guys again but the internet time flies.  I wanted to send pics today so I will opt for the old snail mail.  We have a lot of letter writing time on P-day. We’d have even more if it didn’t take an hour to write the return address.  Why is it so dang long!?!

Just one more of the many things to love about life at the MTC, I guess.  Another one is the sister who institutes the shower sing along every night.  She sings so loud and everyone else joins in.  The songs vary night to night. My favorite is the 1D/Taylor Swift back to back combo.  Who needs the radio!?!

This one’s for reals:  I really like how friendly everyone is. I need practice bearing my testimony in German so at lunch and other meals I find someone to practice with.  Usually it’s just some elder in line.  Where else could you bear your testimony to a stranger in a foreign language?! Pretty cool.

I dropped my garments in the toilet a few days ago. I was changing in a bathroom stall with no shelf. I had placed everything on the toilet paper holders.  I was being so careful about not letting them fall on the floor.  Then I bent down to put on tights and the garments got knocked into the toilet.  Yeah.  The adventures never end.

Cyndie was right.  The MTC is not fun.  Anyone who says so gets a lie-alert called on them.  It is hard work alles tag, jeden tag.  I definitely have had a positive experience.  I don’t want to come home or anything.  But fun is Disneyland.  This isn’t Disneyland.

We have good times though.  I’ve laughed harder in the past week than I have in a long time.  Sometimes that’s all you can do.  We’re a goofy bunch though, so laughing is a must.

German is hard. I’m not gonna lie. This is an adjustment. I have always felt very successful and put together. I’ve always been way on top of things.  It has been hard to be in an environment where even if I try my best I still come up short.  I don’t quite understand or I slaughter a sentence or I preach false doctrine to investigators, totally unintentional of course, that’s been rough.

The good news is that I know this is where I need to be.  I also know my Heavenly Father is loving and helping me every day.  He’s also blessed me with an amazing support system with Sister Hansen and our district and teachers and branch leaders.  We just take it one day at a time and pray, in German J, for help all day long!

You guys are the best! I love getting letters. It seriously makes my day. I always save them until right before bed so I can really read and enjoy them. 

Love you all so much

Sister Brown

Bunch of random after thoughts:

1.       I just re-read the letter and found that I said “lunch and other meals” uhh…not sure what that was.  Could that have been more awkwardly phrased? I think not.

2.       The food here doesn’t even come close to the horror stories. I have loved something every meal.  Plus they use BYU Creamery Ranch so there’s a bonus. They are a little nut crazy though so that ruins some plans. No reactions yet though! Oh and no nuts in the chicken salad sandwiches.  Blessing!

3.       The Dansko shoes are the most comfortable thing I currently own.  Such a good choice.  We do a lot of walking/standing plus I started running so that has been great.  We did good all the way around with shopping.  Lots of mix and match possibilities.

4.       We watch Mormon Messages sometimes in study time and it makes us so excited.  You know you’re TV deprived when you find joy out of watching 10 Mormon Messages in a row.  We watched the trek one I’m in too.  The whole district was like, “What the heck?! There’s Sister Brown.”

5.       Maddie, if you can look up and send me the quote from Pitch Perfect about speaking German and having no fun that would be great.  We get it quoted to us all day when other people find out we’re learning German but we aren’t quite sure of the actual quote.  Thanks Pal!

6.       Dad, you should let Jeff know I love getting notes from his girls.  They just sent me Valentines and some cute heart stamps.  I love writing them back.

So there’s basically a whole other letter.  Enjoy! J

More MTC News

Family

I can’t believe I’ve only been here a few days.  It seems like I’ve been here weeks.

I love working with Sister Hansen.  We get along so well and she is so sweet.  I love all the girls in my room too. So that’s a huge blessing!

One of my favorite things about Sister Hansen is that we can just laugh together. Sometimes that’s all we can do, especially in German class. 

The German is slow but it is coming.  I love our teachers and they are so great and patient. I’m getting really good at picking out when they tell us we can have a break J  Oh and I’ve mastered how to say Ich habe ein frage (I have a question) and Ich Weiss nicht (I don’t know).

Sister Hansen and I had an adventure when I left my ID card on my breakfast tray.  We had to go back to the dishwashers and search for it.  So I am extra thankful for the cute lanyard!!

We taught our first "investigator" this week… in German!  The first appointment was a train wreck.  No joke.  It was just the German.  We totally approached it wrong.  The focus was on us and our message in German and not on our investigator and his needs.  It was so bad! However the next night we taught him again and it went so much better.  He prayed out loud with us.  The Spirit was definitely there.  Both Sister Hansen and I were crying.  It was so good.

I love all the people I am working with.  It can all be kind of overwhelming so we just take it one class at a time and focus on all the German we know.  3 days ago I couldn’t have prayed or born my testimony in German.  We’re even conjugating verbs!! Every day I just versuche meine besten!

Thanks for the packages!

Love you tons!

Sister Brown

P.S. If you can’t tell it is SO hard to get used to being called and introducing myself as Sister Brown.

P.P.S. My departure date is now March 19.

P.P.P.S. The food isn’t bad at all.  I can find something every meal including fresh veggies and fruits.

P.P.P.P.S. There are indeed 40 sisters headed to Berlin with us and a bunch of Elders.  Bas ist sehr gut!!

 

Snail Mail Eins

 

 

FAMILY!
I am writing you from my bed after my first day in the MTC! Crazy right?!?

It has been so great so far. My companion is Sister Hansen. She is so sweet and we've gotten along so well. I even made it through my first "only German" class. I was surprised at how much I was able to understand.

There are 4 sisters in my district. I am the baby. Sister Hansen is almost 21.

My favorite moment so far has been singing "We'll Bring the World His Truth."  They changed the words so we sang "and we are now the Lord's missionaries." So cool!

I AM a missionary!

Pinning on my name tag was so cool too. They're magnetic so no holes!

I forget my name is Sister Brown. I keep telling people Hillary.  That will take some getting used to.

Everything here is great. I never know what is next and I got lost all day long and I had major struggles remembering my German phrases but I do know it will get better. The German will come and I'll figure out the routine.  More importantly I know this is where I need to be right now and I know I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and will help me.

I love you all so much!

Love Sister Brown