First Week at MTC

Halo! Maaf! (Sorry!) You know how I have the worst luck? Well yesterday in the middle of emailing you guys, I got kicked off the internet and it said that my gmail account was disabled for 24 hours!!! It said there was a suspicious ammount of data being downloaded so my email was under review. Pastih! I was emailing pictures! It happened 2 days in a row!!! So anywho... I'm still alive and well (besides a cold) and sorry for not emailing on time. Sheesh I cannot believe how weird time is here. I feel like I have been at the MTC forever but I also can't believe I'm even a missionary yet! I have only an hour on the computer each week so I'm going to try to remember what I've done since I wrote my last letter. Well maybe I'll answer questions first. Satu (1)- I sleep so well. When you wake up at 6 every day and work until 10, there is not time to stay awake just thinking. But some times I feel like that is the only time I get to think about my own thoughts (non Indonesian related) and so I do think a lot at night. Dua (2)- the food is EXACTLY the same as BYU. A few days ago I had a chicken salad sandwich croissant with an apple and peanut butter and lemonade (apples/pb/lemonade I actually have banned myself from until I figure out if I have some sort of wacko food allergy because I keep getting sick. Like eat an entire roll of extra strength tums to keep from wanted to puke sick.) Tiga- We are inside a class all day... like 9 hours. But the plus is that we don't get affected by the weather? If that is a plus? It actually is raining right now, and you know how much I love playing in the rain! 4- My district is seriously SO cool. We have missionaries going to Greece, greek speaking (all of whom have to be European btw so we have 2 swedes, 2 britts and a spainard. Before I forget, Dad- did you ever know a president/bishop Martinez while on your mission who would have been about 23? Elder Martinez was wondering since he lives somewhere in the Barcelona mission. So what areas were you in?) The rest of the district is made up of languages that don't belong anywhere else like Lithuanian, Latvian, Georgian, Malagasi (Madagascar) Armenian and Malaysians going to Singapore as well as our disctrict of Indonesians. 5. I have seen SOOOOOO many of my friends here! Elder Marberger, Elder Erickson, Sister Crofts, Sis Higgs, Sis Barnes, Elder Merril, Elder Price, Elder George, Elder Thomas, Sister Stevenson, Elder LeFrandt, Elder Whats-his-face, Elder Alger, Elder Whitehead... I see people all the time! It is almost overwhelming! My room is actually pretty organized but we're moving into Raintree in a couple weeks anyways. My blisters didnt fully heal since I have been running with Sis Jibson but my practical brown shoes are killer on my feet (i've only worn them once). My motorcycle scar is almost healed though. I like change so I am excited for Raintree but think about how many convenieces we won't have over there. Classrooms, a mailroom, a gym, a field, a temple, a cafeteria, a book store, an alteration center... we will have to be a very patient district. I don't know how our teachers handle us and how often we have to change plans! PS I think it is about 85% sure that we will be here for 9 weeks... oh well! We only have an hour to read and to write and it takes forever to read them all, sadly we have no way to print them out anywhere or open pictures either. So hopefully I don't get in trouble for going over my time limit with all the email problems I was having. It was worth it :) I've gotten quite a few letters from the fam and a few from friends. It is the best to see letters in the stack with those turquoise envelopes. I have gotten all of your packages and have forced my district and teachers to eat my treats with me. The day I got the lemon bars, Elder wood recieved an enourmous tray of brownies and Sister Jibson got a huge bag full of pecan cookies so you could say that we are the most popular district in the hallway haha.Now to tell you about my life in like the last 10 minutes I have!We are in class for almost our entire day either studying or learning. Sunday was so nice to be able to have my Indonesian brain turn off and just soak up the spirit. Mothers Day can sure make you homesick though! I think I already told you that Sister Janice Kapp Perry wrote a new version of The Sisters of Zion dedicated to sister missionaries and had us sing it as the first people to ever do so. I'll mention it again in case I forgot! I am going to write in short random thoughts because that is how I wrote in my small journal. Service projects at the MTC are hilarious because they make you look and feel like you got detention. It doesn't help when Sis Jibson and I get there late too. We were laughing almost the entire hour as we kept getting tangled in eachother's ghost buster vaccuum cords and people asked me if I worked there and kept telling us sorry. But being sick is really inconvenient when your mission doesn't stop and wait for you. I just would pray that it wouldn't affect our teaching our investigator. Sister Jibson and I have a goal to do 100 pushups a day in reps of 25 which has been amusing as well as surprising that I can do that many. Our old roomies, who were self proclaimed MTC experts, left for their mission in Montana and the Madagascar sisters moved in. They are fun to have with us. I love scheduled gym time because our zone always plays sand volleyball and no matter how good/bad you are, it is a blast. I love my companion, my district, my zone and my teachers. I feel SO lucky to be here with each of them. Such unique and fun people who teach me so much! I love singing whenever I can which usually means roping in the Tongan's next door to sing with me during planning time. Our district can sing too! We usually begin and end every class with an Indonesian hymn, a prayer, stating the missionary purpose and first vision in Indonesian and reading some of the white handbook. Tonight it was my turn to choose the hymn and I picked Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy in Ingris (english) and it was outstanding to hear all the district sing in 4 part harmony. Well it didn't save all of my email but I don't remember what else I had typed so sampai nanti! (Until again!) Saya mengasihi anda semua! -Sis Sheff

Our district in front of the Provo Temple

Some of the zone (34 if you couldn't tell by the "gang signs" haha)

after our regular sand volleyball games!

Rekan saya, Sister Jibson and I