I made it to the Missionary Training Center (MTC) safe and sound. Cool facts, one of the elders who helped me with my bags was from Brazil and one of my companions is from Adelaide, Austrailia. So it was like I had a tiny piece of my parents here with me on the first day. I'm terrible at learning Spanish, and I'm terrible at calling myself "Hermana Santos." Other than that things are going well. I'm in a trio companionship. One of my companions is from Adelaide, like I said and the other is from Springville Utah. Their names are Hermana Kirk and Hermana Merrerly respectively. I have pictures of everyone, but I forgot my camera in my room so I'll have to send those next week. But, yeah, so the MTC...it's like the a little city of missionaries all running around super excited and super confused about everything. Depending on who you walk by you'll here "hey, how are you" in a range of languages in incredibly peppy tones. It's great. My teacher is Hermana Clark and guess where she's from? Morristown, New Jersey. And her grandparents are serving there right now. She gave me permission to adopt them. Which will be nice because I haven't met anyone else going to NJ yet. (Hermana Kirk is going to Argentina and Hermana Messerly is going to KY). What else? Oh, 19 year old boys. Everywhere! I don't really understand them, or their humor...but they're sweet and they love the work they're doing. They'll all be fantastic missionaries I'm sure.
Most exciting thing that's happened so far? My first night there was a fire drill because someone killed a bag of popcorn in the microwave.
Oh, and my Jari-self is still alive and kicking. Story time, I used to get teased a lot at BYUI because of how many people I knew and I couldn't walk on campus without stopping to talk to at least one person. The same is true at the MTC. I've ran into 3 teachers that I know from when I lived in Utah (they are all wonderful and it warmed my heart to see them!), Harrison Reid, a girl from my ward at BYUI, and a couple other randoms. My companions are getting annoyed with it, oops.
Hmm...what else? Oh, yeah! I'm an idiot. You would think that since I was leaving for 18 months that I would have thought to pack a couple essentials....like pajamas, or t-shirts at least. But alas, I did not. I also forgot a laundry hamper, a bath robe, and a slew of other things.
I don't really know what else to say about the MTC because mostly I study a lot and talk in Spanish a lot, and that doesn't make for very exciting stories. Oh. Wait. Here's a story. So I don't speak Spanish, right. But apparently I have the teachers here fooled because they had me take a test to see if I should move to the intermediate class...and it looks like that is what will be happening. So...that will be interesting. I mostly just jumble up the Spanish and Portuguese I know and make up the rest, but apparently it's working for me. Hopefully the Spanish speakers in New Jersey feel the same, though they probably won't.
Okay. I think that's all I've got. I'm happy, I'm healthy, I'm a missionary.
OH! Wait! One more thing. Do you want to know why being a girl is awesome? Because you get (I use that word loosely) to wake up a half and hour earlier than everyone else and go to a special exercise class everyday! Whoo hoo. Ha. Well actually they classes are fun...but really I'd rather sleep and eat peanut butter. Oh well.
Last thing. If anyone wants to send me a letter from DearElder.com I'll get them the same day, but PLEASE include your address if you do, otherwise I won't know where to send a responding letter.
Words from Annalee:
If you are wanting to send a DearElder to Jari you will need this info.
MTC Box #: 251
Mission Code or Mission: NJ-MOR 0716
Estimated MTC Departure Date: 07/18/2012
awe! So good to hear how it's going!
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