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Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Letters!

The following are excerpts from letters that Kelsey and I received from Katie today. I wanted to share them with you because they give a little more info about her situation (keep in mind that summarizing an entire week of life changing learning and growing experiences in less than an hour of email time is pretty much impossible! So letters give her time to express a little more). But they also show her personality. And its always a comfort to me and makes me happy to know that she is learning and growing, but only becoming a better version of herself! She isn't losing her personality, its still completely there! Enjoy these letters from her!


 Coley!
Dude, you will NEVER believe what happened! ...So its our P-day (Preparation day, which means a day to do laundry, shopping, letters, etc. Basically free day to get stuff done.) (I wish this happened before I wrote my email so I could tell you all sooner), but today we were just about done with lunch and our laundry, and heading to our room and one of the Elder's yells at a couple of sister's saying "Where's my companion?" The first thing I thought was...Dang! That Elder has anger issues! But then Sister Bray and I decided to stop and see what was going on. Turns out that one of the new sisters (they just got here on Wednesday) had been crushing on this Elder's companion. But anyways, the sister went around the laundry room to go get her companion, but couldn't find her. They all started freaking out. None of them knew what to do. I remember feeling like that first week, I'd get in trouble if I was too far from my companion. But this Elder and these sisters were frantic, and we knew the girl who had lost her companion so she came up to us and asked us what to do. I told her it was fine, I doubted either of them would actually do something stupid like leave together. Well, I was completely wrong. We decided to look on the ramp that leads out from the laundry room and there they were!....making out! We were all in such shock we didn't know what to do! (That kind of thing is most definitely not allowed as a missionary). One of the Elders took control and took the Elder up to the front desk, and the rest I will have to find out later. Do you get sent home for that stuff?? Cause, you should! Maybe I'll just save this letter to send tomorrow so I can tell you! It totally threw off my whole day though. Our whole district is so weirded out by it! I've never heard of that happening in the MTC! 

 This is how Kelsey's letter started:

...Oh, and Nicole will possibly share a story with you that I wrote in her letter....tell her APRIL FOOLS!! I tried really hard not to give it away in her letter, but play along for a little while. (It was a stupid story haha, but I knew if I said something like, "I'm coming home" she'd freak out/wouldn't believe me) I know you'd freak out too and wouldn't let me!

HAHA she's hilarious, right?!? I totally bought her story and was freaking out until Kels told me it was April fools! Good one!



Ok, here's the rest of my letter:

I wish I could respond to every letter I get, but I'm sure you know how impossible that is. I'm always so grateful for the advice, but I can't always say something right away, and the weeks are SO long! So i forget to mention it by Monday. Make sure people know that. I seriously get so many! I'm so lucky!

...I only have 3 more weeks until I'll be in the Philippines!! Isn't that crazy?? Well...yes it is! I'm so excited! I'm ready to dive in! 

...um, is there anything I leave out every week? I told Jackie that I know I'm bad at telling funny stories. There are so many, but its just so hard! It's such a long week. Meals are my favorite. We get 3 districts together and all eat together. We all love each other so much and have a blast! We're all so different, but when you're around people so much, you just get comfortable and they become your family. I love it! Oh and my teachers, are awesome! Brother Young is THE best. First of all, everything about him makes him the guy any girl would want to marry. He's so humble, full of quotes and stories, so happy he can hardly even sit still, and so easy to connect with. He knows everything I've gone through since I've been here. He just cares. Its nice to have a teacher who loves all of us. We learn so much from him.

Love, Sister Hogge



The rest of Kelsey's letter:

....So, last night I kind of had a breakdown....We had our lesson all planned out for our investigator, Edeline, and we walked into our classroom and on the board it said, "Wala'y Ingles, para Karon - Sa Philippinas" You know what that means? NO ENGLISH FROM NOW UNTIL WE LEAVE FOR THE PHILIPPINES. Ha, heck yeah! I laughed at first, but then I realized our teachers wouldn't be speaking any English for the rest of our time here. It's so frustrating when they say something Sa Cebuano and all we can do is just look at them...I feel like were' constantly playing charades, and I hate that game.
Anyways, our teacher Bro Young showed us a Mormon message that talks about the Lord knowing you're going through hard times - Its with Quentin L Cook. You should go watch it! (watch it here)
He played it right before our lesson and I was bawling! It's so hard to put all your trust in the Lord. I've never struggled so much with that. We prayed before (their lesson with Edeline, who they are teaching) went in, and I gave a totally different lesson than we had planned. Answered her question with a scripture, and my companion was just sitting there. She'd forgotten everything. Her Cebuano is  much better than mine (I say that I speak in broken Cebuano - I can't get the grammer down to save my life!), yet I was the one who spoke so often, only using the words I knew, totally out of order! I was so grateful for that BUT it was so hard to see my companion struggle. It only goes to show that it'll come and go, which just means we have to keep up our hard work and learn to trust in the Lord. Struggling at the language makes you stronger, but it doesn't make anything easier right now! We practiced sentences he rest of the night with our teacher Sister Brinton, and even though I did understand it, it's hard/discouraging to not be able to speak! It's times like these that I wish I got called English speaking! But there must be some reason, right?! :)


So theres my language struggles! Sorry to place all my burdens on you. I'm really okay :) It's just hard work and it tests my patience. But I know that it'll be okay! (Well, I just keep telling myself that. It gets me through the day!)
....
Love, Sister Hogge
 p.s. you should start using some Cebuano. Teach my nephew some words! Just ask me what you want to know how to say and I'll translate for you! Love you!

      
 

2 comments:

  1. This was a great and very entertaining post. Katie sounds great! The story about the Elder and the Sister was funny, except that actually happened in my mission and they both got sent to other missions, and it wasnt April Fools!

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    1. I know, I have heard of that happening...I actually wasn't sure if I should share the story as a joke because i know it does happen! If my mom sees it on her blog she might want it taken down! haha but I thought it was so funny! Such a katie thing to do!

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