I Do Not Know Anything haha

Hola from San Miguel!

My last week at the MTC was awesome! The last night we had a party, and saying goodbye was really hard. I left for my mission Monday morning and I thought that I would be able to sit with Elder Marshall on the bus and speak English, but they separated the elders and sisters. I was the only American/English speaker so that was my first taste of complete spanish haha. 

We spent the first two days training, meeting the mission president and saying goodbye to all of the missionaries finishing their missions. Not gonna lie, I was super jealous of them haha. Those first two days I had way too much time to think and I was stressing. I spent 70% of the time having no idea what was going on because everything was in spanish, 20% freaking out and missing everyone, 5% reassuring myself and 5% having fun. I feel quite a bit better now though, I probably have fun like 20% of the time haha.

I am in San Miguel and its pretty cool. I guess it is really touristy so when we go down town I see a lots of americans and europeans who speak english! My companion is really cool and nice, but she does not speak any english and communicating is hard sometimes. We are next door neighbors with some elders and one of them speaks about as much english as i do spanish, so its really fun to be with them!

The food has been better than i expected! we have chicken, rice and vegetables everyday haha. We have lunch with members everyday around 3 oclock. We have not had time to go to the store or anything yet, so for breakfast we eat this mushy cereal and then we dont really eat dinner. We walk a TON so I will probably come home nice and skinny haha.

Our ward mission leader speaks english! He is the nephew of President Lyons at the MTC, and he has a bunch of brothers who speak perfect english in the ward too. They all lived in the US for a few years and on saturday they invited us and the Elders to their house for thanksgiving!! It was delicious and it felt so good to hear people speaking only english haha.

We have to wash our clothes by hand, the roads are suuuuper rocky and hard to walk on, our house has cockroaches, and i can barely understand anyone...but other than that I love being out in the field!! I love and miss everyone!! VIVA MËXICO!

HERMANA KNUDSEN

Last night at MTC - Hermana Roberts

Last night at MTC with District C

Last Week in the MTC!

Wow, I am really starting to freak out about leaving the MTC! This is my last P-day here, and we already had our last pizza day! :( On Monday morning I leave for Querétaro with Elder Marshall and about 7 other Latinos. I am really excited to start talking to and helping people, but I am going to miss everyone here. My teachers, district, and friends are so amazing and I was so blessed to get to know them!

This week was great! We had a birthday party with cake and everything for our district members with birthdays since we´ve been here. We had a really good devotional on Sunday night by Lane Steinagel. I think he is like the director of all of the international MTCs, and he is really cool! He speaks like 5 languages and he was involved in creating Preach My Gospel. I think we also really like his devotional because it was in English and he didn´t have a super thick spanish accent haha.

One of the Hermanas in my district went home on Thursday, so her companion got put into a trio with me! It is so much fun! Teaching people and having to be followed around by two people all day is pretty weird, but I love my new companion!

I had to give a talk in spanish for sacrament meeting on sunday, but it was super low pressure because there are only like 20 people in our branch haha. I have gotten a lot better and understanding and teaching in spanish but I know that I will still be super confused when I get into my mission.

Everyone tells me that my mission is very pretty and modern. I guess the city is growing really fast and they have lots of normal american stuff there! I´m excited!

I love and miss everyone!

Hermana Knudsen

Here is a picture of my district that Hermana Robertson and I drew. We are artists :P

One Month Down!

Wow, time is so weird here. I fee like I´ve been at the MTC for my whole life, but it´s also crazy to me that i have already been gone for a month! I only have 2 weeks left at the MTC. My district leaves for our real missions the Monday before Thanksgiving. Nothing super cool happened this week, but I had a lot of fun.

 Sundays are really good here, it´s just church, devotionals, a video and then our zone plays scripture roulette and it´s pretty inspirational haha. I gave the closing prayer in sacrament meeting in spanish, and I´ve gotten pretty lucky and not had to give a talk yet. Tuesdays are also our favorite day because it´s pizza day and we have service projects/devotionals instead of our normal class and teaching schedule.I´m getting a lot more comfortable with teaching people, but I´m still scared for teaching real people because they talk really fast and I can barely understand them.

Last night was probably the best night I've had here. My stinkin companion made me go to choir with her and sing for the devotional, but it wasn´t that bad. At the devotional I met a few Native elders who will be leaving for my mission in Queretaro with me! They seem really cool and I am excited start my mission! After the devotional the elders in my district gave priesthood blessings to an elder that was sick and about to leave for his mission in the morning, and to one of the hermanas in my district because she is going home tomorrow. I am seriously so blessed to have these people in my district and I am going to miss everyone soooo much in two weeks.

Hopefully more interesting things happen this week! Love and miss everyone!

-Hermana Knudsen

3 Weeks Down!!

This week at the MTC was pretty great! Even though everyday is kind of the same, so much happens in a week! In mexico city I guess that halloween is a huge thing here, and then they have 2 days of celebrating for Day of the Dead. On saturday night a bunch of the teachers were really excited to leave and go trick or treating 3 nights in a row. From the MTC we can´t see any of the celebrating going on, but we can definitely hear it! we were outside for class on saturday at like 8 pm when we started hearing english music! It was the first time I realized that I miss home a little bit. We only heard YMCA and Funky Town, but it sure beats spanish hymns, which is the only music Ive heard for the past three weeks haha. The partying goes on allllll night, everynight, for 3 days haha. Sometimes we would wake up to crazy music or giant bangs in the middle of the night. A teacher told us that if you dont hear an ambulance 5 minutes later, it was probably just a firework, other wise someone got shot or something haha.

 

My Spanish is coming along pretty well. We taught actual people at the MTC on saturday, who dont speak any english and they understood us! They´re usually just member volunteers or our teachers´ friends...not investigators...but it still got me really excited to get out into the field!

 

I have found quite a few people i know at the mtc! I ran into a girl from my high school, my pre school best friend, and a kid from my ward (skyler norton)! David archuleta´s sister is here, we heard her playing the piano and she is amazing! Also, the pop here is really good. I had my first Mexican coke today when we went into the city, and at the MTC they sell this Sangria pop that a lot of peple hate, but i love it!

 

 

Today we went to immigration in down town mexico city to extend our visas. the city is really cool! it looks a lot like europe with all of the big fancy buildings next to the really old cement ones. When we are on the MTC bus everyone stares at us. they usually smile and wave, but sometimes they call us gringos and its really funny haha. Today on the way to the city people were blowing me kisses and stuff. On the way back from immigration we went the long way and got a tour of the city. 

 

I cant believe that i am already half way done with the MTC! saying goodbye to everyone and going out into the field is going to be so hard, but Im excited! In the MTC so far i have memorized like 5 scripture verses, the first vision, and half of D&C section 4 in spanish. I love being a missionary!

 

-Hermana Knudsen

 

Week 2!

So I´ve been here for 2 weeks now and I am completely fluent in Spanish!...kidding that is a big lie. Today we went to the Mexico City temple and everyone spoke spanish, and I had no idea what they were saying. The temple is very pretty though! It´s huge and one of only five in the world to have an angel moroni with the golden plates and a trumpet in his hands. There is a little store by the temple and i got some scripture cases and a ring for really cheap!

My district is still amazing. I like it here at the Mexico MTC! I guess there was a hurricane in Mexico, but it didnt come close to us. They were saying that if it did hit us, we would have to be transferred to Provo. Yesterday it rained like crazy though and today while driving to the temple, the streets were still flooded with water.

Two elders from my district got called as zone leaders on suday and our "investigator" from last week became our night teacher this week. It´s been really weird getting used to him teaching us now haha. MTC work has been getting progressively harder. We have language classes morning and night now and next week we will have to only speak spanish.

That´s pretty much everything cool about this week haha.

 Happy Halloween on saturday! I miss everyone!

-Hermana Knudsen

Such cutes sisters! Comp: Hermana Lutze headed to the Mexico Torreon mission.

So excited!!

First Week

I made it through my first week as a missionary at the MTC!  On wednesday the 14th my plane left for Mexico City at 6am. There were lots of other missionaries at the airport saying goodbye to their families too, so that made me feel a lot better. We had a 2.5 hour layover in LA, where i made friends with some of the other missionaries. It was really nice to know that everyone else was freaking out just like me and most of them are going to missions in Mexico.

When i got to mexico city, i could tell right away that mexico would be a lot different than south jordan haha. We took a bus from the airport to the MTC and i saw some crazy stuff. the driving is sooo crazy, there are motorcyles weaving through everyone and people trying to see stuff in the middle of the street. Apparently Mexico city is the third largest city in the world so it´s really busy and dirty.

When we got to the MTC i found out that 46 elders and 19 sisters arrived on that day. in the mexico mtc new american/canadian missionaries arrive every week and stay for 6 weeks and new latino missionaries come every 2 weeks and stay for like 12 days. Elder Marshall and i are the only ones here here going to the Queretaro mission so far, and he is in my district so it will be nice to know someone when i get out into the field.

My district (MTC group) is amazing! I feel like I´ve known them forever. In my district there are 4 hermanas and 6 elders. All 4 of us hermanas live in the same room, so its like a party every night!...until 10:30 of course :P

The Mexico MTC is beautiful! there are palm trees and mountains with colorful houses everywhere. My teachers are really cool and spiritual, but all of them are native spanish speakers and learned english a little bit on their missions or from movies so its hard to understand them sometimes. I´ve gotten super used to hearing spanish everywhere but i still have no idea what they are saying haha. Devotionals are weird too because the speaker speaks in spanish, but they have an english translator repeating every sentence. We have learned a lot and had a lot of amazing lessons in just a week. Our 3rd day we had to teach an investigator in only spanish. IT went better than i expected and we have heard that the investigator will eventually become our night teacher!

The food here is kinda weird because they try and mix american and mexican food...but tuesdays are awesome because we get costco pizza! One day they had giant jello cups and i pressured our district leader into eating 5 entire cups...definitely one of the funniest things that has happened yet!

Everything is really cheap here. we get about $8 per week and i can easily get all of the snacks and drinks i want to last the entire week. Nights are kind of sketchy though...all night we here police/ambulance sirens and random dogs barking. I guess here the Catholoics celebrate their saints by light off fireworks. They randomly go off every few hours and they are super loud like cannons!

uh i hope this isnt too long and boring haha. Im sure the rest of the weeks wont be as exciting and my emails will be shorter. i found out you can send packages to the mexico mtc! if you go to mexicomtccarepackage.com or missionarypackagemx.com you can send me packages and letters and they will get here the same day! letters are free (hint hint:P)

I hope everything is going ok back home! i love and miss everyone!

-Hermana Knudsen