Hello there!
Well today is my first P-day!! Yes P-days are on Thursday and it's a great
middle of the week break. I've been here for more than a week and have already
been a host for some of the new sister missionaries here so it seems like I've
been here forever! So I am at MTC West campus. We live at Wyview and have our
classes at Raintree. We eat in a make shift cafeteria that used to be the
Raintree pool house and our food is shipped over from the main MTC campus. Our
basic daily schedule goes like this: We have to be up by 6:30 at the latest.
Breakfast starts at 6:45. We can be late to it, but we have to be in our
classrooms at 7:15. Then we have class for 3 hours with our teacher. We have two
teachers who are RMs from Finland. Their names our Veli Arnesen and Veli
Stewart. I love them so much! They're so patient and kind which is really needed
when we're learning Finnish. Our district is an all girl district! Yep they no
longer have enough elders for all the sisters! There are 2 finnish districts.
Mine has 6 sisters and the other one has 6 sisters and 3 elders. So yeah it's a
pretty big deal to have 15 missionaries going to Finland together. Okay so after
our 3 hours of class we have language study with our companion and then
additional study to study whatever we want. Lunch is then at 11:20 until about
noon. Then more class! We have another 3 hours of class with whatever teacher
wasn't there in the morning and let me tell you, we need it. Dinner is then at
4:20 (Super early I know) and I always end up taking some food to go to eat
later at my apartment. We then usually have gym time after dinner and I've been
ballin it up with the Chilean Elders. Okay funny story, on the first Gym time we
got, Sisar Schellenberg and I played with the elders and I totally made this
sweet hook shot over Elder Mundell and it was great. So now we all joke that the
Lord is blessing my basketball skills as well as my language skills. Well after
gym time is TALL (Teaching assistant language learning - I made that up, but
it's something like that). It's just a computer program that teaches us vocab
words and how to pronounce them and it helps a lot because we can record
ourselves and then just listen to how close we are to the native speaker
(usually not very close). After TALL we have additional study time and language
study until 9:30 when it's personal time. That's when I can read letters and
journal and get ready for bed. Then it's lights out at 10:30 and I do it all
again the next day! So yeah i'm super exhausted and fall asleep very quick and I
love it! Oh I also don't get a temple walk because we're at West Campus and I'm
super bummed about it (actually really really sad) but i'll get over it. We do
get to go to Brigham's Landing (shopping center) if we want to on p days and we
can get jamba or any random food we want there.
Okay so my companion's name is Sisar Howell. She's from Bluffdale, UT and
has done 2 years at BYU. We're very similar and get along great! We have
companionship inventory where we can talk about our problems and just kinda sit
there and laugh because we don't have any! The other 4 sisaret in our district
are great too! I just love them all.
So Finnish. Yes it's true what they say, it is a VERY difficuly language.
But somehow, I'm doing surprisingly well. We (My companion and I) have taught 3
(Yes, THREE) lessons all completely in Finnish. It's a struggle, but eventually
we can get our point accross to our investigator. One thing that's good about
Finnish is that every letter is always pronounced and there's only one sound for
each letter. So as soon as you memorize them, you can pronouce anything.
However, there are also double consonants and double vowels in every word that
always messes me up. Like sometimes a word with end in "soon" and I'll pronounce
is like the English word "soon", but it's pronounced like the English word "son"
because one "o" sounds the same as two "o"s, it's just held out longer. Oh also
there are no propositions and it gets really annoying. words like to, from,
about, toward, for, in, and THE don't exist! So my sentences are very choppy and
it's starting to affect my english when a randomly just say "Church is true"
without the word "the" or anything. So yes, Spencer, it looks like we'll both we
struggling in that area. My Spanish also will randomly come out and people look
at me weird when they know I'm going to Finland and keep saying Gracias instead
of Kiitos. But oh well, I really am doing fine in the language and I'm not too
stressed about it or anything.
Okay sorry this is a long email, but I've gotta tell you about my first
week!
Wednesday: I got checked in and went to orientation. We learned some basic
MTC rules but this campus is way more chill than main and everything's more fun.
The food isn't very good and there aren't any options (No salad bar mom!) And we
just kinda eat what we're given. I've had cereal every day for breakfast, but
don't worry I always have a muffin, orange juice, and an apple with it or
something. So that was basically my whole day, just unpacking and getting
settled! I also met my zone. I'm with the Estonians, Albanians, Hungarians, and
of course the FINNS! We all have a blast with our crazy languages together!
Thursday: Not much new happened today. we got our classrooms all set up
and found out our teachers will only speak finnish unless they're not able to
act something out (Camille & Ashley. the very little sign language i've
learned from switched at birth has actually came in handy!)
Friday: We taught our first lesson today and could used finnish phrases
that we had written down, but the pronounciation was killer. It's gotten much
better since then.
Saturday: We had to teach another lesson to our investigator Esko and could
only use a couple finnish vocab words we had written down and our english
outline, but no phrases.
Sunday: We got to go to Church and RS and sacrament meeting and it was
great! It was a definite needed break from Finnish (My brain literally hurts at
the end of each day) Then in the afternoon we went to the Worldwide Leadership
Broadcast entitled "The work of salvation" at the marriott center. It was great!
I strongly encourage everyone to go look it up online right now. And shout out
to my good friend Chris Ludlow for saying the opening prayer! He sat right in
front and has Elder Holland talk right to him and it was great! I saw lot of
friends there and it was just awesome :)
Monday: Well on this day I was in class and apparently stood up too fast to
right something on the board beacause next thing I know I was on the floor. Yep
super embarrassing but I passed out. I felt so bad for our teacher because he
already puts up with 6 girls in one class for hours a day and now I had to pass
out while he was there! The medical people came and I was fine but the still
made me travel to main campus and go to the doctor. The doctor said my blood
pressure was low and I need to eat more protein and salty foods. However, that's
kinda a problem because we don't have the option of food main campus does so he
said he'd work on that so hopefully the good will get better soon!
Tuesday: This day was awesome! 5 sisters and 3 elders going to Finland got
to fly to LA to meet with the consulate to get our visa! (Everyone else went on
Wednesday) We left the MTC around 5 am and for home around 9 so it was a very
long day but it was so fun and another needed break from Finnish. We just landed
in La, was picked up bu a driver, taken to the consulate, signed a paper and
gave them out fingerprints, ate some Rubios and Johnny Rockets (Life is rough I
know) and flew home! (all totally paid for by the church btw) so that was
cool!
Wednesday: Only my and Sisar Dayton were in my district today so we got
lots of time with our teacher and it was awesome. I feel very confident about my
Finnish now and even taught a lesson with no finnish notes! It was great!
Thursday: Today I got to go to the temple, but after this it's closing for
6 weeks so hopefully I can go again at the end of my MTC experience. I loved it
and saw Hermana Pearson there and almost cried!
So I just wanna say thanks for all the many letters of love and support
I've received! Shout out to the Beechers for the cinnamon rolls, my district
absolutely loved them! And also Shout out to the Winklers for the Krispy Kremes!
They were so good and of course I shared but everyone was still super jealous.
I've gotten a lot of letters and I can just feel everyone supporting me! I love
you all and I can't wait to write next week!
Kirkko on totta!
Sisar Crandallt
