Hermana Rebecca Newmeyer: 12/20/2013

Hey Dad,

It has been amazing, i love it so much here. There has been some serious obstacles and challenges that i have been faced with just within the week that i have been here. But i love them, because i know i can learn so much more from them as i focus on the lord and give my very best. It's so good to hear from the family and how everyone is doing i know that you will be blessed because i am out here on a mission.

When i first pulled up i had about 3 sister missionaries run up to me and say hi, they were like fighting over who was going to take me, and then there were about 5 elders that ran up as well to grab my bags they were super quick and it was amazing. I went through and got my packet and recieved my name badge with my name on it as Hermana Newmeyer, La iglesia de jesuscristo de los santos de ultimos dios. I was so happy and overwhelmed i thought that this is the place. After i recieved my books, which were alot by the way, about 20 or so and then the sister that was helping me she took me to the back of the MTC and had me wait for a bus. So because the MTC is not big enough they are sending all the spanish speaking missionaries to a place called West Campus. We are only two blocks away from the Main Campus (where everyone gets dropped off) and its really nice, i was a little bummed that I wasn't on main campus where you and mom studied before your missions. However we have apartments instead a hallway filled with rooms and we have our own personal bathroom for 4 Sisters, but we have to walk everywhere, our apartments are one side of the street and our classroom instruction is on the other side in another complex with apartments.

My District is amazing we have a bunch of really great awesome missionaries and we all have gotten along really well. The classes are great!! I love them so much, they are frustrating and hard at the same time and i usually cry every class period, which is not a good thing. Oh well, the Spirit in some of our classes is amazing and i know that when we all feel the spirit a certain bond is created and we know even more than before that what we are doing is what we need to do. We have investigators come and we teach them in Spanish (the little that we know) about the gospel. Our Third day here we were teaching and it was insane, I didn't know any spanish and we just wrote down what we knew and went with it. Talk about a humbling experience. A week has gone by and i can't believe that it has it feels like we have been here forever and at the same time like we just arrived. I want to do the best that i can and be able to connect with the investigators and tell them how much i love them.

Anyway, everything we do we have to walk outside to, our gym area is a huge blow up tent with concrete and we play volleyball, and basketball, that's all they have over here, and it's okay but sometimes i want to run and its really really cold outside. I didn't realize how cold it gets when you were a skirt, the wind comes and goes right up the skirt, talk about being cold all the time. But i love it. The food is okay, we have it in a trailer right next to the gym and our classrooms, we are only allowed one plate from the main course and that is whatever they are serving, we can't go pick certain foods like on main campus has, but they have soup, salad, oatmeal, cereal, and rolls. Its all good, oh funny story, we were sitting in our district eating dinner, there is about 10 elders and the 4 sisters in our apartment combined and we are all sitting and i had a bowl of soup and i started eating it and then i had this sensation come over me, i got really hot really quick and i started to sweat, the elders next to me were like "hermana, your ears are turning red!!" and then my face went red and i had to take my jacket off and my scarf it was so hot, my temperature skyrocketed. The whole week i never took my jacket off, and the other elders were shocked that i was taking my jacket off. It was so funny i wish i had a picture, but my ears and face were red, like apple red. It was crazy but we all got a good laugh out of it.

Also i was walking with my companion and i didn't see a step and i totally fell on my face in front of everyone, i got my tights all dirty and my hand scratched but it was a great fall, at least some people laughed. Oh we have to be bused over to Main campus for tuesday night devotional and they broadcast the relief society meetings to a chapel that we have to walk to from our apartments. The devotional's are amazing!!! I love them we had this past tuesday devo, Brother Rasband and he talked to us about the gifts of the spirit and how we can share them with others for this christmas season. I was in the choir and we sang a beautiful song and the choir teacher is hilarious! he was talking about not looking up at the screens to see ourselves and he was pulling faces at it and it was great, he was like "oh look there i am" and then just stare at it very intently and fix his hair.

The language is extremely hard for me, I cannot for the life of me put any sentence together and it gets really frustrating when your whole district is like "oh yeah i get" and then i'm sitting there like what just happened, what did he say, and its discouraging, but i do know that with hard work i can do anything and only and through Heavenly Father. So everyone in my district is amazing really quick here they are:

Zone leaders
- Elder Smith; pleasant grove utah, likes hunting and is a really good story teller and listener, 5'9" 19
- Elder Kenndy; boise Idaho, likes beatboxing and always puts a smile on anyone, he's kinda crazy,5'8" 19

District Leader
- Elder Hill: Alaska, thinks he's cool and has crazy stories about alaska and is 6'5" 19

- Elder Cardenas; Okalahoma; one of the hardest working elder that i have seen here, he is incredible, such a sweet guy 5'7"19
-Sister Morgan: washington; sweet and is so nice, she knows the language extremely well and is helping all of us 5"7 18
- Sister Parke: SLC Utah, So nice and a great person to talk with about anything, and she is just cute 5'7" 18
- Sister Wall: Michigan, hard working, very very independent, knows everything and anything, corrects a lot of my spanish, 5'9" just turned 18

That is about it for my district, everyone is great, i love them all. My teacher's are amazing they are so patient and willing to help anyone of us with anything and will wait and help us to understand. I love them too, they are great, they speak slow and help out as much as they can. I love being here and I love hearing about everyone at home. I am doing fantastic and i know that I will change while i am on this mission i know that and i am willing to accept it. I love you all and simply put, I know that I am suppose to be here, I know that this gospel is true, I know it and I cannot deny it. Even in hard times the spirit still testifies to me that this is where i am suppose to be. Keep writing letters i can recieve letters through DearElder. Thank you so much for everything, I wish i had more to say but we only have an hour on P day, which is thursday, so I love you and wish you the best. Thank you for your Pearls of Wisdom i look at them everyday and they mean so much to me right now. I love you. No regrets.

With Love,

Hermana Newmeyer,