Hey Familia!

I hope all is well and that everyone is doing great!

This week at the MTC was good! We had some really great speakers and spent lots of hours studying the scriptures! They also changed the amount of time we have to email, because they changed whom we can email we now have an hour to email instead of half of an hour. Though that still doesn't mean there is enough time to email! I'm starting to stress just thinking about it;). I'm still loving my companion! She loves to sing, and so we realized something funny today:). The girls in our district were begging her to sing Phantom of the Opera and I told her I would sing with her and we could sing the song where Meg and Christine sing, me singing the Meg part. Now this is the funny part:) Her name is Christine and mine is Megan, kinda cool:). Also, I want to say thank you for all the many letters (letters are my favorite!) and emails that I've received! I'm attempting to write everyone back, but it's slow work since I can only write on Tuesday. But I love getting all the letters anyways, they make my day! I'm probably the most spoiled missionary at the MTC! Everyday that there is mail I have gotten at least one letter, whether from dearelder.com or handwritten (the best!) and I'm so grateful for the amazing family and friends that I have! Also Mom and Dad, thanks for the packages! You're the best! The cookies were absolutely adorable! The elders all took pictures of themselves biting the sister missionaries heads off;). Super cute;) I ate the one in the all purple dress with the brown hair because I figure that one is probably me;). Also, Mom and Dad, Happy Anniversary! I hope that it was a great one! Sister Hayes and I got to teach our "investigator," Olivera again this week for the last time, and as everyone said he would, he became our teacher. Too bad he speaks Brazilian Portuguese. Though I have a much easier time understanding Brazilian than understanding what Irmao Porter says. Irmao Olson (Olivera) is a great teacher, though we do have to correct his ds and gs sometimes;). Sister Hayes and I work great as a companionship though, she doesn't understand what's being said but she can spit out phrases, and I have a hard time remembering phrases (though I know lots of individual words) but have very little problems understanding. So when we teach we converse back and forth about what's going on haha. I know that when the Lord wants me to get this Portuguese stuff, I will! Oh, we met with the Branch President this week and we talked about as a zone the Stripling Warriors, and how none of them died but all were wounded and President Hodges compared us to them. He said we will all come back wounded, and then he gave examples of wounds. The first he picked on a girl and said a situation where you have been teaching a family and you love them and then they after many lessons tell you they don't want to see you anymore and they don't want to be baptized. The second he asked a boy if he had a girlfriend and he said no, then he asked a girl and she said no, and then my zone threw me under the bus! Next thing I know both Sister Hayes and Sister Alvarado on both sides of me are pointing at me! So he asked if I would feel wounded if my trainer came home and she and Dakota started talking and getting to know each other and they feel in love. That's when I said that his mom would just kick her out! That got lots of laughs, even the president laughed:). Then he said what if he told you that and then he and your trainer got married, would you feel wounded. And I said, yes, I'd kill him. More laughs, sorry President, I didn't mean to be the class clownl;). My mean zone, boy do I love them;). My boss from the MTC, I see her all the time, and she said that she saw pictures of me on Facebook, Mommy, what have you been doing?! Haha. We had some super amazing speakers this past week for our Sunday devotionals. We got to hear from a woman named Mary Ellen Edmunds, who spoke during relief society, and who has served tons of missions and who is just a fantastic speaker! She was a hoot! She talked about how she knows we can do this, and she was just hilarious. She also talked about how to deal with the elders. She said that we couldn't touch them but instead to take a list of the ones we want to touch and then touch them when we get to the reunion, she made this funny face and reached out into the air and said "touch!" Hilarious! I wonder if it's on the church website? The other speaker, his name was Greg Drouby (?) and his is in charge of Missionary Media for the church, so he's in charge of all the "I'm a Mormon" things, and he talked about some campaigns the church is doing, and that was pretty cool. There's one in London going on right now because of that really nasty play, The Mormons, which slanders LDS missionaries. They have 250 of the 1000 double decker buses with ads on them, plus they have whole escelators filled with ads, and the platforms, and the stations, including the two stations that are right near the theather for The Mormons play! The coolest part is that they have ads in the play bills though! They say things like "The book is always way better" (you know how we all say that after reading a book and seeing a movie that is based off the book), and you can request a free copy of the book! One family he talked about did it, and they ended up reading all the way to Jacob before calling the missionaries and saying they knew it was true and they wanted to be baptized! Talk about awesome! Those missionaries in London have got their work cut out for them! The obnoxious sisters who were in Sister Hayes and I's room (their alarms went off at 5:30 but no one ever got up... and they made us feel too uncomfortable to talk) finally left for their area! So we have our room to ourselves until at least the Wednesday after this coming one. We said we were gonna get more sleep last night without them, but what did we do? We stayed up until midnight talking to each other;). I also forgot to turn my alarm on, so that was interesting. What I'm sure was a miracle, we both woke up at 6:31 am. Still a minute late though. Today, for Pday has been great. We didn't go to the temple because Sister Hayes was feeling sick, so instead we got up and got ready and we did our laundry really quickly, then we went back, wrote letters for a little while, and then took a nap! We didn't want to get up, but I said I'd email at 2 and so here we are! Though we're going back to sleep after;). The rest of the day should be good, because we have another devotional tonight.

Well, I love you all and I'm so grateful for all of you! See you in 17 months and two weeks;)

Love always,

Sister Wach