MTC Week 3

My district!! Left to right: Elders Jackson and Quesne, Hermanas Bennett, Folsom and Schone and Elders Whitworth and Nielsen

The view out of the window on our floor. SO PRETTY at night!!

My lovely family!!!!!

How is everyone doing?? HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!

This week has been pretty good, actually the weeks have been flying by lately! I don´t know why people feel like their mtc time drags on, I feel like I just blinked and I´m halfway through!! My Spanish is coming.. Haha seriously I think I was called Spanglish speaking cause that’s the only language I´ve been learning here at the MTCJ

Okay highlights of the week:

Saturday in the park! I was paired with Hermana Nikogosyan, she is from Southern Russia and will be serving in the Ukraine Kiev mission. She is 25 and ROCKS! She said she always wanted to go to Spain and has always felt drawn here, so Saturdays in the park are like her 2 day mission to Spain!Her Spanish is awesome! There were times when I would look to her to find out what someone was saying! We had so many awesome experiences during the 3 hours we were together! Last week I REALLY wanted to get referrals (like the info from the people) but even though I asked everyone I talked to for their info, I got NONE last week! Then this week, Hermana Nikogosyan and I prayed to be led to people who were prepared and we got 2 referrals!! One of them was a man there with his little girl and we were just talking then out of the blue Hermana Nikogosyan told him that families could be forever and he got so excited and wanted to know more! We got his info and gave it to the Madrid missionaries. Its amazing that we get to have experiences like this in the MTC!!

Last Thursday, we went to the Prada Museum and its was super interesting! I got to see so many paintings that I have read about or studied in school and I got to stand inches away from the original! My favorite was Las Meninas by Velasquez. It was HUGE and breathtaking! Also they had one room that was an old Roman cathedral recreated in the room. It was beautiful. It was cool that so much of the artwork was about Christ. It was beautiful. Really cool experience

If any of the Farners are reading this, pay attention here: MY LIFE HAS CHANGED! Who knew that all I had to do was go on a mission to enjoy playing sports?? I played futbol on Monday with my whole zone and I had this moment on the field where I had to decide, do I want to spend the rest of my life being that girl that doesn´t try and runs away from the ball in sports, or do I want to turn over a new leaf in the book of Hermana Folsom and try? And try I did. I´m not going to pretend that I was good by any means but I played and I enjoyed myself!! I even assisted (note assisted) in a few goals! THEN yesterday, I played football with some of the girls going to my mission! IT WAS AWESOME!! I haven´t had that much fun playing a sport before since like EVER! We played touch and it was so good and I even scored a touchdown! Yes sir, ladies and gentleman I present to you the new Becca Folsom! Now I just have to decide if I like playing futbol or football more (feel free to roll your eyes at that bad joke).

Yesterday, we did an English fast as a district. We started at 6:30 and for every English word we said, we had to do either 5 pushups, 15 seconds of plank, 10 sit ups or 15 crunches. Lets just say my arms and abs are SORE today!! Hahaha but it was really effective! It was nice doing it as a district so that we could support each other and hold one another accountable. I was surprised at how easily I was able to communicate. My problem wasn´t in expressing myself, but in exclamations or things muttered under my breath. Haha "Holy Hannah" was my vice yesterday! THEN during actividad fisica, we all just gave up and broke our fast. But we decided we are going to do this every Wednesday (haha all 2 we have left!) so i´ll let you all know how next week goes!

SHARK MEAT IS REALLY GOOD!! It is really tender and we had it fried and I loved that it was crunchy on the outside and so tender on the inside! So pretty much I ate a baby shark on Tuesday.

SUPER FUNNY: We were running out of time in one of our lessons so we decided to just leave her the scripture we were going to read together for her to read on her own. So we were going to read 3 Ne9 and I think verse 17 and in a spur of the moment decision, we just told her to read the whole chapter. Then, we were reading the chapter later and realized it was the destruction chapter!! Hahaha so we were more than a little relieved when she said she didn´t read! THEN when we were talking to the other elders that teach her, they were so confused! They had asked her to read 3 Ne 11 and she had read 3 Ne 9 and they couldn´t figure out where she got that from! They had to spend about half of the lesson calming her down and letting her know she wasn´t going to be destroyed! Hahah we could not have planned that better! Such a great mix up!! We were laughing so hard my abs hurt when we found out!

TIPS FOR FUTURE MISSIONARIES: memorize D&C 4 in your mission language BEFORE you report to the MTC. It took me a week to memorize it! Actually memorize it in your native language and then memorize it in your mission language, because i´m sure it would have been easier for me if I had already memorized it in English first… ALSO for sisters, if you are going to buy flats and then put inserts in them, buy the inserts first and then bring them to try on your shoes! When you buy flats first, you don´t usually take into account that the inserts will actually take up space in the shoe.. Haha I just had to break them in and now they are good, but it was kinda painful at first!

 

For the Fourth we are getting KFC from Pres. Sitterud and then we are having a Simon Says competition later on with prizes! Its funny though because 6 of the missionaries here aren´t from the US and they can´t understand why we are so excited and keep saying MURICA! Hahaha oh and we got to go on a tour of the temple from the temple president´s wife today! It is so beautiful.

Dad, I think of you every time I use your hymnal (which is a lot because they make us sing all the time for anybody that comes to temple square). I´m singing a musical number at the fireside on Sunday (I know that my redeemer lives) and I got to be the pianist in church last Sunday! That was cool to do that!