Provo MTC - Johanna Sophia Style

Dear Family and Friends,
Happy P-Day to me! (Preparation Day is once a week when missionaries read/write letters, do laundry, etc).  Today all I've done so far is wake up, eat breakfast, go to the gym and do laundry.  P-days so far are great but I really love my language classes too.

Ok, so here we go.  It's been a week, but I can't even imagine living a different way than this; our schedules are so full each day (which is awesome because jullie "Dutch for y'all", ihr for all you Germans* know how much I like schedules) that there's no time to be lazy or think aobut anything but what you are supposed to be doing so it's great.

There are 10 missionaries in my district (District C) including myself and my college (companion), Zuster Castro: Elder Harp, Elder Hosea, who's our district leader, Elder Jones, who knows a littler German from HS and Elder Crowson, who lives in German because his dad's in the army but he doesn't speak German, Zusters Hopkin and Goodman and Zusters Huber and Karlson.

We try to have district/family meals together to get out all of our off-topic stories, we can them tangents (tangenten verboden!), before we get back into the classroom. My favorite time is when we have our teacher, Brother Klippel, come and work with us on grammar, pronunciation, and all that jazz.  So, being/learning German has come in handy for two very important reasons, one that allowed me to avoid public humiliation and an inability to look at myself in the mirror, but I'll get to that one later.

I suppose being in a classroom for 4+ hours straight is somewhat soothing, therapeutic if you will, as it brings back all of those memories of the thousands of hours at German school; I think that's also why I'm not feeling too overwhelmed with learning the language because I've conditioned myself when it comes to learning a language and I'm used to being forced to speak and listen in a different language.  My theory so far is the Dutch is the lazy form of German (maybe that's why there's such animosity between the Weltmeisters and the Dutch, right Papi?)

The sentence structure from what I can ascertain is the same as German with a modal verb and then pushing the infinitive to the end.  It is a bit frustrating however when we're teaching our investigator, Andy, and I start speaking German, so I'm really working on that.

A major big thank you to Dad for being born in Germany - okay, so we all know that I don't need to get a visa to get into Belgium/Netherlands because I have my EU passport.  Well apparently, Begium is quite the stickler when it comes to letting people into the country and so they require a blood test and wait for it...a stool stample as well.  Now, the nurse explained to the rest of my district, while I watched on with anticipating haughtiness, that not only do you have to just put your "magic" which is what we call it, in the provided cup, but also have to use the mini pooper-scooper and get a smaller piece and put that in a vial with some sort of fluid to break it all up. After the nurse was done with her Wpiel, I told her that I didn't need a visa because I have German citizenship and she said that I didn't need to worry about it then. So, glory be and hallelujah for a German father! That's the most traumatic it's gotten so far, if you were curious.

So, yesterday we got to go to the BYU Tuesday devotional at the Marriot Center with the regular BYU students which was a tad eerie.  It was a really awesome devotional by David F. Evans entitled "Tenacity".  It was quite magnificent.

So, here are my favorite Dutch words: leuk (which is pronounced as the "lo" in locusts but with kind of a British accent) which means "cool" or "awesome", but don't get it confused with look (which is "trap-door") or Luik, which is a city in Belgium, so yeah that's my world now.  Squirrel is 'eekhorn', which is basically pronounced like 'acorn' which is awesome because, do I even need to explain?

Mashed potatoes is 'aarappelpuree' which directly translates to 'earth apple puree'. Dank u wel is 'thank you' and you're welcome is 'graag gedaan', keep in mind that the G is a guttural sound, so sometimes I sound like Batman, which isn't all bad, but throat lozenges and boatloads of water are a must.

Now I'll explain my "sched" really quick so you know what I'm up to (which is usually no good, but in the MTC it's a different story). We wake up at 6:30 and usually get sack breakfast, which is just a quick alternative to actauly cafeteria breakfast because we hav eto wear proselyting clothes to be in the cafeteria) and then after we eat we go to the gym.  After that, we shower and get ready and are in our classrooms at 9:50 for personal, companion, and taal (language) study until 12:50 when we go to lunch (which is, you'll never guess, "lunch" in Dutch...like I said, Dutch is kinda lazy.)

After lunch we go back to class until 5:45 for dinner and after dinner there's either a devotional or we go back to class until 9:30 when we go back home and get ready for bed.  So yeah, not a lot of goofing off time, but I find ways to sneak it in throughout, don't you worry.  I asked my teacher what 'sassy' is in Dutch and he said there isn't really a word for it so I'm working on finding the the Dutch word for facetious (Drea?)

All the devotionals are great and amazing and geel (pronounced like hail) leuk.  I'm enjoying my district and all the things we do together.  Today we get to go to the temple, yay!  After the BYU devo yesterday, we were wlaking out and I saw/made eye contact with the Elder that was in 'Meet the Mormons', former Elder Armstrong, who's now apparently a student at BYU.  I didn't say anyting unfortuanately, I was thinking somewhere along the lines of "I know you! You're famous" or something, but I must've gotten distracted because, like I said, I didn't say anything.

Thanks so much for the Halloween Reeses' because they are the best.  I shared them with my district and my teacher who I think enjoyed them more than anyone else.  Thanks Trini for my letter, I keep in in my bag all the time because it is awesome, just like you:)

Our teacher pretended to be an investigator for the whole class so we all got ot pitch in and teach him as a district and he was trying to think of a name (I suggested Reginald, but I was denied with the lame excuse that Reginald isn't a Dutch name) so he went with Hans, to which I audibly chuckled at, but unfortunately only Dre-Dre and Trini will understand.  (Hans is the nickname her younger sisters have given her).

Thanks for your email too Erika!  It's always fun to get letters; whenever I don't get any I ask my district leader, because he's the one that collects and distributes them, why he's holding my mail back?  Why he's hoarding my letters? So, in order to save Elder Hosea from any more comedic accusations, keep on writin':)

I do have a request, could mom or dad write me some letters just in German with a few words that you think I won't understand, translated at the bottom of the page?  I really want to keep my German intact and I an already feel it suffering under the lack of rules and regulations that the Dutch are so nonchalant about.  I need my strict German rules:) (What a dumb thing to say Zuster Dobler:)

Anyway, I have to get off soon, so I won't be able to send any pictures this week, but Beth and Erika took some before I entered so hopefully you got those.   Tell everyon hi! Everything is great and I am having so much fun! I got a Belgium mission t-shirt already, but I'll have to get the Netherlands one later because they ran out of my size. So, I get two mission t-shirts! yay!

I love you all and don't worry about me (I'd be worried if you did).  I'm so busy all the time that I don't always think about home stuff (which is good), but when I do they're amazing memories and hopes that everyone is making themselves the best they can be!

I love you all so much and  never forget who's the most important thing - the Gospel, God, and Jesus Christ. We can have glorious lives her on earth and in the next life if we stick to what they have told us!

Love, Zuster Dobler (Gesundheit!):)