Dear Family (and Friends)!
Well hello! Things are going great here at the MTC. To backtrack to the first day: Morgan Gilger (my roommate from college who used to live in CT) picked me up from the airport and we had Cafe Rio as my last meal outside the MTC. We stopped at the store to get some garments and I got new scriptures.
Then we pulled up at the MTC, Morgan took some pictures--she's supposed to send them to you, Mom. The Elders took my suitcases and off I went to get my name tag! I was, of course, smiling the whole time. My friend Cherysh Hubbard (Hermana Hubbard) was waiting by the building for me to arrive and jumped up and gave me a big hug. She was in my nursing program and went to Jerusalem with me. We planned our missions out together and I got to go to her farewell--so it was really neat to get to see her in the MTC!! I showed up in class not too much later and met my new companion for the next two months. Syster Winterton!!! (Soouster Vinterton is how you would pronounce it in Swedish).
The MTC is trying out a new program where they only speak your mission language to you and not English. They are now doing it in all the classes. So right away I was hearing Swedish... no English. Unlike when my teacher tried this with Spanish at high school, I didn't feel overwhelmed. Just excited to be learning Swedish. Our teachers (Brother Harris and Brother Ahola (he is from Findland) are great. They talk slowly and of course use hand guestures. I can understand some of the things he says right away because it is like German in the way that there are alot of words that sound like English.
I like Swedish alot... but I am having a harder time with accent than I thought I would. The "j", "o", "y", and a whole bunch of other letters together are sometimes hard for me to say... which makes it even harder for me to remeber them. Soo I just keep working at them.
So my first day in the MTC I couldn't stop smiling and thinking "I'm really in the MTC and I am a missioanry!! This is awesome!! YAHOO!" Second day was a continuation of those feelings. By the end of the second day we had to teach our first lesson to our investigator "Inari". Can you believe it!! they have us teaching in Swedish the second day! This is crazy. But Syster Winterton and I planned out some things to say and went in there with smiles and just tried to do our best. It went well. Since then we have taught two more lessons to Inari and we have anther one tonight.
Overall I am really happy to be here. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. The harder/more discouraging parts of the day for me is that we don't really have a teacher to teach us most of the time. Alot of it is teaching yourself. I was hoping to be done with that after the nursing program... but here they tell us that we are really supposed to let the spirit teach us. So I am working on that. The best parts of the day are when I succeed in one of my goals. I have of course memorized "Our Purpose" and "I saw a pillar of light" in English and Syster Winterton and I have now memorized "Our purpose" in Swedish. You guys should all pray for my accent.. because it's terrible!
I LOVE SYSTER WINTERTON! We work really well together. Background on her: she is from Heber UT. She likes to ride biikes, run, swim, rock climb, etc :) doesnt she just sound great already! She is about 5'2" maybe 5'3 :) and we both have similar learning patterns. When we go to lunch we always pull out flash cards or quiz ourselves on Swedish. She really is great. I think the Lord put us together because of our similarities... and also because I think I can really learn a lot from her. Her Swedish is coming along a little bit better than mine... but that is ok. We all learn at different speeds and I am just going to keep doing my best.
Side note; My CROCs are AWESOME. I wear them every day and have converted Syster Winterton to getting some too.
I don't have a lot of time left.. so I love you all.. and I am praying for you. This week isn't the greatest letter.. so I'll try and do better next week at letting you know about what goes on in Syster Schneiber's life. I LOVE GOING BY SISTER SCHNEIBER!! :) O yah.. also my district is great. We have a great group of guys.. I am really impressed. One of them is from Findland, Dad, and he already knows Swedish pretty well. His name is Aldste Kinunin. (sp?)
Dad. I have not gotten a letter from you yet. :( And continue to send them through dearelder.com. My P-day is Wednesdays.
Love you!
Sister Schneiber
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