Email Excerpts : : : 09 July 09

dear family,

[some stats]

One (1) companion.

Sister L. is quite literally the best.

Twenty-One (21) Indonesian Speaking Missionaries.

Take a good look at that number. Twenty-one! This is the most ever Indonesian- speaking missionaries they've taught here at the MTC, so we're setting records every day. The last group they sent out was a mere eight, which means we've double-plussed the numbers and hopefully that's just the beginning. We had to split the district in half with so many of us here, so 11 Elders are in one class, all headed to Singapore, and we two sisters and the other 8 Elders make up District 52, of which 5 are bound for Singapore as well and the other half are off to Jakarta.

Three (3) Elders to Indonesia.

My District is, of course, the best . . .Everyone here is so ready to learn and willing to serve. . . maybe I'm a little biased, but they certainly saved the best three for Indonesia.

. . . this MTC business is definitely an experiment in social behavior. Three meals a day with 19-year-old boys? Dinner topics thus far have included: cars, motorcycles, football, pyrotechnics, and a number of farcical story-tellings that have to be the stuff of Mormon Myth. But they also make every day more fun than it could be, playing with the language so we know really important things like Who's Your Daddy? (Siapa Bapak Anda?) and awkward turtle (risih punyha). They're such gentlemen and treat us girls really well. All in all, such the best.

Which leaves me with seven minutes and all the rest to tell you (can I explain to you how dearly I hate that little ticker in the right hand corner that counts the time? no, no I cannot.). The language is my most favorite part of the day---I love how the words are so conducive to play and laughter. One of our favorite things about it is the double-noun to make a plural; we call each other Elder-Elder or Sister-Sister in groups and it's just as amusing today as it was last week. N___ decided yesterday that we could say Indonesia batu-batu for Indonesia Rocks! which really doesn't work at all but is such a lovely effort that it's a part of our permanent vocabulary today. We've learned how to bear testimony, pray, and teach lesson one---which, according to other foreign language missionaries here, is absolutely insane.

Apparently most people don't teach until their second week here, but we're being pushed to the max and it's absolutely exhilarating. Teaching still scares me mostly half to death but we had a practice run yesterday and it went all right----certainly with two more days of 7-9 study we'll make it through.

xoxo

E