Week One!!

Bonjour!

I'm sorry if this email is really quick,but I'm writing you a letter today. Today we only get a sort-of half P-day...next week we start having a normal scheadule. We have our P-days on Fridays, so expect to hear from me then! Also our MTC President said if you use dearelder.com then we get the email that day, and get a hard copy of it. That way we can read it early on and spend our 30 minutes on the computer responding rather than reading.Plus it makes my day when I get a letter :)

My companion is awsome! Her name is Soeur Dawson. She is originally from Venezula but grew up in New Jersey. She has been a convert for about a year and half. Her testimony is so powerful and I feel the spirit every time she tells her conversion story. Her first langauge is Spanish, her second is english and third French. She doesn't necessarily know alot of French vocab, but she has a really good accent and she helps me alot. She is very patient with my accent, because I know I sound horrible haha. There are six of us in my room, 4 of us are going to the Paris mission, and 2 are going to the Geneva-Switerzland mission. One of which is Mary White, one of the girls I went to Jerusalem went!!! Pretty crazy eh?! We are all new this week, so moving in was pretty crazy but now its fun because we are all learning the ropes of the MTC together. There are five other sisters in our zone. (our class is called our district, basically all the french missionaries are our zone)

Apparently we are on this new 'pilot program'. So rather than learn everything in English first, then switch to French we are just jumping straight to French. I guess they've done it couple times before and they said that missionaries who started on the normal program could teach with spirit when they went into the field, but struggled more with the language. But the pilot program missionaries were able to teach with the spirit and catch onto the language much quicker. It is a lot to take in though. We've already taught an investigator twice in French. The first time was a disaster. I don't think anything I said made any sense. But the second time went much better- although I still had to switch to English for many words. Its crazy how quickly things I learned in high school have come back! I remember things I didn't even know I learned! Its been a really crazy learning curve. In three days we've covered just about everything I learned in high school. Although we learn much differently, we don't really have vocab or grammar lessons, we more just speak french and hope we understand/ make sense half the time. This pilot program is difficult, but I really think it will pay off in the long run!

It would seem that we would spend a lot of time reading scriptures and things, but its mostly been langauge study so far. I hear the first week is very different from the rest though, so I'm excited for when we are on a normal scheadule. Many of our classes are just assigned study hours in our classroom in which your just choose what to study. Soeur Dawson and I have started to read the book of Mormon in french, and I think it helps alot with learning the language. The MTC is amazing. Its so crazy to see all these 19 year old boys ahhem, men, learning all this languages and to know that we will soon go all over the world to share the gospel! I love all the elders and sisters so quickely it really is neat. I'm trying to think of what other details I can tell you!.

Just write letters with lots of questions, and I'll try to respond as quickly as possible!

Mom- to answer all your questions. I'm definately not hungry.The problem here is not eating to much. I've only been cold a couple nights, but mostly because we are trying to figure out the thermastat in our room works...next week I expect to sleep nice and toasty every night! haha Sad...sorry guys I really haven't been that homesick! haha The only time I've really felt it is when I was interviewed by our branch president. He asked me if I was feeling homesick, I answered no with a big smile on my face. Then he went about how being on a mission would really bless my family, it reminded me of my setting apart blessing, and before I knew it I was crying haha. But I talked to other sisters in our zone and apparently everyone cried. So I'm sure by the time I got in there they were like 'great...as usual the sisters cry' haha. But honestly we are so busy its hard to remember to be homesick. Mostly I love it here! I can't think about how long we're here because that becomes a little overwhelming, but from what I hear the days are long and the weeks are fast. All the volunteers/ workers seem to like to stop the sisters in the halls and tell us how much they appreciate us being here...so we feel very loved!

I love you all and know I pray about you every day! Can't wait to hear from you! I love this gospel and the more French I learn the more excited I become about being able to share it!

Love, Souer Smith