The last MTC email. This week has been interesting. We've all been really excited about going to Chile and also really nervous about Spanish. We've been learning about the subjunctive in Spanish, which I thought was pretty easy until yesterday when we started learning about adverbial clauses. I still don't understand, but supposedly we'll all have a "lightbulb" moment during our mission when it will all click. I want that moment to come quickly. I want to be fluent already!

 

Yesterday I got to take part in a pretty historic event. All the missionaries at the MTC, both campuses, met at the Mariott center for a devotional. There were more missionaries last night than there have ever been. It was cool to be a part of. I could see with my own eyes how many freaking missionaries are in the MTC. It's a lot. They had cameras there and stuff so I think it was on the news. You could probably look it up and see if you can see me :)

 

I still can't believe I'll be in Chile in just a matter of days. I'm not really looking forward to the 18 hour plane ride though. I love flying, but sitting in one uncomfortable seat for 18 hours doesn't sound fun at all. But once I'm past that, I will be IN CHILE! I can't believe it. We've all be wondering what our first companion will be like and if we'll be able to understand anything. I've been trying to savor ever moment of my warm showers. The showers in Chile aren't heated and it's not like the Dominican Republic where the water was naturally warm. Ooh and it will be winter! So I'll be going from the miserably hot, dry desert of Utah to the freezing cold of Chile. I miss Moscow. Oh and Mom, don't worry too much about me; Chile is pretty modern. They have a knock-off walmart there so if I need anything, I'll be able to get it.

 

Today was pretty awesome. One of the girls in my district, Hermana T and I have been rehearsing a song, Come Thou Fount. Last week we auditioned to perform it at a devotional and today we performed it at the newbie missionary devotional! It was great! I love Hermana T. I can connect really well with her through the music. Our musicalities must be really compatiable or something. Either way, it's a great stress release to play with her. We invite the Spirit every time we perform that song. We performed it on Sunday too, for our zone. Everyone loved it. Playing with her has been a great tender mercy.

 

Speaking of Hermana T, today she straightened my hair! It took 15 minutes. I'm not even kidding. She used an iron, like for clothes. I have pictures, but I can't upload them to this computer because it's dumb, but anywho. She used an iron and then we touched it up with an actual straightener. It was crazy! But yeah, so my hair is straight right now. I need to touch it up more though, there are a lot of bumpy spots that have been bothering me all day, but it's straight. Funny though, none of the guys in my district or zone have noticed. Just the girls....of course!

 

Ooh so I had a cool experience on Sunday during our temple walk. I met a guy from the Dominican Republic! I could tell just from looking at him, even though he jokingly said he was from Haiti. It was cool to talk to him and made me realize how much I need to work on my conversational Spanish. I could teach gospel lessons all day (not really), but I couldn't carry a conversation worth crap. Well except for "¡Hola! ¿Cómo esta?" "¡Bien! ¿Y usted?" which doesn't really get you very far. It was cool to talk to him though. I could say Que lo que? and not get a weird look. Because they only say that in the DR (it means what's up)

 

Welcome to a special one time segment of Hermana Hutchinson's emails: Overheard at the MTC! You pass a lot of people walking around the MTC. These are some weird things I've overheard this week.

 

"Portuguese is like if French and Spanish had a baby and moved to Brazil."

"Well I stole your face!" (the boys will like that one)

"I made a guillotine once..." 

 

I love you all! Keep praying for the missionaries and reading your scriptures everyday. Yo sé que se leido las escrituas bendecirán. Yo sé que el Libro de Mormón es verdadero y sé que las familias son para siempre.

 

Con amor,

Hermana Hutchinson

*Katelyn sent this email to me about 12 days ago, just now getting it on here.

 

 

I got my travel plans today! I'm leaving SLC on June 17th at 2:16pm, arriving in Santiago, Chile on June 18th at 8:10pm. Then we're leving Santiago at 1pm and arriving in Concepcion at 2:10pm. The flight to Santiago is 18 hours.

I'm super excited! In 11 days I'll be in CONCEPCION CHILE!!!!! Estoy muy animada (y nerviosa) ir a Chile! VIVA CHILE!

 

Also if you want to stalk my flights it's Flight 147 through Delta Airlines and Flight 223 through Lan Chile S.A.

 

con amor,

Hermana Hutchinson

 The Sister on the far right is Hermana Hutchinsons companion.



Just a small group of the 3,000 missionaries in the MTC.

Wow, if you happen to see Emily anytime, tell her congrats for me! That is really exciting! I see a lot of Japanese speaking people in my building so it's exciting to hear that she'll be learning Japanese as well. Good luck to her!

I have been here for 4 weeks. FOUR! What the what? In 2 weeks I will be on my way to Chile. So bizarre. I should be getting my travel plans this Friday, so I will be able to tell you when I leave and when I can call from the airport next week. Supposedly the flight is 14 hours. Yeah, I'm not looking forward to that at all. There's an elder on the same floor as me who is also going to Concepcion, except he was supposed to leave 2 weeks ago (I hope I haven't told you this story already) but when he got to the airport he realized he'd lost his passport. He has no idea where it is. So he's currently waiting for a new passport. He keeps getting bumped around from companion to companion. And he's already fluent so it's not like he has more Spanish to learn. He's supposed to leave by Saturday though.

Also speaking of this Elder (His name is Elder R by the way) at dinner the other night we were talking about Mexican food and he mentioned quesadillas. So I said ques-a-dil-las, like I would say it at home, and he busted up laughing. We laughed for a couple minutes, but we didn't know why it was so funny. I guess when you're in the MTC, which is devoid of any normal humor, you resort to laughing at things like that. We also laugh at gospel-related jokes that would not be funny in any other context. That's what happens when you live in the MTC for this long.

Yesterday was one of the most terrifying days of my life (which I'm sure will be trumped by my first day in the field). We had TRC again, which is when we have the opportunity to speak with fluent Spanish speakers. Well yesterday we had to Skype. Not only did we Skype, but we Skyped with a woman who knew almost no english and who was from Concepcion (which was also really exciting, but after listening to her speak, I have no idea how I'm going to understand people there) for 40 minutes! Usually our lessons for TRC are 20 minutes, so we were all way under-prepared. Things were going alright at first and then there was this long pause (which in actually was probably only, like 1-2 minutes, but it felt like 1000 starts were born and died in that time) I had no idea what to say and neither did my companion. My mind went completely blank of everything and I was just searching for one Spanish word I could say. I finally did, but boy, that was not my favorite part of the day, I'll tell you what. It was so awkward. Good things did come from the lesson, though (I think) We told her we were going to Concepcion and she got really excited (I could tell, because she was talking really fast) I think she told us to find her family, but I don't know. She also told us some things about Chile like the food and the people (I think) She also showed us her grandson who was super adorable. He would be in the background kicking things while we were talking (or trying to talk) I finally got to bear my testimony of the Book of Mormon and how it's helped me in my life and then FINALLY it was over. She was super nice though. I just felt super dumb.

On that note, my Spanish is coming along, don't worry. I'm just used to the Spanish of my teachers which is slow and easy to understand. I'm no where near fluent, but if I put in a lot of work in the next two weeks, I should be fine for Chile (I hope)

So, some sad news (at least for me). There's a missionary meeting thing on June 21st that the first presidency and the quorum of the twelve is going to be at and the MTC choir gets to sing! For the first presidency and the quorum of the twelve! (that means Uchtdorf!!!) Except.....I'm leaving on the 18th! I'm so sad. That is the coolest opportunity ever and I'm going to miss it by a few days. :( One day I will see President Uchtdorf. One day.

 

--Insert more gushing about my awesome teachers, Hermano Staples and Hermano Lounsbury--

 

Have I told you about our progressing investigators? When we first got to the MTC we had Matias (who ended up being Hermano L) and now we have Victor (Hermano S) and Pedro (Hermano L again). It's cool because even though there are mock lessons with fake investigators, we feel the spirit strongly every time. It's like the Spirit is training us to listen to him and follow his promptings. It's hard. The other day, we practiced feeling the Spirit. Dang, that was hard! But it's good to get the practice in. I've had some really cool moments where the Spirit just took over. There was one lesson with Pedro where we were trying to explain a difficult concept, which is hard enough to expalin in english. My companion asked Pedro if he understood it. He kind of did, but he obviously didn't understand it completely so I started to explain what it was. Honestly, I don't even remember what I said, but I just started talking. The words just came to me...I had to think about a couple and how to conjugate them, but other than that I just spoke like I would speak normally. I explained it really simply and easy to understand. But it totally wasn't just me, it was definitely the Spirit helping me, because before the lesson I had no idea what I was going to say about it.

 

Another week has gone by! I'm halfway done with the MTC, can you believe it? I love having p days on Wednesdays because that's when all the new missionaries come in. My companion and I like to sit outside and people watch. Usually she's watching for someone in particular. I don't know anyone, so I just like seeing their petrified faces and think back to my first MTC experience. Today, we got 910 new missionaries. To put this in perspecitve, before today we had about 3000 missionaries total in the MTC. I don't know how many have gone out so I don't know the current population, but I do know that we've gotten the biggest number of missionaries today than we've ever gotten. The Lord is hastening his work!

 

As for the Spanish... it's coming. It's amazing how much the Lord has helped me, though. It's easy to look at where I want to be and compare myself to that standard, but I have to remember to look at where I started and see how far I've come. It's mind boggling to be honest. A few weeks ago I couldn't say anything and now I'm teaching lessons. I don't have perfect grammar and I still don't know what the crap the subjunctive is, but I've come so far already. Of course, I really only know the vocabulary of the lessons, but the rest will come. I was blessed with some awesome teachers though. I feel like I talk about them in every email, but they are both so passionate about Spanish and the Gospel. It's inspiring. They push us really hard too; they want us to be our best. I'm extremely grateful for them!

 

It was cool, last week, Michael Capawana came to the MTC. He was supposed to go to the Brazil MTC, but he didn't get his visa, so he came here! The cool part is his classroom is on the same floor as mine! We see each other every once in awhile. It's nice to see a familiar face :)

 

Honestly though, nothing very exciting happens during the week. Sorry if this email is boring. I'm sure once I get to Chile I'll have many more stories. It's weird to think I'll be there in 3 weeks!