First Email!

Hola Familia!

This is my fourth day in the MTC! There are so many missionaries and they keep us all very busy and everything is very organized! Thank you so much for all of your support getting me out here. I love you all very much. My companion is AWESOME! Her name is Hermana Larsen (we are still getting used to the "hermana"/ "elder" thing, but it is great). She is very kind and easygoing. She loves biking and skiing- and she was in Dad's singles ward in St. George when she was going to DSC for two semesters! Our entire district is going to the New Jersey (Nueva Jersey) Morristown Mission, Spanish-speaking! That is pretty unique for a whole district to be going to the same place. We are also all from Utah, except one elder, who is our district leader, from California and his companion from Nevada. 

I have connections to the other sisters as well! Hermana Daniels is great friends with my second cousins, the Goaslinds, and Noni told me about her before. She is very fun. And Hermana Soloman dated Jordan Bozarth from Snow Canyon. I admire all of them and we get along very well. We share a room with two other sisters who are in a different district. They are all amazing missionaries and I love them already.

It is a blessing to be in the MTC. We are constantly going and going, and we are learning Spanish rapidly and we already practiced giving our first lessons as companionship- in Spanish- on our third  day in the MTC! It was a good experience. We are also asked to prepare a 3-5 minute talk in Spanish before each Sunday and we might be called on to speak! We are practicing how to pray and bear testimonies in Spanish. We are also learning how to individualize discussions and try to have a genuine love for our investigators. I definitely have an advantage by having taken 3.5 years of Spanish and practicing some online, so I am not at all too overwhelmed with the language right now in the beginning group. But I still have lots and lots to learn. We go to gym, go to the cafeteria, go to class for language study, personal study, and class instruction, and have an hour or so of personal time from 9:30-10:30pm which goes by really fast! It is great to be surrounded by missionaries with such strong testimonies who want to share the gospel with the world. This work is amazing. I am excited. Just taking it one step at a time. Thank you again for all of your support and prayers! I love you! Keep in touch! (I love letters as well. :)

Sus Misionara Amorosa,
Hermana Martin



p.s. Mom and Dad- I did not bring my patriarchal blessing. I know I have 3 copies but I don't know where they are at home right now. Maybe in the blue bag of papers I had from BYUH and put in a gray bin or something in the garage? If you have an idea where one might be, could you send it to me? Or I can ask my branch president to request one for me. Muchas gracias!