Hermana Ashlyn Jorgensen: Our First Email From the MTC

May 10, 2013

OKAY!

Hola Mi Familia! Holy cow. What have I gotten myself into?! Seriously what the hey nobody told me how hard this would be! Lexi you LIAR! Everytime I read your emails they seemed so nice and easy! So its obviously different here than i thought. Did you know that elders and hermanas can actually talk to eachother here.. seriouisly weird right?! KIDDING I'd die if I couldn't talk to everyone..haha you know me!

So my companion is 21 she is from Anaheim, California. She and I are very different. Although she helps me so much. I have been trying to look at the positives of things. My district is also.. weird! All the Hermanas are going to my mission and we all leave the same day, which is june 10th! All the Elders are going to Guadlahara east mission, same as Jo Millers Mission! I have met so many cool sisters here, there is this one sister in my zone, which i absolutely LOVE my zone! But her name is Hermana Materian! She is from LA haha she is a HOOT! She understands me, and literally keeps me sane. Then I randomly met this girl from Pennsylvania, Sister Voyales, instantly we clicked. Iove her! She leaves in a week though to california but she is a DOLL! The sleeping arrangments well its kind of hard to fall asleep it takes a good 45 minutes for me to fall asleep and i SWEAR 6:30 comes literally SOOO soon! I hate it! The food you guessed it is absolutely terrible. UGH! Get me some real food! I am living off of spinach...

Umm I see Karson all the time! Love that boy! He leaves a day after me, it is so nice seeing people you know here. Serioulsy so nice. I also see Brody Leprich here, his mom married the Crandall dad i dont know if you remember them.. I literally have never studied so much and so long and so hard in my life. I am literally DEAD by the end of the day. It really shows me how much I really didnt study in school.. whoops haha The language is hard, I am getting better at it, but it is hard. So its coming slowly but it is so discouraging. But ive made it a week, im sure i can make it the rest! Well lets cross our fingers :) This past monday was really hard, I literally wanted to check myself out of the MTC! My companion and everyone else pretty much are gems at spanish. They are soo good. So I get discouraged easily. I hadnt cried once since ive been here, but on monday I was just extremly frusterated and gave up. I cried for like a solid 45 minutes to my companion and other girls that are in my distirct. I couldnt speak in any of my lessons, nor feel the spirit in anything, until tuesday. I said a specific prayer and asked that I would be able to ask Gloria, my investigator without looking at anything AND IT WORKED! Que en el mundo?!! Seriously I said like 2 phrases and that is literally the only thing that made me want to keep going at the MTC! The spanish is coming along now, i just need to have faith! Everyone keeps saying have faith have faith and in my head im like what in the world everyone how much more faith can I have?! BUT I tell you now, you can always increase your faith!!

The devotionals are great, chad lewis came he played for BYU and then the Philly Eagles! I liked his talk, he talked about not giving up! It was like a slap in the face because i was literally giving up... On my paper it says i am officially retired as a missionary October 27th, 2014!! I sure hope you guys are looking forward to that day :) Maybe i'll even get back in time for babies birthday! Oh how I pray that is what happens :) So everything here reminds me of the family! I also met 4 other sister and an elder going to my mission the same day as us speaking spanish and they seem really cute! So i am feeling a little bit better! I am so JEALOUS that you get to talk to lexi! Oh what I would give to see her face, let alone hear her voice. Treasure that moment with her,and tell her that I adore her in every way. She is my greatest example right now, knowing that she has done this hard task in the MTC. I am thankful for her to go before me and to be able to experience this with me!

OHHHH my gosh listen to how terribel this is! I was sitting at dinner and an elder walks up to me and puts a note on my tray and says this is from elder something.. i forgot his last name, and i open it and its says, "you are beautiful write me on my mission." He gave me his address, name, email, and his FACEBOOK name!!! WHAT?!!! that doesnt happen here... it was SO awkward.I left it on the tray and let the people that are cleaning dishes recieve the friendly note :) it was terrible, I wasnt even flattered in the slightest bit.

This church is TRUE! Yes, it is testing my faith to be here but i wouldnt want it any other way. I wouldnt want to be anywhere else right now. Yo se que Jesu Cristo es mi Salvador. ME ENCANTO MI SALVADOR! TIll we meet again in a short 18 months, stay sweet my beautiful family. xoxx

HERMANA JORGENSEN DOS!