August 16, 2011

August 16, 2011
dearest friends and family,

it is with shame and sadness in my heart that i write this weeks letter to report to you that despite my best efforts (ok, let's be honest, there hasn't been too much resistance on my part), i am turning into a 19 year old boy. it's true. my sense of humor, if ever it might have been at all superior to that of an adolescent elder's, has now officially digressed. here's an example: one day our meal time turned into a "how many bites will it take to finish this" day. it was instigated by me. i also won. i'm a disgrace to the feminine race, i think. i think i simultaneously won the respect and disgust of every elder in my district that day though. anyway, yeah. it's kind of sad, but i'm ok with it. i just thought i should warn you in case you were expecting me to come out of the MTC a really refined and dignified person. i'm pretty sure the opposite has happened.

anyway, aside from that pretty pathetic turn of events (let's be real though, most of you probably saw that coming given my affinity for fart jokes), things are going really well here. i had a interesting meeting yesterday--i got a note saying that i was needed at the front desk IMMEDIATELY. my first reaction was excitement, because i thought someone had someone managed to drop off cafe rio to me. then, i was confused. then, i got really nervous because i couldn't think of a legitimate reason why iw ould get called up to the front desk, so i was scared that someone had died and i was trying to figure out who it was and how to make the quickest exit so no one would see me have a total mental breakdown. anyway, the president head honcho guy (not the MTC president, but someone important nonetheless) called me into his office and i was super nervous, but it just ended up being about my VISA and going to TAHITI!!! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! anyway, i've been recommended for EARLY DEPARTURE!! gah! dreams come true! but they didn't really know if i was going to be able to do it, because they weren't sure about the status of my visa. anyway they were like, "so if it were possible, would you want to leave the MTC early and just head straight to tahiti? your teachers have said that you're ready and they've taught you pretty much all the tahitian and then some that they've taught to previous missionaries and that you speak better than any of the missionaries they've sent out before (toot tooooooot!) so would you be ok with that if it were a possibility?" and i was like "AM I A 19 YEAR OLD BOY??! HECK YESS SEND ME NOWWWW!!!" BUT. i talked to the important man today and he told me that my visa is in fact gone through and all is set, but the problem is that it's not active until september 10th. sooooo i will only get to leave 5 days early instead of 2 weeks. which i was sad about, but hey, 5 days is 5 days! so unless there's any definite change, i'll be heading out to paradise on september 10th instead of the 15th. weeee! ua oaoa vau! (me happy!)

so i'm pretty happy about that. i feel pretty good about my tahitian. i'm nowhere near where i want to be, but i feel like for the time i've had, i can hold my own pretty well. although i will say that i'm pretty sure once i actually get to tahiti and real people start talking to me, i'm going to be like "WHAT LANGUAGE ARE YOU SPEAKING?!!" so that'll be cool, but i think that's how everyone is once they get out of the mtc and into real world. but i'm way excited to learn. i want to OWN this language by the time i'm done with my mission. i'm just so excited to go to tahiti. can you tell i'm excited? i might have just peed.

ANYWAY, we got another new sister this week, so the threesome companionship has been split up and now there are four of us. the world is right again. we were all a little nervous because we knew that she was from brazil so we didn't know if she was going to speak english or not, but as it turns out her english is awesome so a great sigh of relief was heaved throughout the land. i will say though that i have definitely been replaced in terms of most innappropriate humor. brazilians are bawdy, apparently. she even made ME blush once. so that's kind of interesting. both her and the other old/new sister are companions now, and they both have super strong personalities, so sometimes it's pretty interesting to watch. they're both great sisters, but sometimes i'm just like "man oh man i love sister sandoval." the other day, we were talking about how i might get to leave early and one of the sisters piped in and was like, "What?? You get to leave early? why?!" and i was like "well, if my visa comes they're going to send me early because i've kind of finished my stuff here." and she was like "noooo you can't leave before i do! i'm supposed to leave before you! you have to stay until i leave!" i dont' think i've ever wanted to punch someone in the face so much as in that moment. SHE'S BEEN HERE 3 WEEKS!! BUT, i tried to be very nice and gracious and told her kindly with a slightly pained smile on my face that i think i've been here long enough. the end. la la laa BOOM punch in the face. i really love sister sandoval though. i'm going to be REALLY sad when she leaves, especially since i'll have to have someone else as a companion until i leave the mtc, but also just becasue we've become such good friends. on sundays, we all have to prepare talks beforehand and they announce who's going to speak during the actual meeting (surprise!), so this past sunday we placed a little bet about the speakers, because we knew it was going to be one of us. we decided that whoever had to speak, the other person had to buy them a pen of their choice from the bookstore (seriously, it's kind of sad how obsessed we've become with pens. it's like our currency). anyway, that made me kind of wish i was speaking because i really wanted a new pen, but she ended up giving the talk. she did a good job though, and i was smiling up at her like a proud mama llama the whole time. we went to choir on sunday too, mostly because intially she forced me, but it ended up being really fun and uplifting, and it will guarantee us a seat in the devotional on tuesday.

let's seeeee what other new and exciting things can i tell yooou....OH. i played volleyball the other day in gym. this may not seem new and exciting to you, but considering that most of my gym days consist of me sitting under the shade of a tree while watching and harrassing sister sandoval while she does crunches or something, me actually doing an activity is pretty earth-shaking. anyway, my district wanted us to play with them outside, but i made sure to warn them that i was athletically challenged. they were all really good sports though and we had soooo much fun. except this one elder in our zone but not in our district was playing with us and he was the biggest fun sucker i've ever met in my life. totally took himself waaaay too seriously and would like yell at people when they missed the ball. and the thing was, HE TOTALLY SUCKED TOO. i wanted to ask him how that beam in his eye was feeling while he was pointing out everyone elses motes, but i didn't know if that scriptural reference would be lost on him or not. HA I'M SO SPIRITUAL WAAAAAHHHH. just kidding. anyway, we all told him to chill out and kept on having a good time. my district is great. everyone just loves each other. except for elder peru, but i had a little bit of a break through with him this week--we were all talking and having a nice conversation and i was trying sooo hard to talk to him and be nice, and then one of the other elders started talking to me and he immediately started talking about me right in front of my face to another elder like he always does and finally i just looked at him and i was like "I CAN HEAR YOU. I'M THREE FEET AWAY FROM YOU. DO YOU THINK I'M STUPID? I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE SAYING." and he just started laughing like i was joking or something, but i was not having it. so then he stopped laughing. but after that, he tried really hard to be nice to me. so maybe once he realized that i wasn't a deaf doormat, things changed a little bit. we'll see how long it lasts though.

anyway, i'm about out of time, so i'll wrap this up. i'm loving my time here at the mtc, and every day i get more excited to be able to go out to tahiti. i love being a missionary. i love the things that i learn every day, the spirit that i feel, and being able to share what makes me happy with the people around me. i was thinking about why missions are so hard sometimes this week, because they really are, but they're so worth it, but anyway, i was thinking about that. and you know why one of the reasons they're so hard, in my opinion? i think it's because satan knows that missionaries are bad butt-kickin' mamma jammas. and we can do so much good. so he wants to stop us and make us think we're worthless failures. that's his problem though, because i know i'm not a failure. sure it's discouraging sometimes, but if it were easy it would be dumb. so with that obvious profundity (probably write that down in your journal or something), i'm signing off. i love you!!

love,
soeur hansen