First Week a the MTC!

Hello family and friends!

After my parents dropped me off I went and got my German books. They weigh about 10 pounds which is bad news cause I don't have room or weight in my suitcase. Then i went to my classroom and right as I sat down the teacher starts talking German to me and I didn't understand a word he said so I just keep saying nine nine nine haha. My companions name is Elder Gibbs. He is really cool he used to be a skater and he is from Orem Utah so he's not too far from home. We get along really well which is good.

There are 4 Elders in my room the other two are Elder haberkamp and Elder Coombs. We all get along really well. Fun fact for everybody we all can make a voice impersonation. I do bane. Elder Gibbs can do mickey mouse and a British rock star, Elder Coombs does a southern farmer and Elder Haberkamp does gollum and smeagal it's really scary. So yeah as you could have guessed our room is very noisy sometimes haha.

Our second day we had to teach an investigator in German. It was very hard. Me and another sister are the only German speaking missionaries who didn't take German in high school or live there. So I came into the MTC at a disadvantage but I have learned a lot about it in only one week. However everyone thought it was cool that my last name is German we looked up the meaning and proununciation is mean clasp the mountain and it's pronounced shpangenbearg it sounds really cool when you say it like that. I know how to bear my testimony and say my prayer as well. We have taught 4 lessons with that investigator and each one goes better than the last one.

When I arrived here there was actually 80 German speaking missionaries which makes that group the largest foreign speaking language in the mtc. The reason there was so many is because the past missionaries going to Germany had to stay in the MTC an extra week. There wasn't really a reason why they had to stay an extra week which is pretty odd. They were told they needed to stay an extra week and they were to find out the reason why they were told to stay. It was nice to have the older German missionaries around to teach us some things about the MTC, like don't drink the orange juice and studying tips. So we all were good friends by the end of this week.

Sunday is my favorite day in the MTC. In the morning we get interviewed by the branch presidents then it's personal and companion study then off to our meetings. Our sacrament meeting on Sunday was the most spiritual sacrament meeting I have ever been too. For those of you that don't know how sacrament work its that everybody has to prepare a talk each week on a chosen subject in German. The branch president will then pick 1 random Elder and 1 random Sister to say their talk in FULL GERMAN. The new missionaries got the week off which is nice. So anyways he chose two missionaries to give their talks then the older missionaries did a special music number which was a duet of we will bring the word his truth that the sister and elder sang together. It brought everybody in that Sacrament meeting to tears you could just feel the spirit when they sang it was beautiful.

After sacrament we had a fireside which was really good then we all said goodbye to the older missionaries. As we were doing that they said "we didn't know why we were told we had to stay, we were told to find that reason. That reason is you Elders and Sisters". So that was a really sweet and touching moment. Tuesday we had another fireside and the primary general president spoke. She gave a really good talk what I really liked was she talked about a world champion swimmer being interview by someone. They asked him why are you so successful? his answer was I kept on kicking when I didn't want to kick and I kept on stroking when I didn't want to stroke I really liked when she said that cause that definately applies to a mission especially Germany.

So anyways life here is great I love it. The food is amazing I haven't gained any weight which is weird cause I eat a ton. The language is also going really well, we have another lesson tonight with our investigator in German so hopefully that goes well. If any of you have any extra ties I would love them because there is a huge tie exchange that happens on Sunday night. I'd love to hear from you all. Just send me a letter or email.
Diese ist meine mitarbeiter (this is my companion)

Love,
Elder Spangenberg