Week 5

Well, hey! Another week has passed by in the flash of an eye. Dave, I really enjoyed those pics of my new niece. So cute!

It's good to hear the family had fun in Las Vegas visiting Kristen/Will/Evie. Hearing about mom and dad's adventures trying to get to the Celine Dion concert on time made me laugh like crazy. And once again.....thank you for the package of food I received yesterday! You really are such a great family. And in other news, they're not moving us to Raintree. At least til August, and I'll be gone by then. I officially have less than one month left here in the MTC!

It's interesting being a Sister Leader here in the MTC because homesickness is abundant. In my last letter I talked about a Ukrainian-speaking district of entirely sisters. It's the first ever "full" district (meaning more than 2 sisters who are speaking a weird language) that anyone's ever heard of. Fortunately they all love each other, so that's nice.

So......last Tuesday Elder Keeton Hodgson (Bountiful, Utah) and I put together a lovely arrangement of: God Bless the USA, You're a Grand Old Flag, Yankee Doodle Boy, and Yankee Doodle. Lemme tell ya....it sounded pretty dang good. I memorized it Wednesday, and we officially "tried out" Wednesday for the 4th of July program on Thursday. We made it!

Here's a little hint for anyone that cares.... the way to be an instant celebrity at the MTC is to play NON-HYMNS at the 4th of July devotional, where everyone is already super pumped because it's a holiday. At our sound-check, Sister Kay Nally (MTC pres' wife) wouldn't even let us play our actual song because she wanted it to be a surprise. And apparently it was! Elder H and I did a really good job, but holy cow! We received a TON of applause. Like....several minutes long. And then the man in the MTC presidency got up to conduct the meeting further and asked for another round of applause. And ever since last Thursday, SO MANY people have come up to me (probably because I stand out so much with the red hair and all) to compliment my flute playing. Theoretically the MTC should send you a video, right? You said they sent you one of David playing the piano. Well, hopefully they send one of me! Let me know if you got it. Sister Nally asked us to audition again for a more reverant musical number (so they could use us for church-themed stuff) because she was so impressed with how well we did.

I felt really blessed because the rest of our district came in a little late since they had to grab dinner, and they were all the way in the back of 19M (the gym they convert into an auditorium). But FORTUNATELY, the ushers had accidentally blocked off one too many rows for "reserved" people, and they had exactly enough seats for the rest of my district! It was awesome!

We also got to watch 17 Miracles and the fireworks too. We had a "late night" and stayed up til 11:30 watching fireworks/getting ready for bed. It was crazy. And of course we still had to get up at the same time. hahahahahahahahahahaha. I love the MTC.

This week was a great week, but the hardest thing has been the struggle to try to figure out who I am. I have no idea. I'm 19. I'm trying so hard to be a better person but wow. Is it hard. The hardest part is being self-motivated. I have a vision of exactly the kind of person I want to be at the end of the 18 months, but it's just a matter of getting there that's the hard part. What kind of person does the Lord want me to be? What kind of missionary do I want to be?

The strangest part about being here is that you're under constant watch, and I literally have nobody to talk to about it. This last weekend was probably the most homesick I've felt, but mostly it's just because I met my "halfway" mark here, so it's been weird to think about all of that. DO NOT THINK I'M DEPRESSED. I've been so happy, and I've just been thinking a lot lately about things.

The one thing I'm excited for when I leave the MTC? The little freedoms, such as cooking my own meals. Never thought I'd miss that! I'm so excited to get to the airport and be able to buy WHATEVER I'M IN THE MOOD FOR. Oh my gosh. Just the freedom to pick out what to eat. I miss that. It's just not the same here at all.

Dad, the charges on the card were for a gigantic/super-accurate Russian-English dictionary, a book of 555 verbs and their conjugations, and also I bought some ribbons to stick in my scriptures/smaller photo albums (that's what that like 3$ charge was). I'll mail you the receipts.

I really like the MTC. I try not to think about how much I hate it and how cooped up I feel. Fortunately I love everybody in my entire district, and I especially love my companion Sister Smith. We get along so fantastically.

As I'm sure Heather told you, Andrew Jefferson saw me yesterday running around the temple field. Apparently he texted her about it, so she conveniently happened to drive by. I was like "wow! Hi Heather! Where are you going?" and she admitted that it was no accident. haha. We talked for a few minutes and that was great. Expect a post-mart package today and maybe one more tomorrow. I mentioned to her about getting a new set of scriptures. It's really not a big deal! It would be nice, but it's not a necessity. The new ones come out in August, but they don't come to the MTC book store until late August. Theoretically they'll be available at the BYU bookstore, and I'm sure also at like Deseret Book or whatever.

I love you! I don't have Heather's email address, so if you could send that, it would be nice.
Thank you so much for writing me letters, and make Eric write me one about his FBLA adventures. I know he has time to write his favorite sister. ;)

Have an awesome week!

Cecmpa Brown