I am in......deutschland!!!

I am here!! It is amazing! Everything is sooo different than the US, seriously....everything! I have so much I want to write so I apologize if it is mumbled, plus the keyboards are different here and its driving me nuts;so I am sorry if i misspell things!
So we hopped on a plane early Tuesday morning! We flew from Salt Lake then to Tacoma, where we almost missed our flight. Then, it was straight to Amsterdam. Good ghandi that airport is the scariest thing I have ever seen. Massive is an understatement and confusion is the only thing that exists there. Thank goodness for Elders who know where to go haha. We almost missed our flight in Amsterdam as well, but the next thing I know I was landing in Berlin. After 27 hours of flying and no sleep in days is was so nice to be on the solid ground of Germany.
I was greeted by the mission president and his wife. They are the nicest people ever! We then went and dropped our luggage off and got right on all of our paperwork. We all hadn't slept in over 60 hours and it showed! We all were literally falling asleep as we were signing all 50 pages of our paperwork. It was sad and hilarious. Not one person didn't have a page where the pen suddenly took a dart in a random direction from snoozing while signing. Then it was off to dinner at a German restaurant....my worst nightmare. I wasn't feeling well from traveling still so I stuck with a piece of bread. This whole no carbonation thing is going to be tough than  I thought. Its been 11 years since I have had any carbonation, and I will be lucky to make it 11 days here! Its not that its just hard to get, but many times they simply don't have regular water. At the restaurant we went to they didn't have one drink including water, that wasn't carbonated....so weird! After dinner it was time for "Golden Finding" We here in the Berlin mission don't use the term "greenie", instead they use Golden. Golden finding is where they pair you up with an experienced missionary and you go out street contacting. I got put with S.Bush. She is on her last two transfers and was awesome! Even though I couldn't understand anything I had a blast! We got to our hotel at about 10pm and were out in a minute flat.
Thursday morning we woke up and went to where the Berlin Wall use to be. It is a really neat thing our mission does. At the beginning of your mission you go there and say a prayer to dedicate your mission, then you return when you are going home and say another prayer to end your mission. It is such a peaceful incredible place. The spirit was so strong. It was amazing to have that opportunity to start with such a focus. After that, it was time to go find out who are trainers were going to be and where we would be serving! I got assigned to......drum roll please......Dresden and my trainer is Sister Neokomm (Noy-come)!!! Dresden is a big city in the south-eastern corner of my mission. It is gorgeous!! My trainer is amazing! She is from Switzerland and is a native German speaker. She has only been out 9 months and is already a trainer, that tells you how great she is! The first few days were a little bit quiet because of the language barrier but we talk all the time now! She helps me with my German and I help her with English. She speaks pretty well though. After I got my assignment it was time to head on a train to Dresden. However these train stations are no joke. The big ones are 2 to 3 times the size of the Salt Lake airport. Well needless to say we got lost.....for 3 hours haha. Mind you this is while I am lugging my 3 suitcases around....it was pretty funny! We finally got on the train we needed and after 2 hours we were in Dresden! We wasted no time once we got there either. We dropped off my bags and hit the streets. Or I should say, the jogging paths. My companion is a marathon runner, that is important to note. I am not, that is also important to note. My companion loves going to the jogging paths to literally chase down people, run next to them (yes in our skirts and 20lb. bags), and try and make appointments. At first I thought I was just getting punk'd and this was a golden joke.....but nope this went on for another 2 hours haha. It was definitely interesting ;).
Friday started out with a morning jog.. or sprint if you choose. I thought I had stayed in pretty good shape in the MTC, that is until I went jogging with my companion. I still am unsettled with using the word "jogging". Home girl sprints the full 30 min we have to run. She might kill me off one day, but I have kept up so far. Then I have the task of trying not to show the effects of our morning run when we walk the rest of the day long haha.My first appointment could not have been funnier. It is the typical disgusting, smelly, cat infested, apartment. Her name is Doris and she has about 8 teeth left in her mouth. She was wearing a a minnie mouse tanktop and cutting garlic cloves. She has pictures of cats, cat pillows, a cat rug, and oh yeah i almost forgot....a lot of cats!! We all know how I feel about cats :). I seriously had to try my hardest not to laugh out loud whenever I thought...."of course this is my first appointment of my mission, of course!" It went well though, I mean I couldn't understand a word ha, but I could feel the spirit. Right after that it was first eating appointment. I was full to the brim with fear of German food. It was at Schwester Galaufs house. I have no idea what I ate but it had potatoes, fish, onions, and a lot of other things I couldn't identify. Would I use the world love? Can't say i would, but it wasn't bad... surprisingly! Later on that night, guess what was scheduled for us.....a singing lesson! Yes I am fairly certain I experienced my biggest fears, all on my first real day haha. But, I survived and I love every minute of my day!
Saturday we did a lot of tracting! I loved it! There are hardly any houses here so its just apartment buildings everywhere. You get in the door and then you knock on a LOT of doors. We were able to find 3 new investigators on Saturday. It was such a neat experience.
Yesterday was Sunday or Sonntag as we say here! In church they asked me to get up and bare my testimony, I was nervous my German would be terrible, but it was a good experience for me. Church was great. Even though I can't communicate with most of the people.  You find other ways and a lot of the members speak English. We have a big ward in Dresden, it is awesome! After church, we had another eating appointment with members. Once again I was scared to death, but once again it was really actually quite good! This family spoke English and it was incredibly refreshing!
Okay other are some topics I want to cover:
Weather: It has been gorgeous! Hot but so pretty!
Jetlag: It is real and real bad. I wake up at 2am every night and have a hard time falling to sleep. I think it is starting to get better though.
Food: everything is soooo different here. The markets here are scary because I don't see anything that is familiar. But I must admit, I have been pleasantly surprised at how good everything has been.
Public transportation: All I have to say is...wow. It is insanely amazing here, and is our best friend as missionaries. We are constantly on a bus and then switching to a streetcar and then to a train. It is awesome!
People: oh the crazy Germans! haha. The people here have been interesting. The woman are all super natural. Never dry their hair and just dress really laid back. The men however, care more about their hair than the woman and are generally dressed nice often times.
Apartment: My apartment is awesome. I don't know what I was expecting exactly, but its a lot nicer than I thought it would be. We have a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom with a dishwasher :).
Music: They listen to American music. Within my first day I heard Jay-z, Brittany spears, and Rhianna. I know I am a missionary.....but it was insanely refreshing to hear haha.
Well I am out of time, and once again I need to apologize for how jumbled this letter is! To sum it up, I am loving it here! The language is so difficult for me, but we have been blessed with meeting a lot of English speakers in the last few days. Its nice because if they speak German than my comp takes the lead, if they speak English they are mine. I am so grateful to have the companion I do, she is seriously stellar. (Yes I did just teach her the word stellar this morning haha). We get along really well and I can tell this is going to be a successful time for the both of us. I love you all and I appreciate all the prayers that have been sent my way!
Sister Linford.

Pictures from the MTC

We've scanned in some pictures Sister Linford mailed to us from her time at the MTC. She also wrote a description on the back of them.

My roomies! Kingery, Me, Imbach, Bohne

The Fantastic Four! Kingery, Me, Imbach & Bohne

Me and Sis Tidwell. She was one of our "older sisters" and we apparently are twins w/ personality. She is also serving in Berlin

Older and younger sisters all together! Left to right: BACK: S. Thornton (Berlin), S. Bohne (Berlin), S. Tidwell (Berlin), S. Moon (Berlin), ME!, S. Kingery (Frankfurt), S Marshall (Frankfurt), S. Clancy (Frankfurt)   FRONT: S. Sprouce (Frankfurt), S. Holmstead (Alpine), S. Imbach (Frankfurt)

I'm a missionary!

Me and Lexi Damron reppin' Xi!! (At the Provo Temple)

Me and S. Laci Tagge who is going to California. Eagle Pride! ha

The 7 sisters in our zone! From left to right: S. Clancy, S. Marshall, S. Thornton, S. Bohne, Me, S. Kingery & S. Imbach

My District!! Left to right, BACK ROW: E. Myrabo, E. Ashby, E. Gibson (new guy) & E. Miles (new guy). FRONT ROW: E. Thorkelson, Me!, S. Bohne & E. Luening

This is what happens when everyone in your room is sick!

We do have fun :) Poor sister Thornton after we stuck her in a laundry bin. haha

Me & Kings (S. Kingery) on Easter

 

Less than 24 hours I''ll be leaving on a jet plane!! (Week 6)

The time has come! The countdown is less than 22 hours now! So so so crazy that I leave so very soon. Every time in life when one chapter ends, it makes you look back at the time spent and lessons learned. I am definitely finding myself analyzing how the MTC has shaped me, what I liked and didn't like, and the people I would have not been able to meet any other way. This is definitely the close of the first chapter of my mission. I can honestly say that I love my time here at the MTC. Most people would call me crazy for saying that, but it's the truth. I have absolutely had some extremely rough moments here, but the good far outweighs the bad. I have met the most incredible people here. Friends that I honestly believe will be lifelong. The German language, even though I hate it haha, has been an amazing blessing in my life and is going to be an asset far beyond my mission time. Well before I go into the danger zone of being too cheesy, I will stop and just tell you about my week :).

Monday: It was a crazy pday that is for sure! We had to get everything done so we could pack on Saturday. Pictures, dry cleaning, alterations, more German books, etc. Later that night in class we started district teaching. This is where we teach each other and we pretend to be investigators. We also mix it up from our companions. My teacher assigned me with Elder Luening. It was a fun take to teach with an elder instead of another sister and he is nearly fluent in German so the pressure was no longer on me. It was fun!

Tuesday: It was an extremely chill day. We only have one class on Tuesdays and for this week we had a rare day of no German. Yay! haha. Finally a day with no headache :). After class we had a workshop and a fireside. Elder Gibbons of the Seventy came. It was kind of boring so I have nothing to report on it ha.

Wednesday: I got to be a host! This is where you get to show the brand new sisters around. They get dropped off by their family and you meet them 30 seconds later. I only had 2 girls on Wednesday to host. My first was Sister Wild from London. She is 30 and going to Bulgaria! She was a sweetheart but ended up being every host''s worst nightmare haha. After getting  all of her packets I escorted her to her room to put her luggage down. I told her she needed to bring scriptures and paper for her next part of the day. She walked over to her bags to get the materials but stopped.....and fell to the floor......bawling. She had just finished telling me earlier how she cant handle how Americans are always wanting to hug her. Well shoot.....I have that running through my mind and I have a pile of sister Wild on the floor, those two don't mix! After 20 minutes of us talking and calming her down, we were finally able to get her to class where she needed to be. Now that I look back on it, it's pretty finny. Needless to say, I was a little frightened for what the second sister would bring. Her name was Sister Pehrson. She is a BYU graduate from Ohio. She is 24 and stellar! We have actually become really good friends here, I am sure I will see her after the mission. She is so cute and thankfully didnt bring me any added tears that day! Hosting was a blast!

Thursday: This was our last normal day of class......crazy! We taught Andraes for the last time! He got baptized on Saturday. (not really because they are fake investigators but you know still cool!) It was my first lesson that I didn't even speak one English word! That's right....straight German no English fillers! Such a breakthrough! We also had a 3v3 basketball tournament with all the sister.....yep the fierce German sisters swept it.

Friday: We had in-field orientation on Friday. That is where you go from 8am to 9:20pm just in different hecka long presentations. There was a lot of really good things taught and said but it was a VERY long day of sitting.

Saturday: I started out with a half of a P-day to get all packed. We did all of our laundry and got on to weighing  our bags praying for them to be under 50lbs. After that we had 6 hours of class to complete our day. We finished what is called the "dooms day of German" because of how hard the concepts are to grasp. I understood it all :) such a miracle! We spent a few hours with each teacher just asking questions and drilling them about what to expect when we get to Germany. Not only did that happen, but we took the dreading grammar assessment. Only this time, the result wasn't so awful. I got a 33 and scored higher than a lot of people in my zone! Seriously to go from 0 to 30 in 6 weeks is such a miracle! Especially since I am the only one besides my companion that had less than 3 years previous experience! My teacher who is considered the  best speaker only got an 85! That made me feel so much better about where I sit with German. It was such a fun day!

I seriously can't believe that the next letter I will write will be from Germany! Ah! So stoked! I am going to so sad to leave all the friends I have made here though, but I know I have more friends waiting for me in Germany :). Thank you all for all the prayers, love, and support throughout the last 6 weeks of my mission....it has been felt. I am so nervous to embark on my 26hr trip to Germany because as we say here....life is going to get real real, real fast ha. Until next Monday, peace!

-sister linford

once again my address will now be:

Germany Berlin Mission

Sister Jessica Linford

Zerbster Strasse 42

12209 Berlin

Germnay

Stay Tuned...

Updates on Jessie's mission coming soon...

Ich Gehe Zu Deutschland!! (Week 5)

Ich Gehe Zu Deutschland!!  Translation....I am going to Germany! Like in 7 days haha. So crazy! This whole MTC time warp thing is trippy! I can't really remember life before this place, yet the past 5 weeks have FLOWN by. I feel like my entire mission is going to be similar. This week has been a stellar week. I got my travel plans! I leave April 24th from salt lake at 11:20am and fly directly to Amsterdam.....that is going to be a killer flight but I am on Delta so that makes it better. I get to Amsterdam the next day at 8am and then its off to Berlin.....25 hours later :). The word on the street is I get there, they give you food, introduce you to your trainer, you leave your bags, and go right out and start street contacting. Yikes! I am so insanely nervous/excited! My P-day this week has been switched to Saturday so I can pack up everything. Cant wait to accommodate for the 20lbs of books they gave us here in the MTC...sike!

Mon: Sadly Laci Tagge left. She has been such a huge help to me throughout my time in the MTC. She is going to be the best missionary to California! We taught Andraus again. He wanted to learn how to pray so we taught him and explained how pray can bless his life. It was a really good lesson. When we returned back to our room for the night we found a paper from our next door neighbors who were are super close to. They made a Easter egg hunt around our building for us, it was a blast! they are all going to Colorado Springs where Christina Gilson is serving right now.

Tues: Taught Herr berg for the first time. He is a lonely old man. He is going to be a tough investigator, but I think he fits the typical German stereotype of just straight grumpy.....woot woot I cant wait for a whole bunch of Herr Berg's here shortly haha.

Wed: Today was a frustrating day in the MTC. The concepts there are trying to teach us are just not sticking in our minds like the teachers would like. But on a happier note, I beat all the boys in a basketball competition haha. My ballin skills are back haha jk. Gym keeps me sane on hard days :).

Thur: We taught Herr Berg again today. This time we had one of the teachers, Brudder Corey, come in to the lesson with us to act like a member. This helped a ton because he could help translate when we needed him to. We also taught Andraus, it went really well. He has been a pretty easy investigator.

Fri: We had a really amazing lesson by one of the teachers about teaching people and not lessons. We need to focus on each individual investigator and our lessons should be centered around their needs. Friday means......TRC! yeyeah! Our first lesson was these 2 old men who were hilarious. They just wanted to tell stories the whole time, which based on our language skills or lack there of, we were totally good with it haha. Our next lesson was a room of 3 RM's. For some reason RM's are more intimidating in the TRC because you know they have been in your exact shoes and they probably are going to critique you more. But.....it went really well. They all commented on how they were impressed with our German skills with only having 5 weeks in here. That made me feel so much better about myself because the German has been killing me off. We ended the night with a really cool activity. Our teacher assigned someone else in our district and you had to prepare a lesson for them; one that you feel like could help them in life right now. Since we are all so close, we all took this really serious. I got paired up with Elder Luening. It was so interesting to see what he felt I needed and how strong the spirit was in the room, because we all were shocked at how spot on our lessons for each other were. It was also a fun way to split up class.

Sat: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!! Saturday was just a stellar day! My German is getting better, sometimes I forget to give myself credit. I understood everything in class and I am getting more and more pumped to get to Germany!!

Sun: I gave 2 talks today and sang in church! Can you say overload haha, but it was a fantastic Sunday!! I know what you are thinking.....she sang?? again?? yes, this place is killing me with how much I have to sing haha. This time all the girls in our branch sang a German hymn for sacrament meeting. It sounded really good.....well I think haha. This week for sacrament meeting we had a visitor, President McIff who is in the MTC Presidency. He got up and gave my headache a break and spoke in English to us. He said a really cool comment about how he was thinking of a church song and the first line is, " I'll go where you want me to go..." and he said that most people don't have a problem with this one. However they do with the second line, "I'll be what you want me to be." At first I thought, he almost has it backwards but the more i thought he was right. The hardest part of my mission has been that I have had to be stuck in happy valley the last 5 weeks.....it has been me trying to embody what being a missionary really means. It has been making all the little changes and truly becoming a messenger of Christ. I feel like this is how it is our day to day lives as well. When we get promptings we often times struggle with them when they require us to change. Change is uncomfortable, but we must push through it and follow what we know we need to. I am about to go through change all over again. Being a missionary in the MTC is very different than being a missionary in Germany. Just when I start to get really comfortable in this place, it is time for me to go on and transport to Germany! But, I know by following this, and becoming what the lord wants me to become, I will be blessed. After sacrament meeting, it was time for the Fireside. M.Russell Ballard came. He was so funny! He made this one comment in reference to the twelve apostles, "We may be a bunch of old guys.....but we are pretty cool!" The whole place was laughing. Not only did he give a great talk, but we had a very special musical number by none other than David Archuletta. Now, those who know me know I am not a huge fan and the whole whoop about him here as been driving me nuts haha. But......he did amazing! Seriously I had chills like 12 different time. Homeboy can sing. It was his last week here so he even got emotional at the end. I think it is awesome he was willing to give up his music career to go on a mission. After the fireside, we got to watch the Testament. It is a super cheesy movie, but awesome too!

 

This week has been the best one I have had here! It was is crazy that things are about to get real so soon here, but I cant wait! I hope you all had amazing weeks! I will be able to receive dearelders all the way up until noon on Monday, letters need to be sent by this Friday.....after that send them to Germany :). Send it to:

Sister Jessica Linford

Germany Berlin Mission

Zerbster Strasse 42

12209 Berlin

Germany

To my family, I cant wait to chat with you while I am at the airport a week from tomorrow. Keep the faith everyone!!

Love you all,  Jess

Two Weeks to Germany!

Halo!! This week has been awesome in the missionary department! It has been filled to the brim with the craziness of German. I seriously have had zero time this week because of all that we have had to do, but it has been awesome. I mean the highlight of my week was definitely not the embarrassing call down to the front desk. I was sick not allowed to leave my room (will discuss later) and I get called down to the front desk. To go to the front desk you have to be in church clothes, so I roll out of bed, get my comp, get dress, and we head off. I get there and told them who I was and the girls at the desk look at each other and said, "Oh.....you are sister Linford. (I knew it was going to bad at that point) Your Mom called and wanted to make sure you got your package. If you could make sure you email her on your P-Day so she isn't so worried." I literally just dropped my head on the desk and muttered something along the lines of, "This has to be a joke!" hahaha it was pretty funny though, but now 16 times a day I get reminded of it from my district. So to my over paranoid loving mother, yes I did get it in time for Easter! Shawty you da best!

Monday- P-day, the best day of the week! I got to take my first nap here at the MTC.....heavenly is the only word needed to describe it! That night we had another appointment with Andraus. My German went really well. It was the first time I felt like I was really able to communicate every principle I wanted to.

Tuesday- Well this wasn't as successful of a day with our other investigator. It was our first time teaching him. We got the information that he set up the appointment with us and he was interested. We went and knocked on his door....yeah he hated us. In fact he slammed the door in our face. Yes, that is a first in the MTC I think....a fake investigator slammed the door in your face haha. We were pretty bummed to say the least. Two minutes later our teacher who is playing the role of our fake investigator came into our class and said okay lets pretend its been two days and try again, so we did. Yep, I hope he got a real kick out of making me smell wood for the second time in a 4 minute period. Looking back on it now its funny and that will happen a lot in Germany so I need to get use to it. But, in the moment I was shocked and never expected that to happen in the MTC. The second time we at least got our testimonies out and schedule another time to come back. Tuesdays are awesome because the last half of your day is spent in a workshop which are always awesome and then a fireside from a General Authority. This week we had Elder Wickman, of the seventy. He did a fantastic job. He taught obedience in a new light. Here in the MTC you get hounded on obedience constantly. Thats all you hear. But he put it in a new way that made me want to comply better. He said that we need to replace the word obedience and think of devotion instead,. Our willingness to follow mission rules isn't obedience, it's your devotion to your serve your mission. Then he asked, "How devoted are you?" It made me and everyone think of it in a very good way.

Wednesday- The schedule on Wednesdays is the worst! We don't have any class in the day and then we just go to 6 hours straight of German until 9:30pm. It gets sooo hard to focus and retain things! We had a lesson on sacrifice though. I have come to realize that I have been very dependent on my scholastic abilities to learn German. Although that we help in school, I am not in school, I am doing a fast-track program in the MTC. I need a lot more help than my brain can offer me by itself. We think of the word sacrifice and it has such a negative connotation. In reality, sacrifice, is giving up something to get something more. It applies to my entire mission and each one of your lives. I have sacrificed a lot to come out on this mission, but I am getting SO much more in return. I realized I need to sacrifice my pride and my thought process that if I work hard enough I will learn the language; I need to give me complete faith and self to the lord and when that happens is when German will come.

Thursday- We had another lesson with Andraus. We weren't planning on talking about the Apostasy but when we got in there he guided the lesson to that. My companion looked scared out of her mind because she didn't know how to say anything about the apostasy in German. I had read about stuff the week before but didn't think I could recall anything. The spirit took over and that was one of the most powerful lesson yet. The spirit helped me find the German.

Friday- Yikes. This was not a fun day. It was the hardest German day we have had so far. Headache is an understatement. I was passing out Excedrin to my district like skittles haha. With the fast-track program the lesson plans that the teachers follow have all been changed and they have to improvise a lot. Somehow in all the chaos, some basic things were skipped over. One of them being....when you are memorizing vocab you HAVE to also memorize the Gender of the word (such as masculine) along with the word or you will be screwed later. Yep, well the whole screwed later part happened on Friday. I have a lot of back tracking to do. On a happier note, we had TRC again. That is where you teach members that speak German. I LOVE it! The pressure is going because you know they can understand even if you do have to use English from time to time. We taught to different lessons. We were assigned to teach on prayer. The first room was an older couple who served in Germany 8 years ago. The most spiritual teaching experience I have ever had happened in that room. I have never felt it that strong. I bore my testimony and said everything I wanted to. It was really neat, everyone including my companion was crying at the end. The second room was two college girls. I love teaching young adults. They were awesome and the spirit that was so strong in the lesson before carried right over to the second lesson. TRC makes my week soooo  much better haha. It is a teaching boost for sure.

Saturday- Well I wasn't really better from getting sick the week before. The MTC is having an outbreak of influenza type A whatever that means. They quarantine you for 5 days if you have it. Yikes! If you have any symptoms at all they send you to get tested and don't let you leave your room for a day. Well since I still had the sniffles....boom I was sent to get tested. At the BYU clinic I ran into Sarah Bilton!! Oh how amazing it was to see someone I know in the real world! That girl is too cute. The rest of my day was spent in  my room going crazy angry at the stupid MTC med people haha.

Sunday- EASTER! The morning started out with an amazing fireside from Boyd K. Packer. He did sooo amazing. I always remember his talk as being more serious, but he was hilarious. We had another fireside that night from the BYU Men's. Sundays are always fun and relaxing.

 

Well this week overall has been really good. My district is somehow getting even closer. My companion is still here haha so that's a plus! We just have security that follows us around now just waiting for her to do one more thing. Its awkward. Thanks for all the prayers, she has needed them. I honestly cant believe I will be in Germany in 2 weeks. I am stoked out of my mind! (Doll house, I better get a letter before I leave!!) This place really does shape you into amazing missionaries. I am loving this experience and wouldn't trade it for anything! Thanks for all the love and support, it's what gets me through! Loves~

Sister Linford

A note from Leslie

Hello Family!

Each week since Jessie has been gone I've sent her a quote for the week.  The one I sent today was too good not to share with all of you!

"In my ninety plus years, I have learned a secret. 

I have learned that when good men and women face

challenges with optimism, things will always work out! 

Truly, things always work out! 

Despite how difficult circumstances may look at the moment,

those who have faith and move forward with a

happy spirit will find that things always work out." 

-Gordon B. Hinckley

I love you all so much,

Leslie

Half way done! Week 3

Can you believe it....I am half way done here in the MTC! That is right, I leave in 3 weeks and 11 hours to start my journey to Germany! Do I feel ready? Absolutely not haha. The MTC has been the most interesting place. It breaks you done, rebuilds you, teaches you, makes you a crazy person, and just about everything else imaginable ha. Even though I really haven't had it all that bad here, I am stoked out of my mind to be head to my people of Germany soon.

Well this week has been rough, but amazing. Haha I think that is an overall theme here! Things with my companion have been pretty rough, but I know we can work through them. Yes it is true, David Archuletta is in the MTC as you saw at conference! He arrived last Wednesday and it has created quite the buzz! To answer some further questions, he is going to Chile and is 4 inches shorter than me ha.

Tuesday- Well we got our second teacher finally! Brother Swenson is an incredible teacher! I connect a lot better with how he teachers than with my first teach brother Zibetti. Tuesday are always a favorite day because only one class and then a fireside! It was a fantastic day! Oh and I also had a 3hr companion talk.....that was fun, sike!

Wednesday- Lexi Damron came! I waited by the elevator for her for like 25min. She looked so cute! We get to see each other all the time because we are on the same floor for both rooming and classroom, which is SUPER rare! I also had the most amazing experience I have had yet here. My companion was very sick on Wednesday as well as another sister so I was on splits all say. Both of them wanted a blessing, so we rounded up our two districts after class. The spirit that was in that room has never been stronger for me. WOW. I finally cracked and cried! Yes, I think my emotional constipated ways set a record of making it 3 weeks before crying, but I finally cracked! It seriously was amazing to see these young boys turn into men right in front of my eyes. The priesthood is real.

Thursday- I was sick all day! The dreading flu/cold that has created quite the epidemic here finally got me. My comp was still out as well as my other 2 roommates. All 4 of us didn't make a peep until 4pm.....seriously. We even had to cancel our 2 appointments with our two new investigators. Missing days in the MTC is not like high school, you do actually want to be there out of genuine concern of what you are missing. Plus its not like you get to watch chick-flicks all day either :(.

Friday- Today was jam packed MTC goodness! Because of conference this weekend we had to fit twice what we normally would do in 1 lesson! It was crazy they were throwing German at us at a record pace. I feel like I kept up though, so all is good! We also got to experience TRC for the first time! This was an awesome experience! We get to teach members that know fluent German and English. It was so nice knowing that we didn't have to stress over every word. Our first group was 3 college girls that go to BYU. We taught them out of Enos and the spirit was seriously so strong. The second was a college aged couple. We taught them about the restoration. It was so nice to teach in Danglish as we call it! (Deutsch and English) It felt amazing to be able to focus just on the spirit. I cant wait until my German gets better and I will be able to feel the way I felt teaching these members. Just as I thought Friday couldn't get any better, my companion made a choice that was not the wisest. It put me in a very awful position. That is the hard part about companionship's....you have a yoke put on you and everything one does, the other feels and has to go through too. It is not my place to go into detail, but it was bad enough that I don't know if my companion will be with me still the next time I write. I ask for your prayers to be with the priesthood authorities that have a very tough decision to make as to the future of S.Bohne as a missionary.

Saturday- After that serious Debbie downer of Friday night haha, conference couldn't have come at a better time! Conference is like freaking Christmas in the MTC! I have never focused harder or enjoyed more. I always watched conference and only found a few talks to be truly applicable to my life. Not this time, every talk was applicable and acting as a teaching moment for me. Yes the weirdness is coming......yikes. After every session of conference you eat and then go on a temple walk or vice-versa depending on your assigned time. It always is nice to leave campus and head to the temple! After two amazing sessions of conference, we had an emergency zone meeting  called. Feelings for an elder and sister developed and so an emergency transfer stuck two elders in our district. As sad as this was my district took this hard. We have become very close and these new comers don't know us well. We all have to be grown ups, and be nice to the new kids :) haha. Our first day of class with them will be tonight!

Sunday- Another day of conference....can i get a woot woot!! After the sessions and yes 2 more temple walks, I met with my Branch President, Pres. Dunn. He was concerned with my well being giving the multiple events of my companion that week. It was amazing to just get to talk to him. Then his wife, came up and gave me a hug, and just wouldn't let go. At first I though, "okay even a lonnng hug would have ended 5 seconds ago...." But then I felt her begin to sob and whisper, "This is from your mom." well freak, that will get just about any missionary.....so yep I cracked for a second time! We just cried together hahaha. See mom, I am a momma's girl after all :)

Well I feel bad that this letter reports not as uplifting of a week as would be expected. The sisters have been having a ton of problems, and that was my biggest fear going in here. haha I don't think our president has ever had to deal with so much as our zone.  And although it has had some incredible tough moments, your love, support, and prayers were felt. I seriously am doing well. I love the work I am able to do here. I love the person I am becoming. And I love that more than any other time in my life, I feel loved. The savior is with me every step of the way here and I know that will continue in Germany. I am honored to be a set apart missionary with the saviors name next to mine across my heart. Keep the letters coming, they truly are such a help here. I love you all!!

Sister Linford

 

Sister Jessica Linford

MTC Mailbox 156

GER-BER 0424

2005 N. 900 E.

Provo, UT 84604-1793