Sunday, January 2, 2011

Jamie's Letter Dec 31st, 2010

Merry Christmas/Happy New Years now
HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMILY!!!!
How is everyone? I'm glad you are able to be down to Cedar City right now. I'm gonna try to make this email make some sense...

Christmas was great! It definitely was different than ones that I'm used to, but it was one that I'll always remember. On Christmas Eve, we had a devotional where the MTC presidency spoke. It was good. The highlight though was definitely getting to watch Mr. Krueger's Christmas afterwards. They had a bag of popcorn for everyone too!! That was so much fun. I had forgotten how much I loved that movie. Afterwards, we went back to our residence halls. I opened my pajamas, and I loved them! So cute! I'll have to send pictures! I don't know if I"ll get pictures printed off before I leave, but I'll try and see what I can do. The bookstore is closed today (I don't know why...they were open Christmas Eve). We had a sleepover with the other hnas in our zone in our room. We pulled mattresses in and they slept on our floor. I loved it! We had so much fun until 10:15, when we had to be quiet, and then we partied it up silently until 10:30. I know! I was afraid that Santa might not come because we had stayed up so late.

Christmas morning was good. We had a tiny little Christmas tree made of cardboard that we put our presents around. We sat there in our pajamas and opened our Christmas presents. I love them! Thank you so much for all of your presents! I'm hoping that I"ll be able to take them all to Peru, but I probably will end up sending some back. I'm not quite sure what I'll send yet. We'll have to see what I can take/what I need. I'll spend a lot of Monday and Tuesday packing. I'll send you my flight plans, but right now I'm on Delta flight 1912 to Atlanta. My flight leaves at 11:01 am on Jan 5th. We leave Atlanta for Lima at 5:15 (so my layover isn't very long at all)...and I'm supposed to get to Lima at 11:55 pm, Lima time (whatever time that is here....probably like almost 10 here). From there, I'm not exactly sure what will happen. I've heard that I'll spend the night at the Peru MTC and then fly to my mission the next day. I'm so excited to get to my mission.

Anywho, random tangent. Back to Christmas! After we opened all our presents, we went to the MTC Talent show. It was pretty epic. It was 2 1/2 hour show, so it was kind of long, but it was a lot of fun. Then we had Christmas dinner (which was pretty much the same as Thanksgiving dinner). Afterwards, we had a devotional, where Elder Russell M Nelson came and spoke to us. It was really good. Then we went back and had sack dinner in our residence halls (which meant that I ate more of my goodies than the cold gross turkey sandwich that had been sitting out for 2 hours...) Then we had a fireside, where they had 2 men reenact the Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. It was really fun! It was a different day than one that I'm used to, but I loved it.

I'm glad you can be there for Grandpa. I love that we have this gospel, and that we know that this isn't the end. I've been teaching about the Plan of Salvation all the time here. I know that there is life after death, and that because we have taken advantage of the blessings of the temple, we will be able to see each other again. That's so comforting.

So my Spanish is coming along fairly well. I feel like I'm to the point where I can understand MTC Spanish and carry on a conversation in Espanol. I love it. It is such an awesome language. And I know that Lord has been helping me so much, I know. That's the only way I know that I've learned so much Spanish so quickly. If I'm talking to a native spanish speaker though, I'm not quite as confident. I'll probably be extremely humbled when I get to Peru. I'm so grateful for the time that I've been able to spend here. I haven't heard of anyone else whose mission is in Peru not going to the Peru MTC. I know that I'm supposed to be here right now, and that this is where the Lord needs me. And I love it. I love the people I've gotten to know here. 2 of my elders, Eld Harris & Eld Wolfe, leave for North Carolina on Monday. The rest of my elders are probably being reassigned to somewhere in Utah/Idaho/Colorado. They are supposed to go to Mexico, but they don't have their visas yet. I'm excited for all of us to head out and teach the Gospel. It's awesome.

I love this Gospel. And I'll talk to you on Wednesday!!!
I love you!
Hermana Williams

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