April 25

WOW!!!!!!

That was a whole bunch of surprises to open the email to! I can't beleive ANY OF IT! My mind is seriously blown!

GIL AND SJ!!! CONGRATULATIONS! I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU!!!!!!! SO SO SO SO SO SO HAPPY! JUST IMAGINE MY EXCITEMENT JUMPING UP AND DOWN AND SCREAMING!!!! This is just the greatest thing. I can't wait to hear more including every single detail of everything! wow! When is the date?????????

Wow okay so this week has been a changer for me. Unlike last week I think I could be ready to get out of here. I still love the MTC don't get me wrong but you have to go to earth sometime. I'm still trying to learn as much as I can here but I can't wait to get out to the field and learn more. My focus kind of shifted this week from the lessons and spanish to other gospel and charity. I was able to focus more on my campanion and the people around me instead of feeling like I had so much to learn for myself. But in all honesty I probably learned more this week than ever. We lost one of our investigators as well as one of our teachers, Hermano Molinaro, which really broke a heart string because he was amazing. He will be very much missed. Very very very much, he was supposed to send us off! He really changed my life so it was hard to see him go. Plus he told us in the last 10 min of class that he was leaving in the morning! excuse me!! totally not okay.  but we get a new teacher tonight and he's great as well, Hermano Osler. I am excited to get to know him better. Luckily our other teacher is staying. I told my hermanas that if he leaves too than I don't see why we can't leave either and that I was just going to go to the airport and hop on a plane to chile myself. There's only so many people to baptize here at the MTC-- meaning NONE. Time to fly away. Speaking of breaking free my bird necklace with the cage just completely fell apart. I think it's a sign.

Yesterday we were able to skype with a lady in mexico and teach her a lesson. That was great except my head phones weren't working very well so when she started crying I didn't know if it was something that we said or did wrong or if she was sad that we couldn't understand what she was saying.

There is an Elder here that reminds me of Trent, it's really funny. He told us to go smell this tree that smells like cream soda... ya we didn't beleive him at first... but eventually we had to smell the tree so we did it at night when no one could see us cause you have to get really close to the tree to smell it--- and you wouldn't beleive it. It really does smell like cream soda!!!! WOW!

Also I found I have trained my companion very well during conference for when the BYU men's chorus came to sing and the camera rolled across their faces to a guy with a beard she promptly exclaimed "Diversity!"

I noticed I don't think I've been signing off my letters. I guess cause I wouldn't do that if was just talking or something but in any case, I love you all so much and think about you all the time!

Faith is Knowing the Sun will Rise,

Hermana VandeMerwe