Donde estan los maestros??

Hi everyone!! 

Week THREE down in the MTC!! That means I'm halfway through! Crazy how fast it's gone. This week was PACKED. I love my district because while we have fun, we are good at feeling the spirit and being serious when we need to be. Because of that, we're learning a lot, and not going crazy. But it also means I have some pretty funny stories.

Things that made me laugh:

• We have a new teacher, since Hermana Gonzalez left (first lost teacher), and his name is Juan. He has two last names, but we haven't quite figured out which one he wants to be called, so we call him Juan. He started the first day off with a bang. On Monday, we all showed up at his zoom class at 8am, when it's supposed to start, and he didn't come on to start the meeting for 15 minutes. When he finally showed up, he seemed a little confused about how he even got there, but he got into teaching. About an hour into class, he simply disappeared. It was just the 12 missionaries in our district with no teacher. For like 45 minutes. So that makes Juan our second lost teacher. Chaos ensued and we just hung out for that time, trying to figure out where he went. We made a beautiful drawing in the meantime of Elder Baller (his name is Buhler but all the teachers call him Elder Baller) crowdsurfing. Our best work yet. When he came back, he told us there was a power outage because of the hurricane. And then he just kept teaching. Enduring to the end at it's finest. Good job Juan.

• On the same day, Juan told us that we needed to teach a lesson to a guy named Leonardo, who was a non-member. So we all scrambled to prepare a lesson, but turns out Leonardo is just Juan in a coat and hat and sunglasses. Leonardo has come back many times since Monday, and we all love having him around. 

• Our third lost teacher happened on Wednesday. Hermano Martinez, the one who's been with us since the beginning, was having issues with the internet or something, so he sent us to a different zoom to join another district. That was chaos from the beginning, and Hermano Martinez probably won't send us back with that group. Woops. It was fun while it lasted though, and it made me ever so grateful for my district who actually pays attention in class more than 2% of the time, which is more than I can say for some other districts. The teacher also made us repeat phrases back to her, all unmuted at the same time, which on a zoom call is about as chaotic as you can imagine. I'm positive she had no idea if anyone was saying it right. 

• We started a band!! I showed some of the elders in my district my talent of playing the ukulele with a plastic hanger. (Think: holding a ukulele like a violin, and hitting the strings where you usually strum it with the hanger. Pretty effective) Anyway, Elder Davis figured out how to do it on his guitar, and by Thursday, half of the district at one point had all the ukuleles and guitars out playing. We're pretty talented if I do say so myself. 

• Me and Hermana Utley are still reading the Book of Mormon, which has been amazing. We're also finding ways to make it pretty entertaining by asking the important questions. Such as, when Zoram was coming back with Nephi, do you think Nephi was like, "Sorry we worried you mom, we brought you a souvenir! A new son!" Or, when the servants of Lamoni were bringing back the arms to the king, were they holding the hands of those arms? Or when Alma and the sons of Mosiah met back up again, do you think Alma was like "Aaron? Ammon? Omner? Himni? From High School??" And then Himni was like yeah bro, do you remember that dumb thing we did senior year when we tried to lead away a whole generation, that was a great senior prank bro. 

• Hermana Utley and I found out on your mission you can't call anyone bro or dude or anything like that. Which has been a struggle and a trial in our lives. However, we've fixed that by calling each other Herm. Short for Hermana. Half of our texts start with "HERM GUESS WHAT" or "herm I'm not gonna make it through this class send help" 

Milagritos (mini miracles):

• This is on my list every week, but it never ceases to amaze me how real the gift of tongues is. I am learning dozens of new things every day, and my spanish is improving. In the last few days, I have been able to understand the Book of Mormon in Spanish way better. It definitely is crazy hard, and it takes me like an hour to read two pages, constantly looking at the english one to make sure my translations in my head are right, but I understand so much more than I used to.

• Me and Hermana Utley taught two pretty good lessons in Spanish this week! We taught one lesson about coming unto Christ (venir a Cristo) to two of Hermano Martinez's friends, and I think it went pretty well! They seemed to understand us and they participated well, and were very kind about our broken Spanish. The other one was a 20 minute lesson for the whole district, about the Gift of the Holy Ghost (el Don del Espiritu Santo) and enduring to the end (perseverar hasta el fin). I felt pretty good about it! There are for sure ups and downs, but soon we'll be able to knock out a lesson on the fly, which is pretty cool.

• I am seriously loving the Gospel. I've always loved it, but somehow every single thing I learn is making me love it more. And I'm learning a lot. So I'm loving it a lot. 

Anyway, that is about it for the week! Sorry it was pretty long, but it was a pretty good week! As always, I love each and every one of you, and thank you so much for all the support!! 

- Hermana Allen