As you are probably aware from earlier entries, Katelyn left on her mission two weeks ago, and as such will not have access to her blog for the next 18 months. So, in an effort to keep you all abreast of her happenings, we (her family) will try to keep this blog updated with the latest and greatest from Hermana Christensen!
Katelyn entered the MTC on Wednesday, October 28th at 12:45 p.m. We actually thought her drop off time was an hour earlier but fortunately we called earlier that morning to ask some last minute questions and were informed that the time had been changed. (Apparently a letter was sent to Katelyn's school address, but it never made it to us...oh well). Kate was anxious to get there and get to work, so she was disappointed about the delay, but we were grateful as it allowed us an additional hour with our daughter.
The Sunday before going to the MTC Katelyn talked at church and did an exceptional job teaching us about having Hope in Christ. It was a great meeting and we were all grateful to be present. Later that afternoon we had an Open House for her and close to 100 friends and family converged on our house to wish Katelyn farewell and good luck. After the Open House, Katelyn was set apart as a missionary and the final countdown began.
Monday was spent driving to Salt Lake...Tuesday was dedicated to final preparations, a trip to the Salt Lake Temple and a family gathering. Wednesday dawned bright and beautiful. We were all well aware of what lie ahead of us in a few short hours, but I must say that there was a sense of peace and rightness to the day. We headed to Provo and the plan was to meet Kate's older brother Riley and her good friend Stephanie at 11:00 and they were going to go with us to drop Kate off at the MTC. When we learned that she wouldn't report for another hour we decided to go to lunch, but Riley had a class at 12:00 so he wasn't able to go with us. : (
As 12:30 rolled around we headed up to the MTC. It used to be that you went inside for a presentation and said your goodbyes inside, and that is how it was when we dropped Riley off at the MTC nearly four years ago. But recently they changed the procedure to "curb-side delivery". As you pull into the MTC parking lot they ask if you are dropping off a missionary, then they direct you around the parking lot to a designated stall where a couple of missionaries are waiting to grab your bags and assist your missionary to the appropriate location. And I must say that I enjoyed it better than the previous time. There is still the sadness associated with saying goodbye, but it reduces the anxiety of waiting. We gave Kate our final hugs and kisses...a few parting words of advise...and watched as she followed her two escorts through the doors of the MTC. We were grateful that Stephanie could be with us as we said our goodbyes to Kate and we are even more grateful that Stephanie could be there for Kate these last couple of years. They are true friends!
Now on to the the MTC. Kate has had a wonderful, rewarding, challenging, exciting, fulfilling, tiring, and spiritually maturing two weeks in the Training Center. The rest of this post will be excerpts from her letters home. You will see her personality coming through in these entries...
"A typical day the MTC starts with personal study at 7:00 AM, followed by breakfast and Companion study. Then we have class. Then lunch at 1:00. After lunch we have more class...then an hour of personal Language Study. After dinner we have gym and then we get to plan and do it all over again. This is a pretty rough idea of how my days go. My teachers are students at BYU so we might have gym right after lunch if they have a class or we might have companion study at night and class in the morning if that is when they can teach...you get the picture."
"Our Spanish lessons are usually done in Spanish, while our teaching techniques and PMG lessons are usually done in English - for now. After week three it will pretty much be spanish all the way. IT IS SO HARD. I am learning alot though. I think your prayers are helping. I go to a Spanish tutor once a week on top of all my other studies and he give me really hard homework. It is a really fun language to speak though. Right now we are learning all about irregualr verbs and past tense and my head is about to explode."
"I LOVE MY TEACHERS! Hermano Jensen is AMAZING! I am not just saying that. I know all the teachers at the MTC are probably really great...but Hermano Jensen is in charge of teaching and training the teachers. He is great. Hermana Tymoschenko is so sweet and nice and really good at helping us with our Spanish. Eighteen hours a day studing might seem like it would make you want to kill yourself, but I like it. We keep it interesting."
"The food is...yeah welll...I will just leave it at that! : D It is actually not so bad. They have yummy wraps and good soup and salads and fruit and toast and most of the meals are not so bad. We have gym for 50 minutes everyday. Mostly I either walk on the track or play volleyball. If it is nice I get to go outside and play BEACH volleyball. I LOVE IT! AND THIS JUST IN: I am REALLY good at Volleyball. I am ALWAYS picked first. The elders make it pretty easy to look good I guess."
"STORY TIME! Every Tuesday we have a devotional. This week Elder Rasband from the Presidency of the Seventy came. He Spoke on being a bold missionary. He had a bunch of mics set up and asked if he could have a few volunteers to read some scriptures. A few elders got up and I thought..."I am right by the mic and I gotta represent the Sistas!" SO I DID. A couple of elders read some scriptures and He said thank you and they sat down. Along comes my turn. I read the scipture. Everything is good. Suddenly he pauses, and I am like OH NO. He says : What is your name, Sister? I told him I was Hermana Christensen. He asked where I was serving. I told him Houston, Texas. He then proceeded to ask me a series of Questions about being bold and brave and what that had to do with missionary work. He did not ask anyone else. My face was on the big old screen. I WAS FAMOUS. Everyone knew me. That WOULD happen to me."
"We have to teach the first lesson in Spanish in a week and we all practiced it for the first time the other day. FAIL! EPIC FAIL! I just don't see how any amount of preparation could compensate for speaking english natively. I dont see how I am ever going to teach the people as well as I could in English. I love the languguage. It was awesome to learn Spanish. I just hope that I will be able to teach the people of Houston. I am doing really well though. I am reading and reading a TON of Spanish from Preach my Gospel everynight so that I can get a feel for it and I think that it is helping. We also get to listen to conference talks in Spanish, which is really fun. Did you know Elder Scott actually Speaks Spanish?"
"Thank you so much much for all the letters and all of the updates from home. I get so excited when I get mail. I wait impatiently as my district leader unzips the mail bag each night, my heart beats faster as he walks towards me with the stack of letters...then I hear the best three words in the world...I HAVE MAIL...FROM YOU! Please note the clever movie reference (You've got mail) THANK YOU."
Well, that should be enough updates for now. We will post more pictures and updates in the coming weeks and months. She leaves for Houston December 30th so she will be in the MTC for Thanksgiving and Christmas. If you are interested in dropping Hermana Christensen a line I know she would love it. Her MTC mailing address is as follows:
Katelyn Michael Christensen
MTC Mailbox # 274
TX-HOU 1230
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793
Thank you for all of your prayers and support for our daughter. We look forward to these next 18 months.
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