I am in fact alive!

My name tag!

So everyone has different P-days (preparation days) here I guess depending on which branch you're in, so mine are on Fridays.  We went to the temple this morning and now we're wearing pants!!!!  It feels so good because honestly it is so cold here.

At the Provo Temple with my companion

After Nathan dropped me off on Wednesday, I got checked in and had lunch since I got there before the noon crowd.  I got to meet my district and my companion that day.  My companion's name is Hermana Davenport and she's going to the same mission as me.  She actually was supposed to go the Mexico MTC as well, but is in the same boat as me as far as visas go.  We have a really large district and the sisters way outnumber the elders.  There are twelve of us, with four sister companionships and two elder companionships.  It was confusing trying to find my companion at first because her twin sister showed up to our classroom first.  So yes, we have twin sisters in our district!  Everyone else in the district is going to the Bolivia Santa Cruz mission, and all of them had their MTC assignment switched from Peru to Colombia to Provo.  So my companion and her sister had different missions and different MTCs but the same reporting date, and both got transferred to Provo in the same district.  Pretty neat.

Hermanas Iverson & Davenport

Hermana Davenport is from Idaho right outside of Rexburg.  Her grandparents own some apartments in Rexburg, right across the street from the stadium. She was working there over the summer to clean them for the new residents.  I thought that was really funny because I lived literally around the corner just a block away.  She just turned 19 a month ago and she and her sister just graduated this May.  She'll be going to BYU-I when she gets back, since she won't have to pay for housing if she lives at her grandparents' apartments and she has a full tuition scholarship I think (?) so she'd basically be going to school for free.  Crazy.  But yeah, we get along really well.  I really like her a lot.  We actually stayed up late talking about ourselves last night.  Fun stuff. :)

My district

My room mates

I really love my companion and everyone in my district.  We've only been here for about 2-3 days but we all get along really, really well.  It's hard to remember to not say "guys" or "girls" but rather "elders" and "sisters" (or hermanas).  The other companionship that we share a room with both have zero Spanish skills.  One took French in high school and the other ASL.  We've been trying to help them learn the basics, especially since we teach an "investigator" in Spanish tonight!

You may have heard rumors about the MTC food being not that great........true.  It's all true.  You get over it really fast.  And they have dinner at 4:40!  Where is the sense in that?  We don't go to bed for another six hours, and by then you're hungry again!  So now we have to find ways to save treats for later when we're back in our residence.

We've had some classes here so far and a couple really neat workshops.  Our first night they had this teaching exercise where these actors came and pretended to be these investigators that we were teaching and as a group we worked together to think of questions and ways to help teach them.  It was really really cool and very helpful.  

Oh btw I have been so exhausted.  I only got about 15 minutes of sleep Tuesday night before we left, so by the time I actually got the MTC six hours later, I was ready for my nap.  Longest.  Day.  Ever.  This place is a time warp.  It's impossible how long the days are here.

Oh, I found someone here who was in my SOAR session!  I got to say hi to her and she recognized me after a minute (I didn't have short hair when I met her).  It was really exciting to find someone I knew.  Do you know of anyone else we might know who might be in the Provo MTC right now?  Because I can't think of anyone.

Well another thing to get used to is people calling me Sister Iverson.  So weird.  I keep thinking "uhhh that's my mom's name" haha

Yeah, so I'm really enjoying it here (except for how cold it is; it's annoying too because the elders will turn the A/C up in the classrooms because they're so warm, but then all the sisters will be freezing and trying to turn the heat up; it's a constant battle)!  My branch president said that in his experience if a missionary is assigned here they generally don't switch them to another MTC, so there's a good chance I'll just be here for all six weeks.  I kind of hope so now because I really like it here.  I LOVE my district.  I'm just really cold is all.

Well, I don't really have anything else to talk about.  It's been hard to be away from my phone and my computer mostly only because I kept wanting to text you or send you pictures like "look what's going on now!"  (also because I can't check the weather for the next day--not liking that)  I'm glad I'm here and I haven't regretted or doubted my decision to serve yet.  I love you all so much and I'll write more next Friday.

Te amo, 

Hermana Iverson