HEJ venner og familie!
First P-day in the MTC, whoot whoot... anyway, My companion is Sister Petersen, the one that I went to San Francisco with!! She is so peppy and so cute and man, she keeps me going! Sister Acosta, the sister from Spain, left on Monday and I miss her so much. She is 27 and is SO COOL. she spoke no English or Danish before coming here and learned both. Talk about dedication! I miss having her in our little trio. The other 3 sisters in our district are also incredible. Sister MacDonald is from Oceanside, Cali and is tall, dark, and half Samoan and is super chill. Sister Whitlock is from Gilbert Arizona and reminds me a LOT of Hannah, she's just happy go lucky and friends with everyone. Super blonde, blue eyes, super cute. Sister Player though, might be my favorite. She's from Roseville, California. She is a little Asian (meaning partially Asian because her mom is this tiny little Asian lady) but SHE IS A BEAST. Her dad is one of the top 10 Ironman competitors IN THE WORLD, and she has done 15 Ironmans in the last 5 years. 15!!!!! She was supposed to pick up his sponsors but she chose to come on a mission instead. She rides a legit motorcycle to school, she loves to read and she loves Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and has a keychain with Elvish written on it. ALSO she loves hedgehogs too. She almost cried when I showed her my hedgehog adventure socks, haha. The 5 of us have gotten so insanely close in the last 8 days, and they are already like my family. We talk about everything, we struggle through danish together, and I honestly couldn't have asked for a better district. Elder Smith is like our little brother. He is a solo missionary and is companions with an elder in our zone, Vanhin Sisco, who is going to Finland. the two of them are so funny, I'll have to write more about them later, but they crack me up. Vanhin takes forever to go anywhere, so Smithy has to follow him around herding him. I love them a lot too.
So Danish is hard. I'm so grateful that Conner taught me what he did, because otherwise I would be totally and completely hopeless, haha. I'm only slightly above that as it is, but the hardest part of any day is when we meet with our investigator Mads and teach him in Danish. You all know me, I have sooo many words to say, but the only ones that I can say in Danish are "kage" (cake) and "Øde Ø" (the title of one of my favorite danish songs). Soooo needless to say, lessons are a little rough sometimes.... The good news is, I can pray and I can bear my testimony, so after we confuse the heck out of him, we just smile pretty, bear our testimony, pray, and RUN. All I can say is that I have REALLY had to learn how to rely on the Spirit, because the only reason Mads understands what we say is because its not us doing the teaching. the spirit is so strong everywhere we go, especially at the temple. It is truly amazing. Oh what a life....
People always told me the MTC food is gross but I like it. I haven't even been eating ice cream (a true miracle, I know). We eat dinner at about 4:30 so I'm always starving at night. For a couple nights, I used my tiny pocketknife to peel mangoes that mom sent and then I would walk around sharing it with people and so one of the Norwegian sisters nicknamed me 'mange mango'. So now I'm the mango girl. Sister player cleaned out a random dirty tupperware so that I could cut my mango into it... I seriously love her so much. Little Sister Peterson is a hoot during Gym time. She is about the size of my left pinky finger and always proclaims her hatred of working out but she's so happy while she's doing it! It's like Gizelle from Enchanted, who gets excited when she realizes she's angry. "OO, I hate working out! oh! I'm angry, hehe".... Sister Player has been whopping us into shape. She was a personal trainer at home, so she knows what she's doing... we all hurt. all the time. My arms are so tired today that I have to take breaks when I'm typing because it hurts. She will not let me get fat, no sirree.
Anyway, I have lots of time to write actual letters, so people, PLEASE SEND ME YOUR ADDRESSES! Even if you don't know if I'd want to write you, please still send them to me because at least 4 times a day I wish I could write a letter to someone to tell them a story and then I remember that I don't have their address and so I can't! please please please either write me or email me so I can have it. I miss all of you like crazy, but sorry, I wouldn't trade what I'm doing right now for all the friends in the world! I miss you all and I love you so much - I hope to hear from lots of you soon!
Talk to you soon,
Søster Ludlow
