Katie sent some more pictures from her MTC days along with

her first email from Vienna earlier this week, so I'm going 

to add them here. 

This huge map is on the wall at the MTC.  I've seen lots of pictures

of groups of missionaries pointing to where they will be serving.

In this case, Katie and her roommates are all pointing to where they are from!

Two from Utah, one from Scotland and two from Finland!

Katie and her companions with their two main teachers at the MTC.

On the left is Brother Hill, and on the right, 

Katie and "her Scottish Sisters"....

Sister Couper and Sister McEwen

With her friend from Jerusalem, Sister 

and finally...a few random pictures from her

MTC room which she shared with 4 other girls.

I asked for these ... a mom wants to 

know everything.

MTC Wednesday Letter - "Oh Mensch" - July 17, 2013

The MTC Roomies

These are the fabulous girls that share a room at the MTC with Katie....from the left....Sister Zina McEwen from Edinburg, Scotland, Sister Maatta from Finland, Sister Aliisa Kervinen from Finland, our Kate, and Sister Packer from Lindon, Utah.

Dear Family, I have now been in the MTC for over five weeks!  Almost every day goes faster than the last. Class definitely goes faster and I think it's mostly because I can understand what they're saying now! When I fly to Germany in less than a week I will be back to understanding virtually nothing My German is infinitely better than when I got here, but I still have a loooooong ways to go. I feel like 6 weeks in the MTC is about right. I wanted this long but I think in about a week I will have learned just about everything I can from the MTC and it will be time for the next step

So we have been working on the invitation to baptism in PMG, all of D&C 4, unser ziel (our purpose), and the erste vision (first vision) auf Deutsch. So the picture of me writing on the board is of me working on memorizing verse 4 of D&C 4.

Okay soooo . . . we have amazing experiences. We have the best devos (FYI – Devotionals – talks given by invited speakers) ! So on the 9th L. Lionel Kendrick (an emeritus 70) gave our devo. So last Tuesday. All of the devos are so good but at the end of this one he said he felt impressed to give us all a special priesthood blessing. He blessed us that we might have the Spirit with us always (which is what his talk was about). He also blessed us with understanding and that our knowledge may be quickened. He blessed us that those of us who are learning a language will be able to master the language quickly. He blessed us that we might have fond remembrance of the truths we have learned, and instant recall of these truths when we need them. Cool, huh?! That was so cool to me. We also heard from Sister Susan Easton Black and her husband once. 

FYI – Priesthood Blessings – In the LDS church, the Priesthood refers to power bestowed on man to speak on behalf of the Lord.  A Priesthood blessing is a special blessing where an individual who holds the Priesthood typically lays there hand on the head of the individual being blessed and offers a special prayer.  With the associated faith of the individual(s) being blessed, a blessing can have a powerful impact.  Someone might ask for a blessing when they are facing illness, discouragement, a big decision, a life-changing event etc.  Giving such a blessing is taken very seriously by the individual speaking, because their desire is to understand what the Lord would have them say, which is not always a match with what they WISH they could bless someone with.

Yesterday our devo was from Richard G. Hinckley. I sang in the choir again and we sang an amazing arrangement of "Nearer my God to Thee." The MTC choir director is incredible. Singing under his direction is so fun and spiritual. That reminds me that I LOVE what Chase said about what Marcus told him. Something like, "Have you ever been to Priesthood Session and NOT laughed?" That really is what I think the gospel should be like. Anyway did you know that the song "Nearer my God to Thee" is actually about Jacob? And when he had to leave because Esau wanted to kill him because Jacob got the birthright? He had a dream in which he received his endowment. "Steps unto Heaven," get it? But if you look at the lyrics everything fits. He was sleeping on a rock. You'll see that in the song. But he gave a wonderful talk that was especially special to our branch because he talked a lot about one of our own sisters, Sister Hilakari’s, older brother. He talked about an Elder Hilakari who was in his Salt Lake City South mission (I think that's right) when Elder Hinckley was the mission president. He told a story about this elder working with the area book 10 years ago and about how when he met up with him at the Helsinki temple dedication he asked him how he pulled it off. It was really special for Sister Hilakari. After the devo she went up to him and told him she was his little sister. After that he had us all sit back down again and he said that Elder Hilakari's little sister was there and that she was going to the Alpine German-Speaking Mission and that if she was half the missionary her brother was she would be the best missionary ever. Or something like that. Cool, huh?

These are the missionaries in her "district".  

Katie and a friend from Orem High, Sister McNeil, who is going to Chili

There's a lot of studying that goes on at the MTC! 

Katie and her "dear Sister McEwen" from Edinborough
Hmmm.... girls will be girls.....they seem to have traded clothes.

Okay quote of the week. "Oh mench." That's basically like "Oh man." We say it all the time. Bruder Hill started it.

One of my funniest insights has been that two of Santa's reindeer are named Thunder and Lightning. 

Who knew Donner and Blitzen were so menacing?

I love you all! Thank you for all of the support! The next time I email you I'll be in Europe!! What?!

MTC Wednesday Letter - "Piep piep piep, wir haben uns alle lieb Guten Appetit." July 10, 2013

Fammmilllyyyy!! Where to start. Maybe with one of my funniest stories. So we do this thing called TRC (Teaching Recourse Center) where members who speak German come and we go share a message with them. It's more low-key than our investigators and we think it's so fun. So last time at TRC we taught this really nice man and we had all just been chatting so he knew where we were all from and right after I read a scripture he said, "You speak German with a Finnish accent." Ha ha ha ha ha ha. It makes sense since I'm with Sister Kervinen all day every day! So you're right Daddy, I am a mimic! Only I seem to be mimicking the wrong thing. Hopefully my accent will improve once I get to GERMANY IN TWO WEEKS! Ah life is good.

Oh so you asked about what Sister Packer was talking about with the dress stuff. The time she asked me to change was when I wore my spandex pants to work out in (ha ha bad move). And I could totally understand that so there was no drama. I'm keeping them though in case I want to wear them in the winter under shorts when I'm working out. The dress that I've decided is just barely too short is the Boden one with solid gray on top and stripes on the bottom. So I'll send it home and it will be fun to wear when I get back.
 
Letters, letters, letters. Maybe this will make it sound like I'm getting tons of letters and people will be less inclined to write me. That is NOT what I want to happen! But I want to say THANK YOU! Thank you to Marilyn, James, Grandma, Aunt Janie, Uncle Randal, Mikkel, Brother Syd, Collin, Ciarah, Phil, Sister Williamson, Jesse, Tara, Bella, Joe, Lindsey, Mommy, and Daddy for the letters/Dear Elders. And thank you to Chelsea, Court, and Aunt Brenda for the emails. And thank you to Sister Williamson, the Harknesses, and Mom for the packages!

The first day of my mission I wondered what I was going to do with all of this study time. What exactly would I spend all this time studying? Now I feel like there are not enough hours in the day to study. Most of my study is focused on my untersuchers (investigators). We normally teach zwei untersuchers jeden tag. Oh look at that. I speak German. Well not quite. But seriously that kind of just came out. Zwei untersuchers jeden tag=two investigators every day. I'm getting good at Danglish. Deustch is another matter. But it's coming. Slowly but surely. But I feel like we have so much to do to prepare to teach our investigators. And our lessons have been going well. They have both committed to prepare for baptism. Our companionship is becoming a better and better team.

FYI - In the MTC there are volunteers from the community who come to the MTC to serve as "investigators", the term used to describe individuals who are investigating the church.  Many of them are returned missionaries who speak the language.  This is obviously great practice for the missionary in the MTC to practice conversations of a spiritual nature.  

FYI - In our faith, baptism is an important covenant we make with our Heavenly Father.  We baptize by immersion.  Babies in our faith are not baptized as infants because we believe a child enters the world pure and without sin and is in fact incapable of sin because they are in an age of innocence.  A baby is given a special blessing, and we believe that 8 is the "age of accountability" when a child can make the decision to be baptized. 
 

My Spanish is being replaced with German. The other day when I tried to formulate a sentence in Spanish I was struggling. One of my teachers, Brüder Hill (who is AMAZING), studied Spanish before he went on his mission to Germany so he understands what I'm saying when a Spanish word comes out. The other day he explained to me the difference kennen and wissen by relating them to conocer and saber. Brilliant. And he avoids speaking English at all costs so sometimes he explains to me what a word means by saying it in Spanish.

So one time we had a fire drill because someone pulled the fire alarm just for fun at 6:30 am. So it was just like an extra loud alarm because that is when we get up every day except we had to leave the building and stay outside for a while. But I didn't think a SISTER missionary would do that. I have been very impressed with how cute the sister missionaries are dressing. ASOS didn't let us down. At the same time I sometimes wonder why it's so hard for us to follow the dress code (It said no denim and no see-thru. Can you read?). Seriously though, there are so many cute sisters.

FYI - in October of 2012 it was announced that young women could now apply to become missionaries at the age of 19 and young men at the age of 18.  Previously young men could go at 19 and young women not until 21.  After the age of eligibility changed, the number of young people volunteering to serve a mission skyrocketed, especially among girls.  So now there are MANY more young women serving missions than ever before.  In addition, up until a few years ago (I don't remember exactly when) the dress guidelines for female missionaries were much more conservative than they are now.  Typically they wore longer skirts and solid colors etc.  But now they are encouraged to maintain standards of modesty while embracing color, pattern and style in a way that fits their own personality and the culture where they are serving.  So, as girls will be girls, shopping for missionary clothes has become a topic of interest and conversation among girls serving missions.  

Wanna hear another funny story? One time the elders in my district were teaching an investigator about the kingdoms of glory and they said "Dritte Reich." Afterwards in class our teacher, who was the investigator (well Brüder Hill - I guess you know who he is now), explained that if you're going to say "Dritte Reich" you have to make sure that you say "Dritte Reich der Herrlichkeit." Ha ha ha ha ha. Germans are pretty sensitive to "Dritte Reich."  

The quote this week is  "Piep piep piep, wir haben uns alle lieb Guten Appetit." (Christie's translation of this is " Piep, piep piet, all of us that we love have a good appetite" in a rhyme.)  We say that every day when we leave class to go to lunch.

The Fourth of July was fun! We had a special fireside and then watched 17 Miracles. And then they had Magnum Bars and people watched fireworks. I say people because me and my companions actually did not. We were soooooo tired that we went upstairs and started getting ready for bed. We were still in bed late. But I have watched the Stadium of Fire fireworks show probably 15 times in my life so it wasn't a big deal to miss it.

Love you family!! Thanks for your prayers and support!

Companionship Update !

Okay, I just thought it was a treat to read about Katie from the blog kept for one of her companions.  Since this is posted on the internet for all to read, I think it is okay that I repost!  

from one letter - "Sister Lewis is a GEM.  So I mentioned that I was made the Sister Training Leader day 3 right?  All sisters should, but I check girls clothes and will remind them if it's not quite modest (see FYI below).  I told Sister Lewis once and she immediately went and changed.  ZERO drama.  Then today she went through her clothes and said, "Hey what do you think was too short that I should send home?"  Um OH-kay.  Gem.  She's had a harder time with German and tends to spout little Spanish words every now and then haha but she's a hoot and keeps us all laughing."

Remember Katie's letter about companionship issues?  Well, this is from another letter of the same companion - "I have two comps like I said earlier, Sister Lewis (from Orem) and Sister Kirvenen (from Finland).  Me and Sister Kirvenen were NOT the best of friends after a week.  Last Thursday was the peak of it and I KNOW it was divine help to have a third companion added before this happened haha." (Katie had mentioned that she was able to have a really positive impact on them resolving some of their differences and felt that she has been added to their companionship for a purpose).

FYI on Modesty - I just have to explain the "skirt check" referred to above.  We believe that modesty in dress is important because our bodies are a great gift from Heavenly Father and should be treated with respect. Being modest in dress is also a reminder that to be a disciple of Christ we are called to be "part of the world, but not of the world", meaning that we don't always follow every cultural whim of media, dress etc.  You will rarely see an LDS adult woman, or even young woman, wearing a sleeveless or shoulderless top or short-short dress or shorts unless they are in workout clothes or swimming.  As missionaries, men have their standard of dress and the women do as well.  For women, missionary standard means your skirt covers your knees when you are sitting.  Hmmm....I thought we had checked all that pretty carefully!  So I'm curious as to what didn't pass standard!  But it sounds like her companion was pleasantly surprised that Katie didn't give her any guff about her feedback! 

Below is a picture my friend and neighbor Jackie Williamson sent me.  Her son and Katie's friend, Chase, entered the MTC a week after Katie. He is going to serve in Korea and he sent this picture to his mom.  

Thanks for sending it on to me Jackie!

MTC Wednesday Letter- July 3, 2013 "That's why they say "damit" all the time!"

Dear Family! 

Thank you to my dear family for my packages and also to the rockstar Harknesses who have sent me two packages! And thanks to the Blacks for their cute package and to the Johnsons for their package. It had notes from some of neighbor kids and a note from my dear friend Ben Barton.

WOW! I leave 3 weeks from yesterday!! Mom thank you so so so much for the package! Ah it was the best package I ever got. Thank you!! I loved the pictures. Thank you, thank you! I've been showing everyone.  You guys are too good. Such cute parents. I loved being the bearer of people's favorite treats. They were so grateful.

Well this emailing about my entire week thing is rough. I don't know what to say! I'm in the MTC. I study, teach, eat, work out (not enough), go to class, go to awesome firesides, go to district meetings, laugh a lot, speak German . . . what else? Sometimes I sleep. So part of the reason I have trouble sleeping is the time when I am in bed is really the only time I have to think and process and reflect. So I get too caught up in my thoughts and I don't fall asleep right away. Sometimes I shower. Ha ha I don't know! 

I've been thinking about how much I'm going to miss the firesides though. We have one every Sunday and Tuesday night. The Sunday ones we still have in the gym and they're broadcast to the west campus. (Except one time it was at the west campus and it was broadcast to us. The was the first time they had ever done that and they acted like it was a major historic event.) The Tuesday ones we have at the Marriott Center with everyone. I like that we have to walk to the Marriott Center because it means I get to walk more. Except it has been hot! Those poor elders in their suits. On Sunday in Relief Society (see FYI below) we heard from Sheri Dew! Obviously a major treat. She blows me away with how well she knows the scriptures. 

On Sunday we heard from President Robert Swenson who does something at the MTC and is going to the president of an MTC in Brazil. On Tuesday we heard from Matthew Richardson, who is the second counselor in the general Sunday School presidency. A cool thing that we do after Tuesday devotionals is meet with our district and talk about the devotional and share our thoughts.

Fun fact. Every week for Sunday we have to write a talk. It only has to be five minutes, but it has to be auf Deustch. So every week you have to have a talk prepared and then when you get to Sacrament Meeting they announce which missionaries will be giving talks that day. And then there's been speakers from the branch presidency after that. And their wives. But halleluia this Sunday is Fast Sunday.

So I love my teachesr. Shout out to Matt Duffy, my bff's fiance. I always think about how awesome of an MTC teacher you must have been. You're perfect for it. My teachers are so good to us and they really care about our success.

The quote of the week is from when we learned da/wo compounds. Don't ask me to explain what those are. But when I was studying them I said, "That's why they say "damit" all the time!" But it's "damit", and in case you didn't know, that's not how you spell the swear word!

Family I love you sooooo much! Thank you to everyone for your love and support. Big shout out to Uncle Randall for making sure I get at least one piece of mail every day! I love being a missionary. Remember: God loves you, and Jesus is coming again! There's another quote for you. Sister Kervinen and I say it all the time.  Love, Sister Lewis

FYI - 

1. Relief Society - Relief Society is the name given to the Women's Organization in the church.  Joseph Smith organized the Relief Society in Nauvoo, Illinois in 1842.  It has approximately 6 million members around the world.  Every woman 18 years and older who is a member of the LDS Church is also a member of the Relief Society.  It is an organization founded on principles of service  and  is one of the oldest and largest women's organizations in the world.  The purpose is to help us prepare for the blessings of eternal life by increasing faith and personal righteousness, strengthening families and homes and helping those in need.  

Relief Society has been a great blessing in my life.  I KNOW that I am a better person through the service I have been able to give, the people I have been able to teach and reach out to that I would never have known through any other way.  I have been the beneficiary of service and prayers on my behalf that have changed my life.  In fact, 22 years ago a woman in RS who I did not know very well at all, but who knew I suffered a series of miscarriages, shyly gave me an article out of a woman's magazine about a little-known  intervention for miscarriages that ended up being THE key to our being able to have Katie. 

MTC Wednesday Letter - June 26, 2013 "You are the sharpest pencil in the pencil case."

Wednesday, June 27, 2013

This week's quote, "You are the sharpest pencil in the pencil case!" comes courtesy of Sister Kervinen,  one of Katie's companions who is from Finland.  She apparently said this to Katie, sarcastically, after Katie had done something particularly dumb.  Katie just loves her.  I was actually quite impressed with Sister Kervinen's English!  Idioms are not always the first thing you pick up on in a language!  

This is Katie with Sister Kervinen

So Katie's letter this week began like this : 

"Heyyy family!! Okay so I don't even know where to start! You want to hear about the drama, don't you? Not all just the spiritual experiences or the day-to-day drill. So I will tell you about the drama."  

Now, I'm guessing this is where my job as editor of the letters becomes important, because my non LDS family and friends may not get the picture that you are with your companions 100% of the time.  You go nowhere, and do nothing without them by your side!  Anyway, Katie goes on to share that there has been some drama between her two companions but in no way would she want to imply that they are not both wonderful and that she doesn't love them both so much!  Apparently they have something called "companionship inventories" where you work on improving your companionship so you can focus on the work.  Katie was gratified to be very instrumental in helping work out some differences between her two companions and she concludes her stories with 

"Things are soooo much better now!" 

Three girls on a mission
Sister Kervinen, Sister Lewis, Sister Packer

"More about my roommates! There's me, Sister Kervinen (from Finland), Sister Packer (from Lindon. She's the one I was next to during the broadcast when you saw me!), Sister Mcewen (from Scotland), and Sister Maatta (from Finland). The upside of my original companion Sis Wood leaving is now I get two closets! Niiiiice. Okay so my district. It's me and my two companions, plus Elder Rogers and Elder Bulkley. Everyone in my district expect for Sister Kervinen is from Utah so no, they don't have the excuse of not being American for not knowing what a two-point conversion was.  (referring to a story she told last week) The elders in our district are going to Frankfurt. Elder Bulkley just turned 18 two weeks before entering the MTC. All of them have taken some German before.

I want you to know that I really can feel your prayers. Sometimes I feel like I just live on top of this bubble of prayers and it's keeping me from getting too low. I really am doing well. Yesterday Sister Janice Kapp Perry and her husband gave our Tuesday devotional. Obviously I loved it. That woman is basically responsible for a lot of my testimony. We sang lots of songs! She has rewritten the words to that EFY medley thing so it's just for missionaries.

So I live in one of the newer buildings on the main MTC campus. My classroom is in building 7M and my residence is in building 17M. They told us our building was newer but I didn't realize how nice ours is compared to the others until we helped clean one of the other buildings' bathrooms. That's our service assignment once a week. And our bathrooms are a lot nicer than the ones in that building.

So you wanted to hear about my branch president. His name is President Petersen and I think he's from Mapleton. And so is one of his counselors. He served in Germany and so did one of his councilors. And the other councilor served in Finland! I really like our branch presidency.

I loooove all your letters! And Uncle Randall sends me quotes. And thank you for praying for me. Seriously I can feel it. 

So basically I feel like I see the hand of the Lord a lot. I just think that it worked out the way it was supposed to with me having Sister Wood for a companion for a little bit and then being added to Sister Kervinen and Sister Packer's companionship. I seriously don't know how they would have survived without me. It's been good.

I love you family! Sorry my emails are so scatterbrained. "

MTC Wednesday Letter - June 13, 2012 ""Jesus is going to come again! I'm going to tell everyone!! The only problem is I have to tell them in German."

This weeks quote is from Katie after having watched the movie "The Testaments".  She was overcome with the excitement of her upcoming missionary service and exclaimed "Jesus is going to come again!  I'm going to tell everyone!! The only problem is I  have to tell them in German!"

"Family!! I don't even know where to start. Okay seriously I don't even know what to say. I'm on a mission! Oh sad story. I'm not a schwester. I still like schwester and everything but my nametag says sister and it's because schwesters are more like the nuns and nurses in German. So we are sisters. But it's okay because my nametag still says Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tage. It is really fun to be with so many foreign missionaries.So now I have one companion who is from Lindon and one who is from Finland. But from the part of Finland that's like on the Arctic Circle.  Okay so I get along really well with Sister Kervinen (the sister from Finland). She studied German for 6 years in school (but also English and Swedish). She is so much fun and she doesn't take things more seriously than they should be taken but she loves the gospel. Sister Packer took German for 3 years but she's really good because she worked on it a lot while she was preparing for her mission. And she's had her call since December (she deferred because of a boy). I kind of miss my first companion and I know she really misses me. She doesn't get along so well with her current companion and every time she sees me she just wants to talk to me. All of you that have been on missions should take this opportunity ro reminisce  about your missions and tell me mission stories. I would love to hear your stories.

Okay so you wanted to know about my first day. I got here and said bye to you and tried really hard to not look back. And I didn't. My host missionary took me to my room and then to the book store to get my training materials. 

Most important training material in addition to scriptures
"Preach my Gospel" in German
(picture obviously not taken on the first day because that
is not what she was wearing)

Then I went to my classroom and met my teacher and my district. And then when my companion, Sister Wood, came in I met her. 

And then we went to a welcome meeting by the presidency of the MTC. Then dinner. And then we did this cool teaching experience where we were in classrooms of 40ish people and we all taught an investigator together. For the first two missionaries that have been in the MTC for a while helped us get started, but the last one we did by ourselves. That was basically the first day. Then we kind of unpacked and just went to bed. Every day is a little different. We've had different workshops and orientations and branch presidency interviews but mostly we all the following.... gym (yay I love it when we have gym), classroom instruction (a lot of that), meals, TALL lab (technology assisted language learning. It's great.), and study time (personal, companionship, language, additional . . .). 

I am singing on Sunday!! I will be there! Uh I hope I don't see you ha ha. That would be too hard. We switch off every Sunday after Sacrament meeting who is the Senior companion. I still don't even really know what it exactly means to be a senior companion, particularly in the MTC. But right now it's me. This email is going to be soooo disorganized. Don't put it on the blog like this ha ha. Also I have two different teachers. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. My district/class has only five people in it. There's my threesome and then two elders. My old district/class now has only two elders in it. When my companion left me I had to leave them. So yeah our districts are small. I loooove our zone/branch. And the people I love the most are going to my mission. We have people from Scotland, England, and Finland. The two sisters in my room that are Finnish speak Finnish alllll the time. So funny story. Our teachers never speak English to us, always German (which means that a lot of the time I am lost.  I am the only person in my district who has not taken any German. It shows. But I'm not the only person in our zone/branch.). It's really weird if the teachers ever do speak English. But in order to avoid speaking English they act things out or find weird ways of explaining them. And he said a word that no one knew and in order to tell us what it meant  our teacher started acting out "touchdown" and then he said "zwei punct" or whatever two point is and we were supposed to know that the word that came after that was the word for conversion. The word that we didn't know was conversion. But I was the only person in my district that had even heard of a two-point conversion! So I was the only one that got it. Proud of me Daddy? Ha ha. And my teacher complimented me on that during my personal interview. 

Hey I looooove letters and dear elders and everything! Thank you everyone! Keep it coming! I seriously believe Heavenly Father exalts people who write missionaries.

So I have a fake investigator! We call him Marcus. Funny story I had just joined my new district and met my new teacher and he took me out in the hall and told me stuff in German and said the name XXXXX  and stuff and then he said in English, "I just didn't want you to be surprised." And I just agreed and said everything was fine. I thought he was just explaining to me that the investigator was actually fake and I said, "Yeah I had an investigator in the other class too?" like I was confused about why he felt like he had to explain that to me. Duh they're fake. I figured he just didn't want me to be nervous so he told me the investigator's real name so I would know he was fake. XXXXX is a common enough name. But when we walked in to teach our investigator I was like "Ohhhhhhh. Our investigator is XXXXX!" Ha ha I know the kid. He went to Timpview. He liked Madelyne in the eighth grade and we talked all the time in art class. So I guess they try to avoid that or something so he must have seen my name and knew that I would know him so they warned me. And then I told my teacher after our first lesson with Marcus that I got what he was saying now. It's just funny because since he said it in German I didn't know what he was really saying. I love you alll!!!

I love Himmlischer Vater and Jesu Christi! We watched the TestamentsSunday night and I just got way stoked for the second coming. I basically ran around saying, "Jesus is going to come again! I'm going to tell everyone!! The only problem is I have to tell them in German." Bye! Love you! Sorry this is so scrambled.