No email from Allison this week since she is on her way to Germany as I type this.  I did get to have a nice long talk with her while she has a 3 hour layover in Dallas.  She is doing great and is super excited to get out and start teaching.  I told her she had to talk to me in German.  She bore her testimony to me in German and she sounded pretty good but what do I know!?  She said she also memorized the first vision in German and also a couple of other things.  She feels like she knows how to talk about gospel things but everything else she is feeling pretty shaky about.  She wants to learn though and I think that will be a big help!  It is nice for me knowing that Mother's Day is just around the corner and I will get to talk to her once again!

She did manage to send some pictures yesterday.

 

 

 

This is one of her teachers, Brother Ott

 

 

     So this week was pretty awesome. Tuesday night we heard from Richard G Scott and that was awesome. He is such a cute old man. Then on Wednesday we got our paper that tells us what we are going to do for the first 2 days in Germany! The first day we get there we get to go tracting! SCARY! We get to spend the night in a hotel and the next day we get our companion and then take a train to our area! We also got our flight plan we fly to Texas then have a 6 hour layover then we fly to Frankfurt. Then Friday we had T.R.C. again and we got the same person as last time :) He gave us chocolate again yummy. Then Saturday was pretty uneventful. Sunday every week we all prepare talks and then in sacrament meeting we find out who is talking when they announce the speakers...fun right? This week I was the lucky one to get picked. My talk was about baptism and the holy ghost, I think it went pretty well for my fist talk in German. Also on Sundays I go to choir practice so I can sing in the MTC choir on Tuesdays. That is always fun. We are learning the song Where Can I Turn for Peace. Then that night we had the BYU men's choir sing it was really cool. Also I think I saw Scott Jackson in it and that was fun to see someone I know. Then yesterday was also pretty uneventful just lots of class but that is ok only 1 more week till I leave for Germany! Anyways that was my week love you all!

~Sister Wrathall

      So this was an AWESOME week it started off with us teaching our " investigators" Sven and Olaf  we taught both of them the plan of salvation. But first the laptop lady came and gave us tablets as you can tell from my picture they are really cool!

 

      Anyways my companion and I have really noticed that we have gotten much better at German and teaching it is really incredible. When we taught the members on Friday we had a native German and he told me that he could tell I had a fell for the language and said I would have be able to speak perfect German and then proceeded to give my companion a German dictionary haha. He also gave us Lindor chocolate it was super yummy! The other person we taught told us we would be able to speak German really well after the 4th week.

      Then Saturday was pretty boring at least it was pretty much the same as any other day to me haha oh wait on Saturday we started doing spiritual thoughts for the later class and lucky me I was chosen to do the first one.. woot! After I did it though my teacher pointed at me and said she is ready to go to Germany! haha so my teachers have a lot of confidence in me but I don't know I am still really scared to go haha. But I am also very ready to leave the mtc haha it is great and all but I really fell like I will learn a lot more when I actually get out in the field.

     Anyways Sunday was awesome we had this lady come and talk to us for relief society her name was Mary Edmunds she was super funny but also super spiritual she is probably my favorite speaker yet. Then for our night time devotional we had the director of missionary media come and speak it was super cool he talked about all the advertising that is going on in the world he said a lot about New York and England. Did you know there is 240 double decker buses in England! That is a fourth of all the double decker buses! Anyways I thought it was interesting.

     Then on Monday I had an interview with Sister Covey and she talked all in German to me. Everyone else in the class she spoke some English to so that was cool hehe. She said that when the teachers get together and talk about us they say that I am always happy and a hard worker and that I am good at German. But the most important thing they said that they notice in me is that I am a natural leader! That was surprising to me I don't really see myself as a leader. She said that I  need to continue to be a leader and that it is an really good talent to have. She also said that I need to set a goal for these last 2 weeks in the mtc because they are the 2 weeks that will really determine how my mission will go. My goal is to speak more German. It is really hard because my companion doesn't understand a lot of the time so I have to explain what I say I all the time.. it is kind of like charades haha A lot of the time I give up and just talk to her in English haha so I need to work on that. But that was about it for this week. Oh also this week I started lifting weights so my arms won't be so weak haha an elder is like my trainer haha. Anyways I really hope everyone is doing wonderfully LOVE YOU ALL

-Sister Wrathall

 

 

      So this week has been really great! First of we had Bishop Causse talk to us for our devotional last Tuesday and that was really good. Then on Wednesday it was back to the same old same old class for 6 hours and really only breaks for gym and eating. As a side note I am really loving gym. I usually ride the bike machine for 6 miles my best ever is 9 but now I am starting to do the bike and ab workout so i don't get fat haha.

     Anyways, we are getting so much better at teaching in German. It is crazy! We have recently realized that when we go in with just a few notes instead of having the whole lesson scripted it goes a lot better and we are able to say what we really need to say and are able to feel the spirit more. So Thursday was basically the same as Wednesday but Friday we got to do something new. From now on we will do this new thing ever Friday! It is TRC ( training resource center) this is when we meet with members and teach them a short message so they can have a spiritual activity. So my companion and I went in with a couple of scriptures for some main topics but decided to follow the spirit in what we should really teach. This was super scary! So with the first lady it was really difficult but she was super nice she would say something in German and then she could tell we couldn't understand so then she would whisper to us what she said in English haha. Then we got to teach two guys, an older gentleman and a guy who has been home from his mission for less than a year. We started off talking about Germany and where we are from and then we said a prayer and I still had no idea what to talk about for our message, but my companion said scripture study so I then read Moroni chapter 10 verse 4-5 and asked the two guys what this scripture meant to them and the older man spoke first and told us after he read this scripture he closed his door and knelt at his bed and asked to know if the Book of Mormon was true. Then he felt this overwhelming feeling of the spirit fill his body and the next day he went to his bishop and asked to be baptized! Crazy right? And while he told us his story he was crying! So cute! Then we all went around and told how we came to know that this is the true church, you could feel the spirit sooooo strong! When we were done my companion and I couldn't talk about it for awhile because we would just start to cry. Also later that day we had class and we taught our investigator Sven which normally would have been fine but the thing is we didn't know that we were teaching Sven that night so we had about 20 mins to plan our lesson! It was CRAZY we were really scared at first but lucky we had already talked about what we wanted to teach him and the lesson ended up going really good. 

     Then came Saturday! GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!! It was so good and it was as always amazing to sing the songs with all the other missionaries! We have one room that holds about 2 thousand missionaries and then a couple other rooms to hold the rest. I loved general conference my favorite talk was probably Dieter F Uchtdorf and it wasn't just because he is German ha-ha. I really liked how he talked about walking in the light, because that is what I am trying to do and also because I want others to be able to come into the light as well. During the priesthood session we watched the young womens broadcast and that was also really good! It was really funny because Dieter F. Uchtdorf was talking and said " No one knows the language we spoke  premortality  but I have a sinking suspicion that it was German" so I thought that was awesome haha. Then Sunday was more General Conference and for our Devotional we had Vocal Point come and sing! That was really cool they are the BYU A Capella  group, they were on the show the sing off also, they were really good and it was fun to listen to them sing. After we had devotional we had films which is what happens every week this week we watched a talk by David A Bednar called Becoming a Missionary it was really good he talked about as missionaries we shouldn't just go through the motions we have to become a missionary. Also on Sunday I finished memorizing the1st vision in German!

       Then on Monday we went back to the normal schedule but at the later class we decided to make a district goal that in our building we would only speak German! Except when we are doing personal study and planning a lesson. This is going to be really hard but I know it will really help us. Also on Monday we had to turn in our laptops :( but now we are going to be able to try out TABLETS haha our district is sooo lucky haha. We should get our tablets tomorrow. Also now we get an hour to email which you probably could have guessed. So that is how my week went hope all is good with everyone else. Thank you for your letters and support

LOVE you all ~ Sister Wrathall or as the Germans pronounce it Sister RAT TAll haha

 

    
                                                This is the desk she sits in for 6 hours a day!

                        This is from today and she even got to enjoy some more snow today.
                                                  

                         She kind of has an obsession with VW bugs.  She says this one has

                                                          batman seat covers!

April 2, 2013
      I have seen Christian and Missy and Jordan Butler! It was really cool to see them here especially Christian. My living quarters are in the MTC and yes my date is changed to April 30th. I am learning soooooo much German it is CRAZY I mean we do have 6 hours of a teacher teaching us German every day and we are in the same classroom everyday for about 10 to 11 hours practicing German and reading German and also reading scriptures in English. Today my companion and I have been speaking only German and now it is hard to write to you in English haha. I keep thinking of the German word. So for Easter we had Bishop Causse and Sheri Dew speak to us they we both really good talks. Also I did save my see's egg for Easter and it was super yummy!

     I thought I would tell you what a normal day is like here, so we wake up at 6:30 then we have personal study time for an hour then we have breakfast for a little less than an hour then we either have class for 3 hours or we have gym time for an hour, if we have gym time after gym time we have study time till lunch then after lunch we have class for 3 hours then dinner then another 3 hours of class this schedule is worse than the other one where we have class then gym and then lunch and study time till dinner then have 3 hours of class. Also every day we teach an investigator who is Olaf or sfen they are really our teachers, but when we teach them they act like totally different people. It is super hard to teach in a language you don't know very well and it is even harder to understand what the investigator needs to be taught when you don't know what they are saying sometimes! Even though it is really hard to be here it is also sooooo much fun and I am loving it. Also my district has been chosen to be the guinea pigs and we get to use laptops this week! this is Awesome we don't have to wait in line to get a computer!

     Thank you to everyone that has written me I have loved every single letter or package thanks soooo much!!