First
of all, will someone please thank the Kofords for me for their sweet message
through dear elder? They sent it my first week in the MTC and it was so awesome
to hear from them and get encouraging words from them. :)
Being
here at the mtc is a huge blessing. It's also a huge challenge. I constantly
have to remind myself why I'm really here, and who I'm really here for.
Basically
this week was really hard for me. I missed home, family, Elder Perez, friends,
just everything. I had a hard time focusing. But I have been praying for the
strength that I need to move forward, and I have felt a little bit better each
day since thursday.
Saturday
night my Sorelle (sisters) in my district and I played hang man in Italiano for
our language study. It was super fun! I can't say Italy anymore. Every time I
say it, it just comes out as Italia. It's funny. Sometimes my companion and I
are talking in English, but we'll say a word in Italian by accident and then we
both freak out because we're so excited that the language is starting to
stick.
So
sundays here are the absolute best! I love them. Every sunday morning, they
serve cereal for breakfast and everything is paper/plastic so that they don't
have to have as many workers in on sunday. The food every other day is mostly
good. We get 3 meals a day and we have 30-40 minutes for each, and then the
rest of the day is either study time or class time or teaching time.
I'm
exhausted all the time. I've just accepted the fact that I'll be tired for
basically the duration of my mission.
I
am trying so hard to understand and learn the language. It's hard... I struggle
a lot with the grammer. I understand most of the verbs and conjugations, but
then you get into different tenses and my mind explodes. I find that I speak
and understand the most when my companion and I are teaching our
"investigators" (they're really just our teachers acting as a
character or someone that they personally taught or met while serving their
missions.) (But they're really good at acting like they don't speak any english
and like they don't know anything about the gospel)
We
get gym time every day of the week except sundays and our P-days. We just
exercise whenever we want on p-days... I've been doing 40 pushups and 40 sit
ups a day. Last week was 30, and this coming week will be 50. I'm doing my best
to really utilize my 50 minutes of gym time. I usually walk or get on the
elliptical first. (I wish I could run.) Then I'll do a number of different
strength and toning exercises like planks, my pushups and situps, squats, leg
lifts, wall sits, lunges, and calf raises. Then I spend a few minutes
stretching. I've noticed improvements in my strength and endurance. I can plank
for more than twice as long as I could when I first got here, and I can wall
sit for a lot longer as well. I know that God is helping my body to make
improvements that I've never been able to make before on my own, as long as I
am striving to work hard and take care of myself.
I
love and appreciate the support that I've continued to receive from my family
and friends. It means the world to me to get a letter, or to get an email. It
just keeps me pushing forward knowing that I have support and love from home. A
mission is so hard... But it has been life changing so far. I'm so excited that
I get to continue to learn, grow, and become more humble.
I
hope everyone is doing well! I love you all. :)
con
amore,
Sorella
Tokarski
