This is a letter that Amanda hand wrote home. I typed it up and am putting it here along with the picture she sent with it. This letter was received before the first emailed letter. So if you look back you can read the letters in order. Sorry I will try to keep the letters in order as time progresses.
June 6, 2010
My family,
I know you have missed me so much. I have missed you. I just wanted to say… I had the opportunity to miss a p-day. I got here on Wednesday and my districts p-day is on Thursday. I don’t know how I feel about that. A week and a day, no talking to you, no me time. The branch president allowed me to write and say that my p-day is not till Thursday. Just so you know. You can do the dear elder website and write to me. Now that I know more about it, you will be able to email me, the office people put it in my mailbox the next day and I get to read it that day. Just so you know. :D
It has been a good experience so far. No…it has been a great experience! Yesterday (Saturday) was hard but I will tell you about that on Thursday.
I realize that I forgot a couple things. I was wondering if you could send them to me now so it won’t be so expensive later. I forgot my tennis shoes and y stamps that I believe are in my purse. That is all I forgot though. Gym is fun… not really. They have 4 square, basketball, and volleyball courts and since I don’t have tennis shoes, I can’t do any of that. I am stuck with flip flops and a jump rope. It is good but I wish I could do something else while I have the chance.
Tell me about life mom. I have gotten 2 letters but not from you yet. I am sure you emailed me though. How were finals? How is grandpa and all the business with the house going? Are you, Tessa, enjoying your job still? How is my brother? Tori, you have not read all those quotes I gave you yet right?
Time to get back to studying. I love the spirit I feel here. All the boys are already beginning to turn into men. Everyone is here for one and the same purpose. We are all connected. I teach my 1st investigator on Tuesday.
So, I have time to write for 28 min! This is going to be so much better I think. I am not as stressed as last week when writing. Sorry that i sounded discouraged and upset but totally did not mean to sound so rushed. I was just freaking out because the computers were being stupid and keyboard was weird. Anyway...
I just thought I would say something that was cool. It would be cool if, when we die, Heavenly Mother would come up to us and wrap her arms around us and welcome us home. THen take us to Heavenly Father and announce us to Him. I thought that would be totally awesome.
It has been so cold the last couple days. I don't get utah weather. So it has been so hot since Sunday. But there was a storm that came on Saturday that made the temperature drop down way low. It was so cold. The storm brought rain and it was freezing. I went out in a light jacket because that is all I had but that was not enough. We go on temple walks on sunday, and I ended up borrowing Sister Stapp's jacket. I wanted to keep it because it was so cute. I got to use my umbrella already that day. SO, Monday was cold, tuesday it was hot and it is cold again. Weird weather. No wonder michelle is always in so much pain.
I wrote you about a negative experience I had in a letter so you will get that in a couple days. Just know that I have recovered from that experience and that I grew from it. I want to share something cool my branch president said to me and my companion. He said that we were some of the best missionaries out there and that we inspire the Elders to be better. I was so happy when he said that. I had no idea we did that to them. We set a goal to do 120 contacting, which is just going and talking to someone for thrity seconds about the gospel, and the Elders decided that their 20 contacts were not enough. So, they all decided to do 200 each companionship. Crazy I thought but I was glad they did it. But, the next day, I got pretty comfortable with contacting that I thought we were wasting our time doing it. We ended up doing 61 contacts and then we stopped. We told the Elders they could do the 200 contacts but we were not going to do it. We would much rather focus on lessons. They also agreed and then that was it. Now we all have to do 16 lessons in four days. Can we do it? Sure we can. IF we work hard.
So, each day is busy busy busy. I will tell you my schedule for tuesday.
630-700 is get up and get ready.
700-745 is personal/companion ship study.
745-815 is breakfast
815-1230 is class time.
1230-115 is lunch
115-330 is perssonal/companionship study
330-530 is class
530-615 is dinner
615-700 is going to the devotional
700-800 is devotional
800-900 is talking about the devotional
900-930 is planning for next day
930-1030 is getting ready for bed.
So, yeah. I am busy all the time. Doing one thing after the other. There is no time for messing around. I am here to learn and study and eat. I have developed a good friendships with some elders and my companion.
I have done some more teaching. Arnold is who I thought on tuesday. It was amazing. I loved it and felt the spirit so much. There were times that I had no idea how to answer some questions but the spirit directed me in what to say. I also talked alot more about baptism than I thought I would. His wife came and that was awesome. She was more receptive to the message than he was. I issued a challange for baptism and the wife accepted automatically. It made my day. Arnold was funny because he was like, "What?? We will?" :) The work is great and I am loving it.
The rooms are like the dorm rooms in thatcher. Small with lots of stuff. The showers are the same too. It is just like I am in the Mark Allen Dorms.
I leave on monday for Kentucky and am so ready for it. I am kind of getting bored of the MTC. I am so ready to go out and do. I am so excited!
My sleep has not been all that good here. I keep waking up in the middle of the night. I think it is because my room is so cold. I wake up at 1200, 300, 500, and 630 when i am supposed to. It is crazy. Maybe that is why I have bags under my eyes.
I am so glad that you are doing scripture study. It really is amazing. You should really try to do something while reading. Put yourself it their shoes. Put yourself in the shoes of others. Look at all sides of the story. It will better help you understand.
Oh, this dear elder is alot better. I got to write alot more. It was weird though. I got my shoes on tuesday (thankyou so much) and then that night I got a letter from you saying that you had not sent my shoes yet...but I got them before I got your letter. Kind of weird. Oh well, :)
Hope you are all doing great! How is tori doing? Holding up?? Happpy Father's day on sunday!
I have no more time now. I love you all. Thirty minutes goes way to fast I think.
This is Amanda's first letter she wrote home. Hope you enjoy!!!
Okay i only have 23 min to write this..... The MTC is absolutely amazing and I love every min of it. Surprisingly i don't think much about you all during the day.. There is just to much stuff to do to think about it all.. I do think about you alot though when i am going to bed.. So, I don't completely block you out of my life.. I love my companion.. I don't really know how to joke with her yet but we are getting there.. Her name is sister Stapp.. I cannot remember her name for the life of me sometimes.. Um, The food here is pretty good.. Better than i thought it would be.. I think they put magic stuff in it.. I am never hungry when it comes time to eat so I think they put magic "fill me up" potion in it.. haha.. This is not letting me enter for some reason.. Anyway.. Life is just a blur now.. I don't know what days are which.. I missed a P-Day and so I have not been able to talk to you for a while.. However I sent you a message through mail.. I asked if you could send me my tennis shoes.. Please.. I leave not this coming monday but the following.. :) Some cool things i have learned: The book of mormon was really written for our times.. All the prophets and kings that wrote, didn't know why they were writing and they passed it down.. Nobody saw it until Joseph Smith.. He translated it and now we have it to read.. Read mormon 8:23 I think.. It is saying that I knew thee before I wrote to you.. I saw you or somthing like that.. Um, i have really felt the love of God here.. Pres.. Eyring said this.. He was dealing with a boy who was very bad.. He was in court for something really bad.. Pres.. E.. said that He could feel steam from his head because he got so mad at this boy.. But then God opened his mind.. God told him this......The person before you in my child.. i know of him.. he so wants to be good......I loved it! God really is there for us.. He really does love us.. He wants us to communicate with him.. He wants to know of our trials and hardships and joys in life.. He wants to know everything about us.. If I left the MTC today and learn anything else, I would be happy to leave knowing that God loves me.. Just think about it.... I got locked out of my room my first night here.. I just HAD to go to the bathroom and didn't think about the door being locked.. I then knocked ever so gently for 10 min until someone let me in.. The room is just like my dorm room.. It is bigger but not.. There are three bunks, three dressers and that is it.. So, it is bigger but it has the same stuff making it seem like the dorm room again.. I don't mind it though.. Mother nature was not nice to me at all my first day.. All i have to say is.."I was glad i was wearing a black skirt that day.." um, I like my district.. four girl including me and six guys.. the three girls and two guys are going to South carolina and me and four guys are going to Kentucky.. It is pretty exciting.. I love it.. I have grown to love my district and the guys are maturing every day.. Their testimonies are so sweet and precious.. there were a few iffy ones but I like all of them now.. i tought my first lesson and it went pretty well.. My companion likes to talk alot when she is nervous.. When I was about to say something she would say something.. I felt kind of cheated.. She thought she was pressed for time so she just took over.. I felt cheated out of the lesson though.. We planned the Restoration but the spirit said Plan of salvation.. I was going to get into the plan but she went into the restoration.. i guess next time (tomorrow) we will be better.. I have to go now.. Temple time.. There is not enough time to do all this.. can you send me letters instead so I have more time to write to you all instead of reading for ten min and talking for twenty min? I would love that.. And then i will be able to read the letters over and over.. I love you ALL.. Much Love, Sister Ralph
There are times in my life that I actually do exercise. Actually I do it more than most people in America. I went to go exercise with Mom and Emily the other night and we got our butt kicked. We did something 'fun' on the track. We would skip, hop, do criss crosses, etc. on one of the straights. Then we would we would walk the curve. Then for the next straight we would go on to the smaller bleachers and go up and down up and down the stairs. Just so you know that is alot. We went up and down about four times and then we would go walk the curve and start all over. We ended up doing about 2 miles of this. One of the straights, I got this crazy idea. Mom so didn't want to do it either but I got her to do it. My crazy idea was to do lunges and squats the length of the field. I about killed my legs I think. It was so hard. Mom almost made it all the way and I was so proud of her. Then, after exhausting our legs, we go do bleachers. I was doing really good until it was my last time up. About four steps, my foot missed a bleacher and down I went. My right leg took most of the force and skid down the bleacher. I tried to catch myself. Luckily my hands were able to watch my body so that my face didn't get hammered by the metal bleachers. It hurt so bad. I was kind of disoriented. I was like, "what just happened?" Then I decided that I didn't want to stop so even though it hurt so so so bad, I made it up the rest of the bleachers and kind of hobbled down. I had scratches on my leg and my leg was definitely banged up. Below are some pictures of the bruises I got. I think they are awesome. You can hardly see them. They are yellow so that means it is getting better. :)
I got some new glasses for my mission. They were pretty cheap too. 59 dollars. The experience to get them that cheap was quite the experience. We go into Lens Crafters I think and we ask about the special they had on the glasses. This guy tells us all about it and said that I would have to get tommy hilfigure glasses. So, I look for some glasses and found some that I really like. Mom finds some also hoping that she would be able to get some prescription sunglasses. So, we go to this guy who is supposed to know everything about his job. We sit down with him and he starts to 'crunch some numbers.' I don't know what he was doing. For some reason, my glasses ended up being 109 dollars and moms about 200. Then we were looking at each other and asking him, "what happened to the 79 dollars for both glasses?" He could not explain it. It was pretty unbelievable. He then took moms glasses out of the price and then all of a sudden the price of my glasses went up to 120 or something like that. It just didn't make sense and we asked again what happened to the 59 dollars for a pair of glasses? Again, he could not explain it. He was able to after a LONG while. I was even getting frustrated with this guy. Eventually after thirty minutes, we got the price we wanted. I still don't know what was taking him so long to figure it out. All I have to say is that was the worst customer service I have ever gotten. He was horrible. Make sure you know your stuff please. It will make life easier. :) So here are my glasses. :)
I leave for Provo June 2nd. I am so very excited and now I am getting somewhat nervous. I am not scared. I am just nervous. I just cannot believe that I am actually going to be leaving for a year and a half. If I am already nervous now, I wonder what it is going to be like when I say it is going to be tomorrow that I leave. I guess I get to experience that soon. Wish me skill as I go and serve the Lord. I leave in exactly 2 weeks today. I get to hop on a plane June 2 at 7:30 in the morning. I am going to have to wake up way early to actually GO to the airport. I believe that Grandma and Grandpa Ralph are going to pick me up from the Salt Lake City Airport at 10:30 and then they will drive me to the Missionary Training Center. I am not really looking forward to saying goodbye to everyone. I am really glad though that Mom got to take her final the day before I leave. This way, she will be able to take me to the airport and hug me goodbye. She better not cry too much. My bishop told me that I am going to get set apart as a missionary the monday before I leave. On May 30, I get to do my Farewell talk. It is a good topic and have so many ideas for it. It is kind of hard to organize it because I have so many ideas. I am at the MTC for about three weeks and then I am going to go to Kentucky and suffer the humidity right when I get there. Joy! I will still keep updating my blog through Bubba. I will send Emails to Bubba and then Bubba will post them on here for me. I went to the Mesa Temple about a month ago I think. It was such a beautiful experience. I loved having family come. Well, that is pretty much all for the mission for now. I really can't wait to start my experience. I heard nothing but good comes from it.
So, I officially stink at putting pictures on my blogs. I just don't do a good job at it. There is some good new though. I got it in the order that I wanted it in.
Soooo, this is the side yard now. All done. It looks so so so good. Agreed?? The yard looks so much bigger than it was. There used to be piles of rocks instead of layed out rocks. And the brick is just wonderfully beautiful. I love it! Definitely worth the time and money.
These next couple pictures are of my cousin Audrey. She does not like me very much. She has said my name a couple times lately and tonight she even gave me a hug! We are showing improvement. :) This little girl is just the cutest. She was at the piano and I just had to take a couple pictures. She is showing talent already. Look at those arms go!
Mingled with Audrey's pictures is a picture of Buck. I was making Tori's bed with her and buck would not move. So, I just put the pillows on top of him. He stayed there for quite a while.
Mom, Emily and I had fun this lovely friday night. It was the first friday night I have had for, lets see, 8 months. I had fun. We made a whole bunch of hair things. My sweaty hands didn't like it so much but I loved making them. The one above is one that my mom made. I made the black one below. It my favorite one I think. I made this red one also. Mom made the rest below. I really like the brown one. And all the other ones. The green and pink one is for Tori. Can you tell?? So colorful and so HER! Yeah. It has been fun with no work and finally NO SCHOOL! 26 Days 'til I leave for Utah!
Saturday, May 1, 2010
<--- Disregard for now.
Today started early. Earlier than usual for a Saturday. I woke up from a text from a friend at 6:30 and kept talking to her and then I got up forcefully by myself at 8:00. Then it was go go go go all day. We had a project to do outside. We are doing the side yard, AGAIN, and this time we are going to complete it. It is looking so gosh darn good. Last night, mom and whoever else, took all the rock we had on the side and took it out and dumped it on the patio. There was a ton of rock. Today, mom and i made a contraption that served as a 'stainer.' We then had to take at least 4 shovel fulls of rock and dump it onto the strainer and then we shook all the dirt out of the rock. This was no easy task. There was dirk everywhere! I am however the only one that looked like they got dirty. I don' t understand why either. So, here are the after pictures of me. I will show you the side yard when it is totally finished.
I got hurt. I was lifting a big bucket full of dirt and it was so heavy. The bucket broke and it clipped me. I am surprised my fingernail didn't break halfway down. It made me bleed and it hurt when I washed it but then it was back to work for me.
After 3+ hours of doing all that, I washed my face and Bubba and Jaden got lunch. I ate that and then got ready for work. I took a twenty minute shower I think. I washed my hair twice and soaped up twice...and shaved my legs. It felt so good to take a shower.
I went to work and thank goodness I was only working a four hour shift. I was so tired. Shoveling rock is not the easiest thing to do. But, it was my last day as a cashier. Sad sad. My managers cried. Well, two of them. I got a couple numbers and addresses from co-workers. Who knows if they will write back but I have made some good friends and was very sad to leave. I almost cried. They gave me a cookie cake (which was not very good). It said "we will miss you Amanda." How sweet of them to do that for me. They totally didn't want me to go. I was one of their best employees. Anyway. I am guarenteed a job back with them when I get back. And the best part of it all is...I DON'T HAVE TO WORK SUNDAY'S ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WAHOO!!!! :)
