Katelyn....Nov.29th

Hello again. We're emailing today instead of Thursday because yesterday was Thanksgiving and everything was closed down so we had to find different times to do our p-day stuff. Yesterday was an awesome day. Elder Nelson spoke to us in the morning, and it was broadcast to all the Missionary Training Centers worldwide. My companion and I sing in the choir so it's possible that all the MTC's in the world have seen me singing in my bright yellow sweater. You know the one. :) We walked to the temple and sang a bunch of hymns in Hungarian, and then we returned for a Thanksgiving program. (Oh, and they fed us a very nice Thanksgiving dinner for lunch.) We were sitting close to the front and an older sister asked us if we would help in a skit, so I got to play an Indian woman in a super ridiculous Thanksgiving skit. My line was "How". It was me, Sister Erlandsson (my companion), and a sister from the Finnish district. We're kind of famous now for being the Indian women, and everyone made fun of us. :) Ash was in the front row and she kept laughing at me. Everyone had fun. The MTC really tried to make Thanksgiving fun for us. We ate a sack dinner because the employees go home for their thanksgiving dinner. We had a picnic in the room of some of the Albanian sisters and it was really fun. The Albanians and the Finns are super nice to us and we get along great! We're in the same zone/ward and we live on the same floor and have classes on the same floor and eat at the same time so we see each other a lot. They have all gone out of their way to make my companion and me feel welcome, which is nice because we are the only sisters in our district. 

After dinner we had a big service project and then we got to watch Ephraim's Rescue. All the missionaries got to watch it together in the big auditorium and it was super fun for everybody. In all these events I got to sit by Ashlyn a couple of times and we got to hang out for a good 20 minutes or so and take pictures and everything. It might not sound like a lot but 20 minutes is super long for a missionary schedule. 

Mom had a bunch of questions for me so I'm going to try and answer them.

P-day is Preparation Day. It's a day that we take off several hours to do things like laundry and shopping. We email for an hour on p-days. While we're at the MTC we get to go to the temple on p-days. We've been once so far, and since the temple is closing for maintenance, we'll only be able to go one more time before we leave. Maybe two more times. It was really awesome when we went. We went in the morning last Thursday with a bunch of missionaries from our zone and it was so relaxing and uplifting. It was so wonderful to feel of the spirit there and remember that one of the most important reasons we are on missions is to help people come unto Christ so that ultimately they can be sealed to their families in the temple and live with them forever. 

It was funny because during the session, one of our teachers walked in to help and I was so confused because I thought for a second that he was there as part of the MTC experience, like to check up on us or something. Turns out, he just happens to volunteer at the temple every Thursday. Threw us all for a loop.

My companion arrived the same day I did. We are the only ones in our room, and I'm pretty sure it will stay that way because there are some empty rooms in our hall. We are the only ones with just two in a room. The Finns and Albanians all have four per room. They've been here for three or four weeks and we're going to be sad when they leave. But it will make us excited to leave for the field ourselves. 

We have four teachers: Brother Grossen, Brother Runnells, Sister Moody, and Brother Beaumont. A lot of the time we call Brother Beaumont "Peter" (pronounced PAY-tare) because he was our first "investigator". We had to teach him lessons in Hungarian during our first week or so here, and it was horribly embarrassing for all of us because we knew so little and we thought he was actually Hungarian for a while because he wouldn't even speak Hungarian to us in the halls. So mean! But then he became our teacher and we all gave him a way hard time about it. He is super easy-going and fun so he's one of our favorites now.  All of our teachers served in Hungary between one and four years ago. They really love and care about the Hungarian people a lot and we like it when they tell us about the country and what it's like. Apparently the home-cooked food is excellent there. They will be our teachers the whole nine weeks, except Sister Moody because she is pregnant and will have her baby a couple of weeks before we leave. I'll try to get a picture of them and send it to you. 

Well, I've gotta run. Literally, in gym. Thanks for the packages and mail. Aunt Melissa, thank you so much for the gift. So clever! It is adorable, and I've already used some of the things. Browns-thanks so much for the treats! I felt so special. :)

I love letters and DearElders! It makes any day 100% awesome when I get something in the mail, so if you've got a minute, type up a dearelder at dearelder.com and let me know what's going on in your lives. 

I love it here! Please pray for me and my companion that we'll start getting really good at giving lessons. It's still scary to teach in Hungarian but we're getting better. Thank you all for your prayers and love. I love you! 

Until next week! Love, Sister Naegle

P.S. The Christmas lights are up now! So pretty and special.