Call Me Sister Swift--The Newest Russian Celebrity

Sige.  Okay.  Let's hope this thing works; the computers here are kind of... um... not always in the mood to work.

So, this email will be all over the place since I was just taking notes of what to say all week, but hopefully you enjoy it.

First off, I forgot to say last time - our investigators are our teachers.  Last week, our investigator "Gloria" who hardly spoke any english came in to the classroom and was like, "I'm your evening instructor!" and speaks perfect English.  That was kind of lame, but I suspected when we were teaching her she knew English juuust fine.  We're teaching our other teacher as well  now (Brother Rondillia) and his "investigator character" that he acts as is "Brother Gargabite."   I'll talk more about our two "investigators" AKA teachers later.

There are not even 200 misssionaries here, apparently, but they plan on having 200 by the end of June.  So, this is a pretty small MTC.  Which means that all of us Americans kind of stick out, a lot, haha.  Some quick notes - I've met about 3 other 21 year old Sisters here, so we're definitely kind of a dying breed (everyone else is younger.)  I'm also within the first 30 American missionaries to ever be at this MTC, too, cool story.  A large number of missionaries here are converts - probably about 60% or more.  It's pretty awesome; they all know how it feels to be taught by missionaries and gain a real testimony that the Church is true for themselves.  It also means that sometimes we have different ways of looking at things because of our cultures, upbringing etc, but I'm getting more used to it.

The temple here is awesome.  I also love how all the temple workers are these short little old Filipina ladies who literally don't even clear my shoulder.  They're adorable and I love them.  Most of the Filipinos here are significantly shorter than I am, or the Elders are my same height.  That's been taking some getting used to, haha.  I seriously enjoy Sundays here.  They're my favorite part of the week.  We don't get General Authorities here all the time (at all) like I would've at the Provo MTC, but I still like the chillness of Sundays and how I don't feel the pressure of teaching and learning the language as much. 

As could have been expected, as this was the case with Spanish, my pronunciation of Tagalog is probably significantly better than it has any right to be - I can read almost fluently, although some of the really really long words trip me up sometimes, and my accent or when I speak it is pretty spot on.  However, remembering the words is very difficult so far, but I'm getting there.

*****Now here's the hilarious part.  I officially feel famous here, all the time.  At least 15 different Elders on separate occasions came up to me and have said, "Sister!  Did you know you look JUST LIKE Taylor Swift??"  Yeah, that's a thing.  Then, on the Sunday before the non-Language learning missionaries left (AKA, the Filipinos and Mongolians), we had a picture taking time set aside for everyone to go take pictures.  That day, at least 20 different elders and about 5 Sisters all wanted to take an individual picture with me.  They were all, "I have a picture with an American!" hahah.  Also, today one of the bus drivers who bus people to the MTC came up to me and said, "Sister... Sister Larsen?  Where are you from again?  Russia, right?"  I looked at him and said, "Uhhh.. nope... U.S...."  He then said, "Oh, sorry, I forgot - your face, it just looks very Russian."  To be fair, I have had people say in the States before that I look like Taylor Swift and think that I was Russian.  Also, while shopping at the store, I saw multiple makeup products for "skin lightening."  They're hardcore about white skin being the ideal here.  It's super weird, since in the states everyone wants to be tan.

Mom, I have been whistling and singing ALL the time here.  My kasama isn't annoyed though, so that's good at least.  I just like having noise around me apparently, and when it's too quiet it weirds me out.

There are 700 affixes in Tagalog.  That meanst that... I'm still not even sure what that means.  but there's like 700 different ways to say one phrase then, or more than that.  It's crazy.  Here's some Tagalog grammar:

Strengthen will God families on Earth?
Verb Actor Object Location.

Yeah.  I'll probably say more about that later, but it's confusing.

To say, " Is this elevator going up?"  You say "Ba ba ba ba ba ba?"  And the response for yes is "ba ba ba ba."  I'm not making that up.  The word for "wall" is ding ding and the word for "ring" is sing sing.  Forreals.
"Suit Coat" is said Amerikana.  Not making that up either.

We have our first committed baptism!  Our teacher investigator "brother Gargabite" said he would be baptized.  And we committed him to obey the Word of Wisdom.  Yay!  We're very happy.

And by "we're" I mean we're.  I'm in a trio now, because a Sister from our ward had to go home because of health reasons.  So, now Sister Kelsey is in our companionship and there's three of us.  I like it though, and we're doing okay so far.

Just so you all know - Deb sent me a letter, and it took 15 days to get here.  So be aware of that!  Also, Deb, thank you for your letter!  I'll respond later to that.

The weirdest food I've had here so far is candied potatoes.  I liked them though - they had like caramel on them.  But it was delicious. 

Uhhhmmm.... that's all I've got for now and it's a lot.  Everyone at home or on missions, stay strong and stay solid!  God loves you, and is looking out for you.  Never forget that.  I pray for you all every night.  Things are gonig better here, and I'm in the swing of things.  I have confidence that we will learn and grow a great deal here in the MTC, even though it's hard to be cooped up for so long inside sometimes.  We're speaking Taglish to our investigators, and both of them are progressing!  We are getting noticably better, and we've invited the Spirit into our lessons multiple times.