He Lives! MTC Week 4

Hello everyone!

Well, hope none of you were TOO sad when you didn't get an e-mail from me
yesterday. My P-day got changed to Thursday...so here I am :)

This week has been wonderful, as usual. The mission really is the best two
years of your life, because it's not your life that you are living for.

But don't get me wrong, it's not easy. In fact, talking about missionary
work, Elder David A. Bednar said, "When you think you can't do this, you're
right. You can't. But with God you CAN do it, and with God you can do
anything." I love that, so much. Thanks Elder Bednar. And thank you, God. I
know that He will do what I cannot, if I just do what I can.

Not like I'm counting down or anything, but I leave for Costa Rica in 12
days! Can you believe it? I can't.The fact that I will soon leave the
country doesn't feel real yet. I feel like I have lived my entire life in
this little missionary time warp called the MTC. I'm excited and nervous.
But mostly just happy. See you soon rainy, warm, beautiful weather!

The other day my companion said to me,
Companion: "Costa Rica is just the perfect
mission! I mean, who wouldn't want to go there? Well...actually, it would
be hard for the sisters in Antarctica to get called there."
Me: Um, Hermana...pretty sure penguins don't get called on missions.

As the newbies arrive every Wednesday, there are more and more sisters!
Hollla at yo girls! It's so awesome. Then throughout the day, the MTC soon
becomes crowded with so many new missionaries. There's so many different
languages going on everywhere at once, so when we pass people in the halls
I pretend that maybe I'm going to Japan or something and I shout my made up
Japanese at people. Because they don't know I can't speak Japanese right? I
could be saying, "Hi", or "I like your dress", or "I'm hungry". So, after
a group
of elders started laughing at me, I looked at their name tags and guess
where they were serving? Japan. Hahaha oops. The funny thing is, they told
me my accent didn't need any work! But I think from now on I'll just stick
to my Spanish.

Last Sunday we had a really cool opportunity to meet and listen to the
brand new general young women's presidency. Sister Dalton is still my hero
though, and always will be! Speaking here at the MTC, was Sister
Oscarson's  first
assignment! She spoke to us about Jacob chapter 5 (the looonnngest chapter
in The Book of Mormon). Honestly, i understand about as much in that
chapter as i do when i read Isaiah. But she shared her insight about how we
as missionaries are involved in the gathering of Isreal and about how The
Lord sure is hastening his work. I love verse 17. It says we must labor in
the vineyard with all our might and as we do so, we are promised that the
master will never leave us unattended as we do His work.

Also on Sunday, 4 of us sang the song "I know that my Redeemer lives"
acapella in church. It's my favorite song! And my favorite line in that
song is, "He lives, my kind, wise heavenly friend. He lives, and loves me
to the end." The words touched my heart. When I start to miss my friends at
home, I just need to remember that I have also have a best friend up in
Heaven. I am loved more than I know, by someone who died to know me.

Now that my Spanish vocabulary is starting to expand a little...we try to
go the whole day speaking ONLY spanish. We play games and have contests,
it's so great. We take regular songs and try to translate them into
Spanish. Por ejemplo (for example), "Estamos son NUNCA, nunca,
nunca...getting back...juntos!" It makes no sense, i know. But it's so fun
and it's helping me learn my Spanish. And if nothing else, I can sing 'we
are never getting back together' spanish style, for all those Costa Ricans.
They'll listen to me, right?

Here's some spanglish jokes for you all:

How much milk does a Costa Rican cow make? MUUUUCCHHOOO
What do you call a Costa Rican with a rubber toe? ROBERTO

Please laugh. When you are a missionary, you have to find ways to entertain
yourself somehow! For instance, I am almost postive that I have now seen
every Mormon Message ever created. My favorite one is called earthly
father, heavenly father. Everyone needs to watch it. It's amazing.

This week all the Hermanas pulled the matresses our from the bunk beds and
had a sleepover (which ended promptly @ 10:30 reeeaal wild, i know) but it
was so fun. For our nightly prayer we decided to all say one prayer
together outloud. So one person started it and then we all went around the
circle and each contributed to the prayer. We went around a few times and
when we finished realized we had been praying for over 30 minutes. It was
so special and I had never done anything like it before. So if any of you
are looking to spice up your prayer life, I defintely reccommend it.

Our teachers strongly enforce something here called HSI (habla su idioma or
speak your language). So after explaining the importance of that to us, we
started talking to each other and when no one was listening to our teacher,
he yelled, "HELLO!"
Me: Don't you mean...Hola?
Hahaha gotcha.

Well, my favorite part of the week has come to an end. I love sitting down
to write home each week. Hope you are all doing well.
Con todo el amor en mi corazon,
Hermana Starke

Advice of the week: ALWAYS share the gospel. And if necessary, use words.
Okay, so i may or may not have stolen that from Elder Uchtdorf. But that is
just more of a reason to do it!

Shout out to my Meggs for getting her license finally!!! I'm happy for ya
sis!!! Besitos :)

Watch this: Earthly Father, Heavenly Father
http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=2119328537001

Sent by mom to celebrate our 1/2 way in the MTC