MTC: Week 2

From letter dated 11 February, 2009.

Hoi! Hoe gaat het met jullie?
This week has been good! Part of me feels like I've been in the MTC forever & part of me feels like I just arrived yesterday...
Let's see - what happened since I last wrote? My teaching companion and I have taught some great lessons this week & I'm learning a lot. Last week we were working on teaching toward the needs of the investigators. Out teacher, Sister Spencer, gave the other Elders a concern & we were to try to find out their concern and help them resolve it. It was neat to hear how the spirit spoke to me in that situation... I now understand a lot more about how the spirit speaks to me & about how I need to immediately follow those promptings... I hope I continue to learn more about how the spirit speaks to me so I can continually follow it's promptings, especially when I get into the field.
This week has also had some rough spots. I get so frustrated with myself sometimes! Especially with the language. Our task for our teaching appointment was to go contacting - obviously in Dutch since it is a "language task". So, we were practicing with our teachers and it was AWFUL! We had no idea what to say & couldn't figure out what the contact was saying either. All of us got extremely frustrated. But it also gave us new resolve to practice more & constantly work on our Dutch. We've made a lot of goals this week to help us improve. By the time our teaching appointment came around we were actually able to contact & understand a lot of what was said. It was amazing to see how faith, prayer, determination, and hard work all work together to help us improve. Elder Jose A. Teixiera spoke at our devotional and said the spirit guides you when you are doing your part - that means actually DOING something! I have been working hard, but that was a great reminder & helped strengthen my resolve...
Sister Stapleton & the other Dutch district leave on Monday, which is going to be weird! I've become good friends with a couple of the Dutch Elders in that District & they helped me learn Dutch more quickly...
I have to run! I love you all! Remember that the Savior loves you. Read 2 Nephi 9 - I've been doing a lot of thinking about that lately. The messages contained in that chapter are AMAZING!
Met Liefde!
Zuster Chantelle Fowler