Dear family,

Can you believe that I've already been in the MTC for a month?! Time flies by so differently here! I'm sure everyone has heard this a thousand times, but a perfect way to put it is that in the MTC "the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days." It's so true!

I hope everyone got to watch the World-wide broadcast this past Sunday! If not, make sure you go online and watch it! It was fantastic. I know that missionary work is very dependant on the members working with the missionaries to find those who are ready to hear and accept the gospel. With members, the missionaries are just walking blind! With the flood of missionaries heading out into the field, it's even more important that every member be a missionary. I challenge each and every one of you to mention the Gospel to a friend every day. By doing so, you can and will open more doors than you will even realize.

It was really neat to see the advancements happening in the church. The fact that the church works with technology now--so cool! It was very interesting to be sitting in the broadcast (I was in the choir, and supposedly showed up on the screen a couple times) and be watching videos from our prophet and apostles. Mom, (and Caom) if that Oklahoma area was indeed the are you fasted for, that is the coolest thing I've ever heard! Well, it's still the coolest thing even if it wasn't the same. I'm so glad that you experienced the blessings of fasting in such a powerful and obvious way!

Another cool thing with technology: our Tuesday devotional was by ... this is really sad but I can't remember her name. She wrote the Army of Helaman, and pretty much every other Primary Song you've ever loved (I am a Child of God, A Child's Prayer, Love at Home, etc.). She was able to have us sing a medley of five different Primary songs, which was really neat. And then at the very end, we got to sing her very newest rendition of a duet between Army of Helaman and Sisters of Zion. That was the best thing ever, to be in a group of 3,000ish missionaries, singing a missionary song with both an Elder and Sister part. The spirit was bursting out of every one of our hearts!

The language is still coming, I'm doing much better at remembering the forms we learn. We just got a scary speaking challenge yesterday, to proselyte to someone everyday for the rest of our MTC stay. But it will help us so much because we will have to proselyte pretty much right of the plane in Korea!

So guess what?? Yesterday, I ran 2 1/2 miles nonstop for the first time in my whole entire life! I am so proud of myself. Now I feel like a very tired beast. But I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, that end of the tunnel being my goal to run a triathlon before i die. It might actually be possible! Awww yeah.

Mom, I hope you are alright! I was not happy to hear that you had gotten my cold! At least you feel better now right? And dad is coming home this next week!! How ecstatic are you?? Make sure you give him a big hug for me!

I have seen Elder Allen Nelson multiple times, and I just heard Sister Sydney Baldridge's voice! But I haven't gotten to see her yet, she was gone by the time I ran out the door. I am searching for her everywhere!

I tried to attach some pictures, but failed in figuring out how to do it, so I will try again next week!

I love you and wish I had time to write more. I am having a blast as I get to know my Savior and Heavenly Father more and more each day. I know that each and every person on this earth can know their Father, and he will help them through any trial! Read the Book of Mormon everyday with a question in your heart, and it will be answered! I have received multiple big answers in the past week, so I know it's true! Write letters!

Sister Christina Segovia

Hello parents!

 

Can you believe it's already been more than three weeks? This past week has been insane. We said goodbye to the older missionaries, and hello to some new ones! The older missionaries were so great; we all miss them a ton! But they are happily serving in Korea, and we will soon be joining them! Only six weeks left.

 

Mom, thank you for sending me frequent Dear Elder's it really brightens my day to hear about everyone! Especially little Kru :) Tell him I love him too!! And make sure you tell Cami and Leeam when you talk to them too. <3

 

Yes, I was definitely excited that I could see Mariah, because she was also singing in the choir! And now she is gone to Finland! I can't believe it. Hearing Finnish from her mouth-- I just can't wait until we get back and will be able to say our whole life story to each other in different langauges! That will be so fun.

 

So our first TRC lesson was great, the people are incredibly nice. I can't remember what TRC stands for, but it's just when member come volunteer so we can teach lessons to them. We are teaching them again tonight. As far as the other lessons go, this week Sister Bussio and I started going without a script!! Now we just bring an outline, and the vocab that we don't know for that lesson. It is way better becuase you can actually be guided by the Spirit in what you say. And we are better prepared to answer any question from our investigators! Just yesterday, the very FIRST question our investigator asked in the lesson was about a completely different topic than we were going to teach. But we were able to still answer (though minimally) and can teach him more about it in our next lesson. Also, we are getting better at understanding/looking up what he is saying. All in all, I'm excited about how well we are doing!

 

Both my companion and I are better from our colds (I took lots of Vitamins mom, don't worry) and are feeling fresh and happy!

 

We are still chugging along through the language, and are steadily improving, though I still feel as if I should be learning things faster. I made a goal with myself yesterday, that I will not waste a single moment on my mission! Anything that I do must be for a reason--to bring others to Christ. Though if that requires taking a little brain-break, that counts. It just can't go wasted.

 

One thing that i absolutely love about the MTC is how strong the Spirit is. It's everywhere, a constant presence. And when we learn how to invite and welcome it, our lessons and learning go so much more smoothly. Also, my patriarchal blessing? What a lifesaver! Any and all people should use it as a rope, keeping them from drowning in all the unimportant things that we so often tend to think about.

 

So, super cool fact: Elder Frampton in my district has the same birthday as me!! So now we are best friends. haha! I am exactly one year older than him. :) Also, Two other Elders from our district, Elder Stapley and Elder Pickard, also have the same birthday! how crazy is that?? What are the odds that of the 12 people in our district, four of us would shar a birthday with someone! my mind is blown by that. It's so fun!

 

I can't believe so many people are in/coming to the MTC! I pretty much see someone I know every other day! It's so fun. I can't wait for Sydney to get here! I'm still watching out for Elder Allen Nelson, I'm sure we'll bump into each other sometime. Also, Kenisi sent me an email, and he is going to El Salvador for his mission!! How cool is that? I'm way excited for him. :D

 

Tell anyone and everyone that I love them, and make sure to direct them to this blog if they want to know how I am doing!

 

Sister Christina Segovia

Dear members of the outside world,

 

Wow. It's the third week already! That means I'm already a third of the way done with the MTC!

 

I cannot believe how much has happened. It's like every single week is both a month and a single day, the time passes so differently here. Best news first. For devotional on Tuesday, we went to the Marriot center for the first time. I was in the choir (the choir was pretty much two-thirds of the MTC, it was HUGE) so we walked over early. And even before I sat down I heard someone call my name. It was Sister MARIAH JOHNSON!! I am so happy that I got to see her!! (For those that don't know, she is my cousin/roommate of two years) She spoke to me in Finnish, and it definitely sounds like an intense language. She asked me to say something in Korean, but it probably didn't sound very impressive haha. She told me that she prayed she would see me, and I know that it was an answer to her prayer, because there were SO many people that it was very unlikely that we would see each other.

 

Another thing about that devotional-- as we were walking over, I looked behind me and it was seriously like an army of missionaries with no end in sight. There were about 2,000 of us, and I immediately thought that we were literally 2,000 spritual warriors. We are in the preparation stage before we go out into the field of battle to help bring sould unto Christ. Just like the 2,000 strippling warriors in the Book of Mormon, we can and will succeed as long as we have faith. Our parents taught us well, and now it's up to us to fight for liberty-- the liberty of those waiting to hear the gospel.

 

The language is still fun and still coming, and I have a little more vocabulary at my grasp. We are now teaching two investigators, both new. Yesterday Sister Bussio and I taught both of them in the same day. That was interesting, especially because both of them ended up having the same sort of question: how to pray. We had to go off our script for both, which was very interesting, though I think we did okay. We can say simple (VERY simple) sentences on our own, so we were able to sort of get our ideas across. I had one of them write down his question so we could answer it next time, because neither of us could figure out what he was saying for the life of us. We have another lesson tonight, our first TRC! TRC is with an actual real person, so I'm pretty nervous. Luckily we are going to the temple right before, so we will be extra spiritually in-tune.

 

It's so great to recieve letters from people! Believe me when I say it. Everytime our district gets letters, it's like Christmas!

Mom, I'm so glad that you were safe and found help when your car broke down. And how was Becky's shower?? I wish I could have gone! Tell her I love and miss her!

Also, tell dad Happy Father's Day this Sunday, and I'm thinking of him a lot! I was going to send a card, but then i remembered he's in Bolivia. :/

 

We do indeed get to exercise, an hour every day. It's life-saving! And mind-saving. I had a cold this past week, but once again, prayer is so powerful. I prayed right from the beginning that it wouldn't get as bad as my colds usually do, and this has been one of the fastest recoveries ever! I'm already pretty much back to normal. Sadly, i got my companion sick :( But now I will pray for her health too!

 

Tell Dad and Nelly that I really love them but no, we aren't allowed to have visitors. The reason is that it's just distracting from the work that we are doing. But I would love to hear from them in email/letter!

 

저는 몰몬경이 잠되다 는 것을 알고있습니다.

 

I love you all!

 

Sister Christina Segovia

Hello hello!

 

Wow, I've made it through my first full week! I feel like my last letter was sent fifty years ago, because everything has changed. One correction needs to be made: our Branch President is in fact President Yost, who is not from New Zealand and doesn't speak Korean. The New Zealander is our 1st counselour, and he and the 2nd counselour both served together in Korea. Pretty cool! My first Sunday was Fast Sunday, so I don't know the regular Sunday schedule, but I'd say Fast Sunday was one of the best/worst days! Best because it was so spiritually uplifing with the Missionary Conference, Korean testimony meeting, etc; worst because I am not used to fasting for so long. And the chairs are very hard in all of our meetings. But I am so happy that I was able to fast my first Sunday. It really was a great experience, and I was so proud of myself afterwards! Fasting has always been a weakness that I have, but this time it was a comfort to be able to make that sacrifice for the Lord and for those I love.     

 

The rest of the week has been full of highs and lows. But one thing I know for sure--in the moment, the lows feel like they couldn't be any worse, but looking at it afterwards when I'm writing in my journal it just all turns to good! Like just yesterday, I started writing about how terrrible of a day it was, but then all I wanted to write about were the good things, and I realized it wasn't a bad day at all! It's just all about the outlook. I know that if I want to have the best time in the MTC, it's up to me. No matter how tired I am, I do not have to be an angry troll! haha

 

Brother Sung has tauht us a TON, enough to fill five brains. So my one brain seems to not always cut it. But wow, I can't believe how far I have been able to progress already! I know the Korean alphabet and can read, albiet slowly. But I'm getting better, as is our whole district. We now can sing hymns without sounding like a funeral progression, which is much more encouraging. We have learned a few forms and can make our own rudimentary sentences. Bro. Sung informed us that Korean has an INFINITE amount of grammar forms because that is how they express themselves, rather than using tone of voice like we do. The next two months will be dedicated to learning 40 or those forms, and he said that we will probably learn another 60 in the field. D: How are we going to remember all that?? --Through God is how. There's no way we could do it without him.

 

Some Korean missionaries just got here this past week, and all of K-town (the Korean branch) treats them as superstars. They are so... fashionable! And their Korean is incredibly fast. And they are just awesome. Us newbies are too scared to talk to them, mainly because we don't exactly know Korean. But I hope to be able to understand them a little before they leave in two weeks!  

 

Learning 단 어 (vocab) is one of the most important things we can be doing, and we figured out a way to make it fun! Coming up with little ridiculous phrases in order to remember. For example, 알 다 (pronounced al-da) means to know, so "I know all." That's the one that makes the most sense. The rest are just nonsense like for 병 화 (pyong-hua) meaning peace, we say "Punks want peace."  One thing that is a little frustrating is that the actual pronunciation of the words is often not the same as it's spelled. So even though I know how to read, I'm pronouncing everything wrong. But Korean is seriously SO fun to learn! It really is just like math. I shouldn't have stopped taking math classes. i probably would be getting this faster haha But it's still enjoyable and I can't wait to study it everyday!

 

My companion and I get along really well, and haven't really had any bad experiences with each other. We are able to talk, joke, laugh, make fun of ourselves, have spiritual moments, etc. And we have also been able to really get to know and connect with the other Sisters and Elders in our district as well as a few from the other districts. I love them all! They are so fun, and we all have different strengths so we can help each other out.

 

We taught our investigator four times this past week, and met our new teacher yesterday. Lo and behold, it was our investigator, 채 강 덕. His real name is Brother Campbell, and he is awesome. I already knew that he would be our teacher from everyone else's MTC stories, and it was funny how hard everyone tries to keep it a secret. But yeah, he is a great teacher! I already can tell that he will have a huge influence on our learning Korean and becoming better missionaries. I'm so happy that we are going to be taught by two extremely kind, intelligent, and spritually powerful people! The next two months are going to be great. As far as the lessons go, our Korean was terrible. haha we don't know enough Korean to do it without a script, but we read so slowly that it's just really choppy. But even with that  challenge, the Spirit still presented itself in our lessons! It truly showed me that any and all truth, know matter how poorly it is presented, will be affirmed by the Holy Ghost.

 

I know that this is where I am supposed to be and where I am supposed to be going. Every day I get more and more thrilled to be learning about the Korean people! I love you all, and can't wait to hear from you.

 

Love,

Sister Christina Segovia

 

Hello wonderful parents! And a shout out to all others who are reading this email. :)

It's my first P-day! I think it's awesome that our districts P-day is on Friday, it just makes the week seem more normal, since Friday's were usually my break days before. It's great that they still are!

The MTC is insane. There are so many people here! We have strict schedules for everything including when we eat, do laundry, exercise, etc. And we have to follow it to the dot or else there will be overcrowding. Apparently we had twice as many missionaries come in as normal, with around 700 new missionaries entering the MTC on the same day as me. AND, we had SIXTY-EIGHT Korean missionaries come in! We have tripled the size of our Branch! That is just amazing. Also, the fact that four people from Mountain Home are serving in Korea... And i saw both Elder Austin Bodily and Sister Ana Martin! I actually see them pretty often since we, of course, are in the same branch. So that's way cool!

We got to meet our Branch Presidency last night (though I was struggling to pay attention because it felt like three in the morning) and our President is from New Zealand (Lord of the Rings country!) as well as one of the Zone leaders. If I were to learn an accent, I think that one would be the one. :D

As I mentioned, the days are so very VERY long. I thought the first day was bad, but then I had to get up at 6:30am and go go go until 10:30pm and the first day seemed like a blink. By the end of last night we were pretty much sleep walking. I had a humongous headache which started after the three hour Korean class that we had; my mind literally couldn't handle it I guess! haha But I almost have the Korean alphabet down, and once I get that perfected and in my brain, then I will be able to read Korea out loud. Of course I'll have no clue what I'm saying, but it's still useful! Also, I know the basic Humble structure of the Korean sentences (there's three different structures for talking, though the missionaries always should use Humble), it's actually pretty easy to learn, it's just a matter of remembering!

Our Korean teacher is Brother Sung. He was born in Hawaii and raised in Salt Lake. He would go to the Busan area every summer, and served a mission in Seoul. He's way funny, and also very helpful! He notices anything we say, even if it's not to him, and takes that into account when he is teaching.

We have to teach our first lesson to an "investigator" in all Korean TODAY! My companion and I are sooo nervous, so we are going to be planning that for the rest of our free time. We also get to go to the temple later this evening, which will be a great relaxer and give us a chance to clear our mind and get in touch with the Holy Spirit more.

I have loved the atmosphere here! Especially because everyone is so friendly to the new missionaries. You get a bright pink dot on your name tag the first day, so everyone can know you are new, and practically everyone is saying hello and welcome to the MTC. You can take the dot off after the first day, but I'm determined to keep mine on until Sunday, even though everyone keeps telling me I can take it off. But I just love how everyone is so nice to you when you have it on! I still get welcomed all the time by people :)

And I have been able to see so many people that I know! I've seen people from my previous BYU wards, classes, and work. Though I don't think I'll ever see Mariah because she no longer actually lives on the MTC campus, but was moved to the recently added housing across the way.

One really interesting thing that I've noticed here: even those that I'm pretty sure I've never met before all look familiar! It's so weird, like I can't figure out if I HAVE met them before. But then I remember that they didn't look familiar when I first met them, it's just that I feel like I've known them forever. I'm not sure why, but it's the most interesting thing.

My companion is great; she seems very responsible. Her name is Sister Bussio, and she is from Provo and went to BYU for the past two years as well. She is majoring in History (the old stuff like Greek and Roman) and knows Greek and Latin. She could translate those mythology stories I learned about last semester! So cool. We haven't completely connected yet, but we are definitely getting there! Neither of us are the super girly type, so we aren't like doing each other's hair or screaming in high pitches about little things haha and both of us are definitely not used to having someone with us all the time. but I'm excited to get to know her!

So, I lost my CTR ring my very first day--so typical of me right? haha Also, I'm not sure if you found it or not, but I think I must have left my sea-greenish shirt at home, because I can't find it in my luggage anywhere. If I did leave it home, that makes me sad! That was one of my favorites :(

Well, there's lots more to tell, but that would result in a mile-long email, so I'll just keep it the half-mile that it is. :D I love you both, Mom and Dad! Also, I love all of the family, and my awesome friends! Have a fantastic week!

Love,

Sister Christina Segovia

We love you 2!! Hope I did this right!   love, Mom