Seventeen More Months...

That's the mom counting down the time... not the missionary. She's survived the first month and is doing very well. Here's part of her e-mail from today:

* i accidently burned my ear with my hair straightener last week..yeah clamped the straightener right on my ear - it didnt hurt and i didnt know that it had actually burned my ear..its better now but i had a blister - and then today i was curling my hair and burned my fingers. haha i have problems!

* i see spencer halverson almost everyday - he looks like hes doing well.

* today was SOO beautiful outside! i wanted to go out an play soccer so bad! but we dont have gym on p-days and i dunno if they'll let us play outside yet.

* tell meg that i've written her and that she should look for it in the mail next week!
tell everyone thanks a bunch for their prayers and support! i wish i had time to write everyone back but know that i'm praying for everyone!

* so this week we started teaching in german - ahh!! haha i was SO nervous on tuesday and was really feeling bad about myself. but before we left to go teach my teacher had us read in chapter 1 of preach my gospel, the section how to become a successful missionary (or something like that) anyway it said - don't compare yourself to other missionaries....don't get discouraged. when you get discouraged then you lose faith. anyway i SO needed to read that - i prayed so hard to Heavenly Father that He would help me feel better about myself and that i wouldnt be discouraged. i felt so much better after reading that and i felt that i would do ok.

* so we got to the teaching thing and the people we taught knew about as much german as we did! it was awesome!! when we started teaching they had tons of questions about the holy ghost and baptism - we didnt even get to teach the lesson because they had so many questions and we kept answering them. the spirit was so strong and was helping us to answer their questions. we hadnt even practiced talking about any of that stuff in german but we were able to answer all their questions and resolve their concerns! I was even able to say stuff!! it was SO cool! i felt SO blessed - i know that Heavenly Father will help me when I get to Germany.

* last night sister stewart had a practice teaching appointment with a german teacher. again he had questions and such that we answered and hardly taught our lesson - again the spirit was there helping us. sister stewart did most of the talking which i felt was fine because i didnt know how to say anything. when we finished the teacher looked right at me and said "sister doty, you know so much more german than you think you do. if you ever feel like something should be said..just jump in there and try and say it. just open your mouth." as i thought about it there were times when i felt that someone should have been said but since i didnt know how to say it in german i just let sister stewart keep talking. but when that happens i really need to just try and say it. i know that if i do, that i'll show Heavenly Father that i have faith in Him and that i trust Him that if i just open my mouth, that whatever i thought should be said, will get said somehow. so i'm really glad that he pointed that out to me. so the next time i teach i'm going to pay more attention to what the spirit tells me to say and then i'll just open my mouth and try to say it! i'll let you know how it goes!

This makes me smile because never in her life has Rachel been afraid to "open her mouth"! I think she was born talking!