Ni Hao!
So here I am at the MTC and life is rather surreal at the moment. For some reason a part of me didn't think this time in my life would ever come but here I am on my first prep day writing the first of many emails. I guess I should start out with what's been going on. I got dropped off on Tuesday and was taken to my room where I meet my companion sister Erickson or for the people of 3200 Haley who moved out after first semester. We were both really surprised because we hadn't remembered each other's last names but by this point only five day's later I feel like we've become pretty good friends. We are very different though. I thought I was blunt but she takes it to a whole other level. She says what she thinks and I love it. We met one of our teachers on Thursday night he was a red head and the first thing she said to him was "Hey red! Do you got a soul?" This happens often and it's already taught me a lot about how people react to things and how we all really do love each other.

Anyways, we're already teaching people even if it's just practice it forces us to try and learn the language really fast. I can pray and recite the Missionary purpose and introduce myself as Ran JieMei but that's about it. So when it comes to teaching I do a lot of reading out of my language book and rely on the lord for the spirit.

So, other people I live with, Sister Hughes, or Hu JieMei, Sister Roberts or Luo JieMei and the three other elders in our district who we spend almost half the day studying with are, Elder Ramanlal or Hai ZhongLao, Elder Joly or Le ZhongLao, and Elder Welch or Wei ZhongLao. I got lucky and was able to tell our primary teacher Ge LaoShi, (Ironic yes I know but he's a great teacher) that I my dad went on a chinese speaking mission and I was able to get out of the name Pi JieMei which I wasn't as fond of. Sister Erickson has my old name of Sun JeiMei.

Anyways I think that's it for now I'm drowning in Chinese but life is good and I'm happy with where I am. Staying focused is hard sometimes especially since I'm surrounded by awesome people with fantastic stories and lifes but that's the way things are we are all dedicated to Christ and we need to focus on keeping ourselves centered in Christ and his Gospel.

I love you all so much and you'll hear from me next week.

Sister Skinner