This letter was written by Mandy on August 14th.  We received it on August 20th.

I want to start off this letter by apologizing for having you guys under the impression that I haven’t emailed you yet. One of the first things they had us do once we walked into the MTC, was email our family to let them know we arrived safely.  This last Friday we had the opportunity to email our family once again for our p-day.  We’re only allowed 60 minutes to email our families (which is not long enough) but with the new email software, I don’t think I attached your email addresses correctly.  Usually after you type an email into the address box, you can add another email by hitting the Enter or semi-colon key, but the emailing software thinks that the 5 emails I put into the address bar is one giant email address!!!  So I think that’s why you haven’t received any of my emails. :(  I’ve gotten all of the emails you’ve sent me, but I don’t think you’ve been getting mine. :(

I want you to know that I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!  You’ve been in my thoughts and prayers.  I hope you had a fun time in Las Vegas.  I was told you all got Dairy Queen after dropping me off–I hope it was yummy.  I haven’t had ice cream since idk when.  They don’t serve ice cream here at the MTC (Mom dramatically gasps in the background); but don’t worry, we get cheesecake instead.

Almost everyday we have time set for exercise/sport, and since Tongans and Samoans LOVE volleyball they actually have an outdoor volleyball net for us to play on!!! It’s the BEST!  Though sometimes the problem is, that everyone wants to play volleyball, so it gets crowded really fast and you’re lucky if you get to hit the volleyball at all.

We got to go to the temple on Thursday.  It was nice to have a field trip and kind of get out of the MTC for a couple of hours.  Fun fact: the MTC is actually on the border of the Auckland and Hamilton missions, so if you crossed the street from the MTC, you’d be in my mission.  On our way there, I got to see a glimpse of my mission, and what it’s like to drive on the left side of the road.  President Arens was right! Everything here is so green and the little homes are usually bright colors like red, yellow, blue, and even lime/neon green, which looks perfect with the gray and pastel blue sky.  We did see a couple of sheep and cows, but I’ve yet to see an army of a fluffy white field (I’ll be sure to take a picture and sent it to you).  Like most temples, you could spot it a couple miles away.  You can’t miss it, they have it placed on top of a hill. It looks very similar to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple, except much smaller and a lot simpler in design.  Oh, and Brandon, the Hamilton Temple is one of the temples that doesn’t have an angel Moroni on top.  We only had enough time for an endowment session, 2 seconds of shopping, and barely any time for pictures. :( Afterward, I was able to meet my mission president.  President and Sister Cummings joined us for lunch before we had to make the trip back to the MTC (which is about 60 minutes away).

Today marks the halfway point in the MTC.  Crazy, right?!?! I only have 10 more days until I leave for the mission field. I have mixed emotions.  I can’t wait to be in the field, but I don’t think that I’m ready yet.

Again, sorry about the whole picture thing.  They won’t allow me to upload or attach an photos while I’m in the MTC (it’s kind of driving me looney tooney, but that’s okay).

I’m out of time :( but I’ll write you again next week.  Love you and miss you lots.

Sister Welker