Hooooooooola!!
 
It''s so good to hear from you wonderful family! I have officially been in the Missionary Training Center for a week and a half! Let me just say...the days feel like weeks, but the weeks feel like days! It feels like just yesterday that I got here, but if my visa gets here in time, I will be leaving in two weeks for Peru! Crazy! I absolutely without a doubt LOVE it here! My companion Hermana Eberle and I got another companion, Hermana Dopp, she is such a wonderful addition to our district and our companionship! I feel so blessed to have such wonderful companions! What can I say, except that I love being a missionary! We have class for about 6 hours every day (spanish and fundamentals of Gospel Doctrine) personal study (scriptures etc.) companionship study, language study, additional study, gym time and something called ""TALL"" which is a language tool to learn vocab/verb conjugation etc. I just found out yesterday that our days are 16 hours long!! We wake up at 6:30am, quiet time at 10:15pm and lights off at 10:30. Everything is scheduled to a T and I love it! The funny thing is, although we have so many hours in the day that we are up and about, it almost seems like there is not enough time to accomplish everything. But, we get it done and everything is great! :)
 
My district is so amazing. These are the people that I have class with, church with, lunch with and they are all wonderful. This computer doesnt have a camera connector thing so I am going to send a seperate email with pictures attached once I get there. But, you will see all of them. I love them all SO much. I am truly blessed. As for spanish...let me just say that I am far from fluent. BUT it is coming along. My companions and I have taken to carrying vocab notecards around, talking as much as we can in spanish (or spanglish...depending on how you look at it...) singing spanish hymns twice a day, praying in spanish and reading a chapter from the scriptures in spanish every day. All of these little things are helping me work toward being fluent and slowly but surely it is coming. I realized the other day as I was journaling, one of the reasons that I was called to a spanish speaking mission. As most of you know, I am a very stubborn person and I like to rely on myself a lot. However, without the help of Heavenly Father, there is no way that I will be able to become fluent and acquire the gift of tongues without increased faith in Him and humility. If I humble myself and pray multiple times daily, I know that He will bless me with the things I need to be able to communicate with those I teach.
 
I am also learning how importance obedience is. Being on time to everything every day and abiding by some of the rules here can be really hard, but I have already seen a difference when I am obedient, I am more blessed and I am able to be more attune to the spirit. It''s hard to explain, but we hear a quote this past week that was something to the affect of...''obedience brings blessings, but exact obedience brings the blessings of the Spirit and the help of the Lord more abundantly. How true that is, that when we keep the commandments and honor our covenants that our lives seem to be more peaceful and the blessings seem to be more abundant.
 
My testimony is growing every day,, I love my companions, I love my district, I love my teachers and I just LOVE being a missionary SO MUCH!!
 
I will send another email with pictures a bit later, but for now I am out of time.
 
If you have time, write me some letters because I love hearing from you all!
 
 
Te Amo Mucho!!!!
 
Love,
Hermana Ali