Last Day in the MTC!

Hallo Mutti!   Everything here is going really well. I cannot wait to get to the airport tomorrow morning and then be in Germany on Wednesday! It's going to be so much fun. The number one thing I'm looking forward to is actually getting there and teaching real people, and also learning the finer parts of the language. I was reading das Buch Mormon today for personal study and I usually can't understand a lot of it but I've begun to realize how things are structured in the scriptures and how narrative past works more, and I actually could understand the introduction and almost all of the 1st chapter of Nephi, aside from a couple words and phrases that I looked up in the dictionary. I'm glad we are leaving the MTC when we are; there are going to be so many new missionaries here within the next few weeks. It's going to be a madhouse. I think the week that Matt H. comes in will have 47 new German missionaries alone. In our exit fireside last night, President Brown, the president of the MTC, had all of the groups of missionaries going to different places stand up individually, and the biggest group was ours, going to Germany (at least in terms of going foreign). The largest in-state group was the group going to Nevada believe it or not. They just opened up the Reno Mission, so now there are 3 missions in Nevada and there are plenty of missionaries going there and to Vegas this week. After that, we had another fireside where Jenny Oaks Baker, a world renowned violinist (and I think Elder Dallin H. Oaks' daughter) played a variety of uplifting pieces. It was really incredible, you should look up her music. On Friday we had our In-field Orientation where we went over how to plan, how to watch out for key indicators, how to find people, and how to function within the ward. It was really informative and it looks like a lot of work that will start right when we get to Germany. Today is our last Vorbereitungstag. I'm doing some laundry right now and afterwards I'll get everything packed and then to finish off the day we have a couple of cultural classes from Bruder Luna and Schwester Alder. In our teaching appointments last week, we finally got Frau Zeidler (Schw. Alder) to commit to baptism, and we committed Karl (Br. Luna) to live the Doctrine of Christ with his family. It was really exciting, and I feel like my teaching is about as good as it can become in the MTC. I know it will all change when I get out there and I will have to deal with a lot more lessons and various situations. I'm sure it will be very humbling. Tonight when we have those culture classes, we will see the pictures of the real people who we are teaching because the personas that Schwester Alder and Bruder Luna have adapted are based off of real people they taught on their missions. I'm super excited, but it's going to be hard saying goodbye to these teachers. They have helped me so much and I know I wouldn't even be close to where I am now in terms of the language and teaching without them. I will most likely give them the blogspot information so they can see how I'm doing in Deutschland. Well, I don't want to say everything and not have any news left to give tomorrow when I get to call. I can't wait to talk to everyone and let people know how things are going! Bis Morgen!   Liebe, Daniel