goede daag mijn familie!!! 4/23/08

Hi! I'm so excited to be able to e-mail you all! First off, I really need tothank everyone for all the letters and notes. It's been fabulous! I thinkI'm making my district a little jealous... they make vaguely jealous soundsalong the lines of "Let's go check the mailbox... Zuster Baxter's probablygot a letter. Again." So thanks for showing your love! I made a list of things to write about to hopefully this will be less ofa brain dump than last time. First off, I'm surrounded by sick people!!! Mycomp possibly has tonsilitis and a sinus infection and threw up last night.Another roommate was coughing up blood this morning (although she says shefeels fine). An Elder in my district has migraines and was nauseated lastnight. So hopefully I pull through okay! We also got two new roommates last Wednesday - Sister Olsen and SisterSchiess. They're both going to church history missions and are hilarious.Sister Schiess and I have had some good chats about perfectionism andidentity as a missionary. It's been nice to actually be the comfortingsister (as opposed to the one running around like a chicken with its headcut off). It made me realize that it is rather miraculous that I haven't hadmore of an identity crisis while here. I guess I' m realizing my personalitydoes indeed shine through, even if there's no e.e. cummings or Radiohead toback up my shallow sense of self. ;) Plus a solo sister it's not very hardto feel unique... Of course, being a solo sister makes for some great male-femaledynamics. For the Teaching Evaluation Center (we teach discussions toteachers who give us feedback) and the Teaching Resource Center (Where wepractice language tasks like tracting in Dutch and then teach a discussionin our language eventually, but just English for now) I work with ourdistrict leader, Elder DeMass. He's been pretty great abotu working with asister, even though one of our teachers almost called me Sister DeMass theother day. Hrm. =) Elder Berry and I also get along pretty well... the otherday he said I remind him of his sister. I pointed out I was not the first todescribe our relationship as such (I just remember too many Elders whiningabout sisters treating them like little brothers). Yesterday he said Ireminded him of a girl he dated. "No, like we were just really good friendsthough!" If tomorrow he tells me I'm like his mom, the Oedipal Complex willbe complete. Elder Helton is such a solid missionary. He's quiet, but whenhe bears his testimony it's so real. I really am blessed to be with thisdistrict. Our teachers are great, but both are leaving soon, one for hishoneymoon and the other for an internship in Africa. Our new teacher is abit more on the Utah Mormon smiley side of things, and I kinda have a hardtime taking him seriously all the time, but I need to repent and learn tolearn from all types. Plus he explains Dutch grammar and such so much betterthan our other teachers, so that's nice. Brother Ure, the teacher headingoff the Africa, gave us a nice little interrogation of our testimonies theother day. It was interesting to see him playing devil's advocate and, evenmore so to see how many of the questions he threw our way were questionsthat've been bothering me since taking Lit Theory II last fall. It wasinteresting to debate the possibility of true objectivity in the gospel -how do we know the Holy Ghost is real and not just something we've trickedourselves into wanting to believe? But in the end we settled on Alma'sdiscourse on faith as a seed, and john 7:17, and really acting on the gospeland not just accepting it because it feels nice and fuzzy. It was really,really therapeutic to verbally debate out loud these questions I've beenpuzzling over the past few months. Plus I got to use words like paradigm andveracity, and that just made me happy. Overall the experience helped meglimpse how God really does prepare us for what we need to accomplish inlife - even though that class caused me a lot of epistimological (I missspell check! and wikipedia!) grief, I see know it's been good to reallythink through and ponder why I believe and know what I do, before I gopreach it in a pretty agnostic country. God is awesome. One thing Brother Ure brought up the other day was how much he lovedhis mission and how heartbroken he was to come home. It gives me hope that Ireally can fall in love with the Dutch people, even though I know it'll be ahard mission. But all missions are hard, and I know this is where I shouldbe. So it's all good. It's crazy how much we learn here. The past week really has beenamazing. Whether playing a grammar game based on big booty to help us learnDutch rules [that was a funny scenario on Friday night, and quite a contrastto how I usually spend my weekends], or debating the merits of Tolkien andtreehuggers and WWI at the dinner table, or singing Dutch hymns all daylong, I constantly find myself marveling at what really goes on at the MTCand how fun it can be. People here are incredible. I've even bonded a bitwith my comp over our mutual propensity towards farting jokes. "There'snothing like reducing to the lowest common denominator to find commonground," I told her when she said she was relieved we had something incommon after all. Oh, good times. Sundays at the MTC are great! We got to see Music and the SpokenWord and it was SO COOL to hear Wagner! Real music again! Hymns here areamazing and the MTC choir is fun, but it's great to hear new music socomplex and glorious and beautiful. We also got to see the Joseph Smithmovie Sunday night. That room is set up with stadium seating, and it was sobizarre seeing elders comforting other elders. I've never seen so manyElders running their hands over the comps' backs. Incredibly awkward toobserve. Occasionally there are still stressful times, but overall I'mcoming to really enjoy the MTC. And whenever I think about being back atBYU, I am so glad I'm here, doing this instead. I love college and I missclasses and people so much, but this truly is a once in a lifetimeexperience, and I'm so glad I get to do it. Now just remind me I said thatwhen I've been in Holland for 2 months and I still can't understand people.=) I'll try to send more e-mails with personal notes not to blog, but if I runout of time I'll try to mail letters. I love you all so much. I'm sograteful for my amazing family and the wonderful foundation in life you'vegiven me. Have a wonderful week! Love, ChristaP.S. I made my first Dutch-inflluenced spealling mistake in English("speek"). This is the beginning of a very long decline into crappy English,I can tell...