40 days & 40 Nights...

She must be doing great because the word of the day in her email was "Amazing" of which she used at least 3 times describing different things. One of those things was the "Amazing" time she had celebrating her 40 days and 40 might at the MTC with a party in her room. Can you guys believe it?! 40 days already?! WOW!
I have added a ticker on the right hand side of the screen that counts down to her estimated departure to Latvia. She said she will be leaving April 13th or 14th.
She had a great week this week which started off with the dedication of the Draper Temple. For those of us who also attended we can echo her enthusiasm when she said it was "Amazing"! She mentioned that she had been to a temple dedication before but it didn't mean as much because she hadn't been through yet. She also got to attend an "Amazing" devotional by Elder Johnson of the Quorum of the Seventy, which was just what she needed.
A missionary from Latvia who is serving in Russia was at the MTC this last week and they were all so excited to talk to him in Latvian but were totally bummed to find out he spoke Russian. From what I know the predominate languages in Latvia are Latvian, Russian and German. Speaking of the language, she's starting to get it better. Her instructors only speak Latvian in class and she seems to understand it although she bombed once again in an "all Latvian" discussion they had to practice on!
Okay time for a guilt trip of all the family...this last week the only 2 people she heard from were me and Debbie! (Please add yourself to the list if you have sent her a letter snail mail and she just hasn't received it yet!) Come on what's up with these big tough Hermann boys that are so protective of their little sis?! Let's kick it in gear guys and show Rachel our support! Even if it's just a short little email, she misses us and wants to know that we're okay too.
Alright guilt trip over. :) I know she's in all our prayers though so Thank you for that! Just so you all know her p-day is Thursday of which 30 minutes is email time. If you don't get an email to her by Wednesday night she probably wont get it until the following week.
Ok family, that's about all the update I have! Let me know if you have anything else you would like to add and I will get it posted. Have a great week!!

Letter from Rachel!!

Hey everyone! Here is a letter word for word from our favorite Masa! Enjoy!


Family!
Week 4 crazy how that is already! We went to the temple today and it was amazing as always. Funny thing was that I thought we all agreed on doing 5 names for the inititiory and thats what i did...my other companions did 10 so i had been waiting for some time for them to finish. I sat next to this temple worker in the locker room and she tells me that she had just served there as a senior couple in Lie Paia and they had opened that area. That is one of the 3 areas that I will serve. She also gave me a name of a woman and say hi to her...crazy how things happen...and that if I had done all 10 names and didn't get out early I would of never met that woman so I can't wait to find this lady. Church is true.
Through out the weeks our teachers had wanted us to get a "Progressing Investigator" from what we know is that they are "non-members" and it's a reinactment of meeting someone for the first time and teaching them the lessons...They have I believe 6-7 of these people and they are alwasy in character. So my companions and I wanted to sign up for a pretty easy person for we wanted to try out the waters for our first time. We signed up for a spanish/english speaker named Daniel. His background story is he is catholic, is from mexico and has 4 brothers. Masa Gomez and I went in for the first time and it was so crazy! He was hard core!At first he wasn't going to let us in and actually closed the door on us twice! I kinda freaked but my companion kept at it and was making deals, and it was funny looking back but at the time I'm like "what the heck!" When we started teaching the spirit was not there at all and there was so many distractions that it was so hard to teach and it was more of an argument than a lesson, but he asked us to come back...he makes things so akward...Daniel calls himself the "missionary killer!" Yeah so intimidating. And I would always hate Tuesdays b/c that is when we had to teach Daniel and I always fell unprepaired and he throws in hard questions. At one time my companion and I were going to drop him b/c we didn't think we would get anywhere and that we could take more lessions to get better but this last week we had found out that Daniel was not a memeber and that he just workd at the MTC listening to the lessions every day...that got me nervous...but last week he really opened up to us and told us of his concerns. It was such an awesome experiance! To have that feeling of doubt and fear turn into commpassion and love for him. I just hope and pray that we are able to help him out. I'll keep ya'll updated. We teach him tomorrow...gosh I hope he's in a good mood :)
Language is coming slow...boo! It's somewhat difficult and it's not at the same time, but my companions are so willing to help and I just love them for it. I'm starting to adjust here a little more...Those 6:30 mornings somewhat kill still but i'm not as tired at the end of the day which is awesome. It also helps having gym! Oh I love the gym...I fun most of the time to get all the frustration our and it's awesome!
Alright family...I think it's time that ya'll start telling me whats going on in all your lives, the only peeps I've heard from is...you know who you are and I loved the letters...Ashley is winning by the way :) She has written me every week...so family GET MOVING ON THOSE LETTERS! I just want one from everyone once a month and i'll be happy! I love ya'll and want to know whats going on. Welp time to study, and then laundry, and then more study time! So much fun loves it!
Love Always,
Masa Hermann

Double Check Your Email...

Hey everyone, Just an FYI Rachel's email address was wrong on the side bar. It has now been fixed so make sure that you update your records.

Rachel is now halfway through her time at the MTC! She says there's a saying there that you either love it or you don't...Rachel's still on the fence about it! She is super excited to get out in the field though.
They have been learning about some of the customs and traditions of their area and they have some pretty crazy ones, like...

• If women sit on the ground they can't have kids so they have this funny sit that they do.
• They believe it is unlucky if you shake hands in a door way!

And the craziest of them all...

• If you whistle cockroaches will come and steal all your money!

Sounds like some exciting things to look forward too! There is also economic trouble in the Baltic States right now. Their government is collapsing and their economy is crashing. She's not sure what that means for them but they haven't heard any word about not going out as planned so she'll keep us posted. Prayers on her behalf as well as the people of Latvia, Estonia and Lithowania will surely help.

If anyone has any other updates please send them to me and I will post them. ashleyhermann711@yahoo.com As soon as we hear when Rachel will be flying out I will put a countdown ticker on the right so we all know.

When we have her Latvian mailing address I will update it on the right. But just as an FYI if you want to send her a letter first class in a normal envelope it will cost you anywhere from $.94 cents to $1.14 depending on if there is anything rigid in the envelope or not. If you want to save your pennies you can always email her though! :)

Well looks as though Rachel is doing GREAT! Really did we have any doubters!! Here are a few updates that we have gotten from letters to different family members:

• There are 5, including her, going to her same mission. 2 Elders and 3 Sisters.
• Her Companions are Masa Keeling from Texas and Masa Gomez from Oklahoma. They are all very different but they are having fun together.
• She has made it through the first discussion a few times and did a meet and greet in her language which she totally bombed!
• She sat 3 rows back at a devotional where M. Russell Ballard spoke and absolutely loved it!
• She unloaded all her stuff into the wrong room when she first got there!!

So far she has been crazy busy (again any doubters that she wouldn't be?!) and says she sees her room for about 30 min a day. But overall things are going great and she loves it there. The spirit is constantly felt and she's always at peace.

I'm not sure how many addresses she has so please be sure to send her a letter with yours. I have included her email address in the right hand tool bar if that's easier for some people.

Also we are trying to figure out the best way for everyone who wants to, to contribute to her mission fund. Check back for information on that here in the next few weeks.

If you have any other info from her that you want to share please feel free! You can leave it as a comment or email it to me and I will create a post for it.

Have a great day everyone and don't forget to Pray for our missionary!

The MTC...

We had such a wonderful experience dropping Rachel off at the MTC yesterday. And suprisingly with 4 brothers there were still plenty of tears to go around. We hated to say goodbye and not see her for 18 months but we know that it's for a good cause, serving the Lord and
spreading the gospel!
Here are some pictures of the wonderful day:

The Hermann Missionaries...a little backwards but proud of it!

Masa Hermann...Wait I thought Josh served in the south!!

Rach and her Brothers, they were all so proud of her!

Crazy brothers!

This girl was all smiles, until she was all tears!

The luggage train

"The Last Supper"
Cafe Rio

The purpose of this blog....

Well Rachel is off! Finally in the MTC, 4 long months after receiving her call! We had the wonderfully opportunity of being there this last weekend for BOTH of her farewell talks as well as being there yesterday to take her to the MTC with the rest of the Hermann family.

For those of you who couldn't make it to the farewell talks, you missed some great ones! In fact comments were made to the effect that they sounded more like homecoming talks! Proof that our Sister was ready to go and serve the Lord!! Some fun facts that she shared with us in the talks were:

When she originally got her call she first thought she was going to Baltimore! (Baltic States mission)

She had a slew of friends get engaged in the 4 month span

Two of her cousins got engaged and married

A friend told her she was having a baby

Josh and I told her we were having a baby

She had two jobs in the time

Gave two farewell talks...

and many other little life events that popped up in the 4 months she had to prepare! This girl was busy to say the least!

After Rachel spoke in her family ward (Debbie's Ward), Bishop Sharp stood up and proclaimed what a wonderful missionary she was going to be and the love she had for her family. He talked about her strong spirit and the fact that he knew she was ready to serve. He also spoke about how he knew she would be successful because she wanted to serve her family through serving her mission. The love this Bishop had for Rachel and the rest of the Hermann family was felt especially when he complimented Don & Debbie on the wonderful job they did raising such a great family. (I would fully agree!)

Tuesday night we were able to meet with Rachel's Bishop and Stake President to witness her setting apart as a full time missionary. What a wonderful experience that was. The spirit was so strong and the blessings given to Rachel were truly from the Lord. The only thing I will share with you from the blessing is a blessing for us all. The Stake President gave a blessing to ALL of Rachel's family through her. He blessed us all with strength and hope. He blessed us that the burdens that come upon us will be lightened and that we will be able to overcome the things set before us. How lucky we ALL are to have Rachel serving this mission and blessing our family through her service!

(Sorry this is so blurry, the other's were worse!
This is Rachel and the family at her setting apart)

Josh & I wanted to create this blog as a fun place for us to get and give updates on Rachel and her mission! We thought it would be much easier to have everything in a place where family could check it whenever and see how she's doing. If you have any suggestions or comments please let us know! For those of you that don't blog, you can leave comments on each of the posts or just read them whenever. Also if you want to share a letter or email you received or sent to Rachel you can forward it to me and I will add it to the blog as a post. My email address is: ashleyhermann711@yahoo.com

The Address found on the right hand side of the screen will be updated each time Rachel moves. Please make sure you write it out on the envelope just as it reads. Foriegn addresses can be crazy and we want to make sure that she gets ALL her mail!!

I'm not sure if mission rules will allow Rachel to visit the blog, I will let you know as soon as I find out.

Please spread the word about this blog to all of the family, I know I don't have everyone's email addresses!


And don't forget to write our favorite Sister Missionary!!