This email is from February 6, 2014, after her first week in the CCM (Mexico MTC)
On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 9:31 AM, Rebecca Poulsen <rebecca.poulsen@myldsmail.net>wrote:

Hola mi familia!!!!! Today is my PDay! (Also, these computer keybordes are really weird, they{re in spanish and i want to type fast because i only have an hour to tell you EVERYTHING!) So, im sorry, my grammer is going to be terrible. 
Wow. wow. wow. wow. The MTC (or the CCM as they call it in mexico) is incredible. I never have to wear a coat and it{s always so warm! I play sand volleyball with the hermanas and elders during work out time and it feels so good to have sand between my feet! Okay so let me back up a bit and start from last wednesday when i emailed you.
After i emailed you i went to my casa with the other girl i flew in with. we were the only ones there. we werent each others companions but our rooms are across from each other. i unpacked and was feeling really numb. i pretty much cried on every flight because i was scared and was missing you guys but i eventually got it together... a few days later haha. they way things worked out was there was two flight delays, 8 hours each. so my companion was on one of those flights and didn{t get in until 12 am. i was awake until 1 or 2, i could not sleep for the life of me. a few other girls came in at 10 pm but i was all alone in a room by myself with only me and my thoughts untill midnight. it was a rough night for me. i pretty much cried myself to sleep that night, and a couple nights after that too. But i´m doing way better now! and i know i{m in the right place. satan really works hard on the new missionaries. i was convinced that i wanted to go home that first night. mexico was not what i expected. when we were picked up from the airport we took a 30 minute drive through mexico to get to the MTC. wow, i{ve been spoiled my whole life. i saw things that were way worse than what we saw in tahitii or aruba. there is so much poverty here and the houses are so close. the traffic is nuts. im so glad that i didn{t have to drive. wow. thankfully, the mtc is in a fenced off area (its a really high fence with barbwire on top) so no one is going to be getting in! and theres a huge gate at the front where they can choose to let people in or not. 
So i live in a casa with a few other girls. my companion (her name is hermana Martinez and she{s going to Ecuador!) and i have our very own room. we lucked out. most girls share with two others but my companion and i only have the two of us in one room so we each get our own sink, lots of cubord space and we dont have to wait to use the shower. anyways, i love my comanion, she{s 21 and shes so amazing. weve roll played with an ínvestigator (theyre really actors) and have taught 4 lessons in spanish... IN SPANISH. were teaching our last one tonight. i{m amazed at how well my spanish is coming along. i keep mixing my french words in there but spanish is way easier to congigate than french. a ton of the words are the same for english to, you just add an o or an a to the end of the word and boom, its spanish. its been a week and i{ve already learned how to teach a few lessons in spanish. its not the best spanish but i can get by. i cant imagine what i{ll learn in 5 more week! wow. i have already been here a week. its incredible. 
So, we have a thing called a district that we}re arpart of, basically its the people in our class. its me and hermana martinez and then we have 6 elders. were the only girls and we{re pretty much favorite. the elders are really nice in our district. they{re very.... sweet spirtis haha but really, they{re great. there{s one companion ship named elder pullman and elder smith. elder pullman remindes me a lot of josh and elder smith remindes me a lot of austin. maybe thats just me wanting my brothers around so badly but its nice to have them around to reminde me of my brothers. 
Early on satruday i got a really soar throat. i was worried that it would turn into strep and all i had were cough drops. so i asked for a healing blessing from one of the elders going on my mission (elder Grahm, him and i are the only ones serving in sacramento). anyways, the next day i was feeling a lot better and by monday i was back to normal! and now i{m healthy as a horse. one of the elders was super nice and gave me some emergency (i forgot to pack some) and they were all super helpful. My companion and i are such trouble makers, we{ve asked for 3 blessings so far between the both of us. me for my throat and her for her ankle. she got bit by a misquito and shes really allergic so its swelling... like really big. its really gross but we went to the doctor in the MTC and he gave her some cream. it looks a lot better today than what it did before. 
things are going super well here. the food is... well... its mexican. i{m getting used to it and i{m grateful for what i have. i am however very excited to get back to the states where i know mail will safely get to me and where the water doesnt taste like metal. also... less bugs. i haven{t have a misquito bite yet but... its only been a week so we{ll see. i havent gotten sun burn yet! which is a huge accomplishment. 
Oh one last thing, the CCM is being deticated sunday and elder Oaks is coming to deticate it! The workers here are doing huge renivations on the entire campus. new gardens, trimming the palm trees (yep, i said palm trees. they{re so sool), mowing the grass, washing the building walls.... its crazy. i{m really excited to be here to see that. also, yesterday we had a film crew come in and film us walking around. so, i don{t know what it was for. it might be broadcasted or be up on the lds websight. you might see me! i was wearing the same outfit when i left missoula (its my favorite skirt, had to look good for my 15 seconds of fame) but the dedication might be broadcasted, i{m not sure but, im going to wear a bright pink and black dress! so hopefully if they are filming, you{ll be able to see me. 
it was so good to hear from you guys.  I want you to know that i know the gospel in true. i mean, for heavens sake, i{m leaving my home and what i love behind for a year and a half to serve the Lord, so it MUST be true. because i really love my dogs, and my bed, and my family and friends and school... i love it a lot and i{m missing it a ton but i know that a year and a half isnt that long and that now is the Lords time and i need to put myself aside and serve Him. 
Its been great here at the ccm, it hasnt been easy, but its been worth it. ive already grown so much in the past week. im counting down the days until i leave the ccm so i can actually be in the mission doing work. i found out that i leave on March 11 at like, 2 in the morning beacuse my flight leaves at 630 a.m., i think, and they want us there 3 or more hours early. its nuts. anyways, i learned that my official date to come home is July 29th 2015. so, mark that on your calenders because that{s the day i{m coming home!  i{ve learned that praying is super handy in the ccm. its comforted me a lot when im in doubt. there was one time a few days ago when i was taking a shower and i just started crying because i missed my family so much. i was at a really low point. and then i just started laughing because i knew it was the adversary trying to bring me down. i know that the adversary is powerful but the Lord is even more powerful. Hes going to keep me safe and bless me during the time that i am serving Him. Im so grateful for this opportunity to be serving a mission and i{m looking forward to next thrusday when i get to email you again! Take care, i love you so much and i miss you every day. 
Love Hermana Poulsen 

This email is from January 29th, the day she left Missoula and landed in Mexico City!  I'm slow at getting it posted to the blog...

Hi mom and dad! I made it to the Mexico MTC. All my luggage came through and all my flights worked out perfectly. I didn't have to change flights or rush to any gates and I found everything I needed to with ease, all thanks to you guys of course! I met up with another sister missionary from washington at the Houston airport and we've been sticking together this whole time. She's awesome. We have our missionary tags, mine says Hermana Poulsen, It's so cool! anyways, there's a lot to take in and a lot I still have to figure out before bed tonight. We got into the mtc and were sent straight to dinner and now im emailing you. and yes, the mtc is safe. someone from the mtc came to pick us up and we drove through the city... wow... i was not prepared for how large and 3rd world this country is. but no worries, the mtc is fenced off with barbed wire and is actually really clean! Everyone here is so nice and very welcoming. I haven't seen anyone that I know yet, i have a friend here but she might be gone already. everyone is very kind and i'm just trying to take it all in. \i'm super excited to be here. a little overwhelmed, but not in a bad way. theres just so much to take in and so many new things. i'm looking forward to the next few weeks at the mtc. i'll email you guys when my P day comes not sure when that will be though. so, watch your email and i'll get to you as soon as I can. 

Love, Hermana Poulsen 

Spokane temple trip

Yesterday I had the awesome opportunity to go through the Spokane Washington temple with some wonderful ladies! The first temple that I went through to get my endowments was the Rexburg Idaho temple which was a hecka lot bigger than the Spokane one. The temple in Rexburg had stairs and seemed really big (to me anyways) and Spokane had only one floor, but it was still really pretty! It was an awesome experience! The only thing I would have to say that wasn’t so great about it, when we went into the dressing room to put our temple dresses on, it smelled like a super bad onion salad or something mixed with B.O. I was pretty much gagging. I know that some temples are big enough to have cafeterias in them. So I told me mom ‘wow, they must be cooking something with a ton of onions in them in the cafeteria.’ unfortunately, my mom told me that this temple was too small to have a cafeteria… so that was NOT onion soup I was smelling. It was just real nasty B.O. I guess that room just doesn’t get any ventilation! But it was a super fun trip overall.

This is my mom and I in front of the Spokane temple. I love my mom! 

Melisa Olsen, Yours truly, and Shalayn Price. These ladies are SO awesome and fun! 

After the temple, we went to a store called Down East, I was still on the hunt for missionary skirts and was stressing out about it (I was worried some of my skirts that I had were boarder line too short for missionary standards) But thank the heavens, we hit jackpot! Down East is THE place to go to find missionary dresses and skirts… and shirts, and jewelry and pretty much anything besides shoes! We found a ton of super cute skirts and they weren’t very expensive. A lot of the skirts I got were $15 (they were on the clearance rack) And these are the kind of skirts with a built in slip which = awesome. So, if you don’t want to look like a pioneer on your mission, I’d say go to Down East, they have the cutest, most modest and most comfortable clothes! And affordable too! I will have pictures of the outfits that I found a little later. 

After a quick little shopping spree, we headed over to Krispy Kream donuts… which by the way is the.best.place.ever. We don’t have one in missoula so when ever we go to Spokane (which isn’t very often because it’s 3 hours away) we always load up on donuts! So far, they taste amazing! 

And for our final stop, we went to Olive Garden (another one of my favorite places) and holy cow, I died and went to heaven. I love the salad and bread sticks there. SO GOOD. All four of us ladies ordered the same thing! We each saw the picture of what we wanted and we all said ‘yep. That is what I want!’ It was delicious!!! My tummy was sooo happy after that meal. 

After we drove 3 hours back home I quickly left home to go do splits with the sister missionaries. (There are currently 3 sister missionaries so in order for them to have more appointments, we do splits where two sisters go off and teach someone and I get to go with the other sister and kind of learn the ropes) We taught an amazing lady named Angie. She has a 4 month old daughter named Haisley (I’m probably butchering everyone’s name in this post… I’m a terrible speller) And she is such a cute and smily girl! We did the lesson at another member’s house (the Larsen’s) and it was a super good lesson. Angie has already picked a date to get baptized and has pretty much taken all the lessons. So the lesson we had with here was basically a ‘get to know you’ thing and see if she had any questions about what was going to happen with the baptism. She is an awesome lady! She asks so many good questions and have so many great comments. She has such a strong spirit and is a very strong woman too. I know that she is making the best choice of her life to be baptized and she will be so blessed from doing so. 

So, that was pretty much my whole day yesterday! Full of tons of excitement and it was super spiritual. Can’t wait to be serving a mission myself! I’ve got less than two weeks left before I’m off to the Mexico MTC! 

Sacramento fun facts!

I was curious about where I would be serving so I decided to do some digging. Here’s what I found… did you know…

• Sacramento is the capitol of California 
• More than 467,000 people live in Sacramento? That’s nuts! I come from a town of 60,000 people and that’s huge to me! I can’t imagine 467,000… 
• The Sacramento river is the longest river in California! Woo represent! 
• Just a few of the many nicknames for Sacramento are: ‘River City’, ‘City of Trees’, ‘The Big Tomato’ or one of my favorites, ‘Sactown’ (I’m going to have to start using that!)
• West of Sacramento is a place called YOLO County… sounds like Cali’s got some swag! 
• The coldest it’s ever been in Sactown is 18 degrees… That’s a heat wave compared to Montana! 
• Sacramento is two cities in one, a large network of tunnels remain underneath the foundation of the city. 
• Sacramento is home to the original Pony Express. 
• Do you like almonds? Well, you can thank good ol’ Tomato Town for that! Sactown processes more almonds than anyone else in the world. 

Hola amigos!

Hola everyone! My name is Rebecca Rose Poulsen. I am 19 years old, and have just finished up my first semester of college at BYUI in Rexburg. I live in beautiful Missoula, Montana… for now anyways. I have recently been called to serve as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Sacramento California! I wanted to start a blog to keep my family, amigos and other people updated with what’s going on with me in the mission field. This mission will last 18 months and I will be speaking spanish the whole time.. Funny story… I’ve never really spoken spanish in my life. I’ve had 4 1/2 years of french so I’m pretty okay with that but I am not used to this spanish stuff! I’ve been using this program called the MTC Spanish Language Learning and it has helped me learn so much in such a small amount of time. Within just one week I could introduce myself, say that I was a missionary, where I was from, ask people where they were from, and I also learned how to pray in spanish. It’s not perfect but I’m working on it! Lately I’ve been practicing bearing my testimony in spanish. It’s really cool doing stuff like that not in my native language because it really makes me think about what I’m saying and I think it makes it more personal in some ways. 

Anyways, As of today I have 14 days, 9 hours, 19 minutes and 50 seconds before I leave for the warm Mexico City MTC. Here, I will spend 6 weeks learning how to teach the gospel in spanish. After the 6 weeks I will be flown up to Sacramento California! (This will be around March 11, 2014.) From there, I will be doing what sister missionaries do for a year and a half, offering service and sharing the gospel!

I’m a little nervous because I’ve never flown in a plane by myself and I have a ton of transfers (is that what they’re called?) between where I live and Mexico City. Let me give you the run down: I board a plane leaving Missoula on January 29 at 7 a.m. From there I fly to Denver Colorado, and from Denver to Houston Texas and from Texas to Mexico City! If everything goes according to plan, I will arrive in Mexico City around 5 p.m. that evening.

So within the next few weeks I’ll be updating this blog with some tips for any of you preparing to go on a mission (especially for sister missionaries.) I know I would be so lost without advice from the sister missionaries here in Missoula as well as other missionary blogs. I’ll see if I can find links of places where I found some really good missionary skirts for a pretty good price as well as a packing list.

So stay tuned for more awesome updates! Oh! And one last thing: My farewell talk will be on January 19th and my farewell party will by on the 26th. Because ward conference falls on the 26th, my talk was bumped back a week. All are welcome to either events! Adios amigos! Talk to you soon!

Hello friends! I decided to do a different blog because this one is a little easier to work with. I'll post the same stuff that I already have from my other blog so y'all won't miss out! So stay tuned to THIS blog for updates from me and other shananigans.