Mein "Dear host family letter" :) Bitte verbessern, Kritik erwünscht!

Dear Host Family,

First of all I want to thank you for reading my letter and hopefully giving me the opportunity to live in the USA for one year. To make the decision easier for you, I would like to give you a little impression about who I am.

My name is Teresa and I was born on XXXX in XXXX, Bavaria. I dwell in a house in XXXX, which is a small village in the countryside near Munich. Here I live together with my mother Mareike and my brother Raphael, who is 1½ years younger than me. We three are pretty close to each other and I’ve always got along with Raphael very well as we are almost the same age. To my father Erich I have a great relationship, too. He lives only less than one mile away and we meet each other once or twice a week.
My mother works in a workshop for disabled people as an office clerk, my father is an electronic engineer and works at XXXX in XXXX and my brother trains as a refrigerator engineer at XXXX in XXXX. I am still going to school to 13th grade and I’m going to complete my high school diploma next year. After the au-pair-year I’d like to study business studies with emphasis on English. That is one of the reasons why I choose English as a specialized course at school. Another of my favorite subjects at school is arts. I enjoy practicing my creativity at home too, creating photos or decorating for a party.
My tomcat Rufus lives with us, too, and we also have a few hens which my brother and me have hatched in an incubator. I really love all kinds of pets and also caring for them. Besides caring for our pets I often help my mother about the house, such as cleaning, helping in the garden, cooking, baking etc. I especially enjoy cooking and baking and trying new recipes.

Another very important person in my life is my best friend Sabrina. I spend a lot of time with her and her boyfriend Marcel, because we have lots of similarities. We often cook together, go to the movies or go jogging. Sabrina and me both love children and she also wants to become an au-pair, but in another country.

In my free time I sometimes go rollerblading, in the summer I am a great one for swimming and working in the garden, for example mowing the lawn. In the winter I sometimes go skiing as the Alps are not far away. When I didn’t have my driver’s license yet, I constantly drove 6 miles to school in XXXX by bike. As XXXX is a really small village, I like to make excursions, for example to Munich where I go to concerts with friends, shopping, visiting the city and going to the Oktoberfest every year.

I’m sure I will miss each of my loved ones, but I’m also confident that this will not be intractable, because we’ve always tried to keep up each other’s independence and what is even more important is the fact that all of them really support my long desired wish of visiting the United States of America. I can’t imagine another country other than the USA, because I am a great fan of this country and every aspect of it has always fascinated me. I think the best way to improve my English is to connect it with the experience of the American way of life and my big preference for children. My strengths are my patience with children, my sense of responsibility and my organizational skills. I always have a plan for everything and I rarely forget anything.
When I was about 6 years old, we had an au-pair in our family. I learned what an au-pair’s duties are. Since I was 13 years old I knew that I want to become an au-pair, too. Since my younger cousins were born, I saw how much of a pleasure children can be and I enjoy spending time with them.
I have 4 little cousins, Martin (*2003) and Eva (*2007), who are brother and sister, and Louis (*2006) and Sophie (*2010), who are also siblings. Martin and Eva usually visit my family and me once or twice a week, mostly at the weekend. Then I look after them, cook with them and for them, put them to bed and read stories to them. Sometimes we go into town to eat ice cream. I adore playing with them and seeing them happy. I was about 15 or 16 years old when I began to take care of them. I sometimes look after Sophie, too, when her mother is busy. I change the baby’s diapers and calm her if she is crying, I change her clothes and I take her on walks in her buggy. I also have older cousins, for example Marc (*1995) and Katharina (*1997), who are also brother and sister. I give them private lessons for school if they don’t understand something exactly, i.e. maths, chemistry, biology, German and French and I like to teach. I have already been successful with the cousins I already mentioned, because they got better grades after I helped them. One of my favorite subjects at school is arts. I enjoy practicing my creativity at home too, creating photos or decorating for a party. I often help my mother about the house, such as cleaning, helping in the garden, cooking, baking etc. I especially enjoy cooking and baking and trying new recipes. As I am the eldest of 10 cousins in our family and the only one that has a driver’s license, I often go to cinema or concerts with my cousins and my brother Raphael (*1993). While having done my driver’s license, I also took a first aid class.

Moreover, I have tutored another boy named Stefan last year. I helped him with English and it was great fun for me to see how his grades became better.

Furthermore, I completed a week-long internship at a „forest-kindergarten“ in May 2010. It was rainy every day, but I didn’t mind because of all the lovely children. I really enjoyed listening to the children’s stories and playing with them, like slacklining or exploring the forest. I became very fond of one of them in particular. He told me everything about himself and was constantly at my side which I found very cute. When I have free periods at school, I sometimes visit the kindergarten because I miss the sweethearts I got to know. Both the kids and I are happy to see each other.

All in all I’ve always had great fun with children and enjoyed caring for them. This is why I would be really glad to spend the coming year as an au pair in America and if you are looking for someone with a positive attitude, who is friendly, firm, helpful and likes kids, please do not hesitate to send me an e-mail or contact me by phone, because I’m really looking forward to talking to you and with a little bit of luck, spending a great time together with you in the coming year!

Best wishes