Hey Family!

Hey family!

 

I am halfway done with my MTC experience! Crazy right?! The next 4 weeks are going to go by so fast! I am so excited to get out there but at the same time it makes me nervous. This last Saturday in TRC we taught two different people. One girl originally speaks Mandarin so some words were still in Mandarin, then the other person we taught spoke very old traditional Cantonese, which we don't learn here... so I was humbled quite allot. At first I was frustrated cause I was like how do they expect us to teach these people who don't speak what we are being taught! But then I was like Oh... wait a sec. everyone in Hong Kong is going to have different accents and dialects. I am never going to fully understand people there. Lets just say it is a good thing that it is the spirit that teaches them and not me!

 

But really. Whoever invented Cantonese had to have had a strange/mean sense of humor. Who the heck decided that they should have the same word have 7 different tones and 7 different meanings?! That is just rude. For example.... Sahn (low going down) means God. San (mid level) means mail. San (high level) means new. Saan (also high level) means mountain. Now that is just rude. But I know in time they will come. :) I kinda like the rudeness and singsongyness of it. Whenever we talk in Cantonese it sounds like we are singing. This week we have been memorizing the first vision. So everywhere we sound like we are singing.

 

The new CD player you sent works much much better. I will send the other one home in a package this week. I have been falling to sleep with the sounds and tones every night this week. I like to think that it is helping. Bik Jimuih (sister berry) said that she woke up Friday night and heard me talking in Cantonese in my sleep. I find it hard to believe since I have a hard enough time speaking when I am fully conscious.... but she said that I was praying in my sleep for Kim (one of our investigators). Awesome right.... I hope it was for real and that sister berry wasn't dreaming.

 

Brother Meek sent me some cookies the other week and I forgot to thank him. Thank you, Brother Meek! Keep sending Kelsie's and Carly's emails. I like to read them. It makes me even more excited to go out into the real world.

 

Our lessons with Simba and Kim went much much better this week. We committed Simba to baptism on Saturday! It was such a great moment filled with the spirit. I really cannot explain the joy that comes when I know our investigators are doing well.:) Sister Pearl and I are beginning to teach more in unison and our lessons are being more led by the spirit. Which in turn helps our investigators to know that we really do care for them and are only there to help them. 

 

Yesterday we had an awesome devotional from the President of the Provo Temple. He talked about the reason why missionaries are required to go through the temple before they are to start their missions. Everything in the temple is to prepare you to take upon the name of Christ. All the covenants we make there are to help us start to become the property of Christ. It was really neat then going and doing inititories this morning and getting to hear all the blessings we are promised if we keep those covenants we make. Next time you go.... think of yourself as being a missionary... it is awesome. So don't worry to much about me! I have all those blessings under my belt as long as I remain faithful to the covenants I promised to keep. 

 

I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to be here. There is no where else I would rather be. I have grown so much and been stretched to the limit. I have been hewn down, only to start to be regrown how God wants me to be. This is honestly the best thing that I could ever do to prepare myself for the rest of my life. As a mother, as a sister, as a daughter and as a friend. There is no way that I could possible reach my full potential without going through this. If any girl or boy reads this that is debating on going on a mission.... JUST GO! There is nothing that will effect the rest of your life like a mission does. It will effect where you will go to school, what you will study, who you will marry, how you will raise your family, and how you will live the rest of your life. The new sister missionaries here are told quite often that the next generation we will raise will be great missionaries. It is cool to me to think that I am effecting my own posterity by being here, not just those that I will teach. I know that this is where I am supposed to be and I know that God loves each and every one of us.

 

Love you all!