Wednesday, February 17, 2016

WEEKLY UPDATE--I feel like the most stressful part of my mission is emailing.....

This week was definitely a strange one..

Thursday February 11, 2016
- I awoke in the morning to a strange sight. During our walk to get breakfast, a peculiar fog had rolled in and settled in mid air. It was but an eerie thing to see. It was as if we were underwater in a swimming pool at night. The streetlights rays visibly penetrating through the thick blur. The fog so dense, one could barely make out a figure ten feet in front of them. Everything was quiet. Much too quiet. Everything, still. The air so thin , i struggled a bit to breathe. We got our sack breakfasts and headed back to our room to eat.
- It seems as if everything and everyone had decided to move extremely slow today. 
- Had study, classes, practiced lots of grammar, vocabulary, listening, reading, and writing. 
- Practiced teaching the Word of Wisdom lesson in Mandarin using visual aids! It actually went really well. 
- Had more study, classes, practiced lots of grammar, vocabulary, listening, reading, and writing.
- They served cream puffs and custard pie at dinner!
- More study time

Friday February 12, 2016
- So the girls bathroom on our floor had had empty soap dispensers for about 2 weeks now. The girls were just using their shampoo or body wash as soap. SO, because I woke up earlier than I usually do, I walked to the cleaning closet, grabbed the soap, filled up the dispensers, used the bathroom, washed my hands (WITH SOAP!) and then went back to my room. They might as well hire me while I am there in the MTC. 
- Another foggy morning, just like the last.
- During morning study, no one could focus today. 
- Friday is service day! Did the trash and the recycling again! This is probably my favorite job on the entire MTC campus. We took out ALL the trash in the entire building in record time! 30 minutes!!
- Lots and Lots and lots of study today.
- Learned that In Taiwan, If you have diarrhea and you need to use the bathroom, it is polite to tell people that you have diarrhea and you have to use the bathroom. Just so that they know why you are taking so long in the bathroom. ("Lah dootz zuh" is how you say diarrhea)
- A good way to teach new investigators about this gospel is to revert and think about how you would teach primary children. Very simply. 
-There are some Elders and Sisters here that I feel like are not ready to be here just yet. The elders in the other mandarin district were having a somewhat heated argument about what the worst swear word in the English language is. I know I shouldn't think like this but I really just wanted to knock them upside the head and tell them to cut it out and focus. 
- My district now has a district handshake. I'll have to record it and share it with you all sometime. 

Saturday February 13, 2016
- Again, a foggy day. 
- Had morning TRC today. Taught a lady from Hong Kong and a young man from Taiwan. 
- STUDY, STUDY, STUDY!
- Learned about "Le" the completed particle,
- Lots of character writing and reading.
- Ate a burger
- Our teacher prepared an "Amazing Race" type of thing for our district around the MTC campus. Each companionship found clues and translated them. wrote in chinese, read in chinese, spoke to people in chinese, did all things chinese. It was really fun. 
- Set up for devotional! :)
- Role played with Elder Turner and Elder Welch. They were our investigators. 
- Did more service! :)

Sunday February 14, 2016
- HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!
- Today's recurring topic was obedience.
- I do not obey because I have to. I do not obey because I want to receive blessings. I am obedient because I Love the Lord. 
- MORE AND MORE STUDY!! WOOT!
- Played the piano in sacrament
- It actually RAINED during our temple walk! Utah rain is strange...
- Ate fruitcake fish for dinner.
- Had Choir practice
- Sang a musical number, O Lord, My Redeemer, with some elders. 
- Sunday Evening Devotional with Elder Heaton, our MTC director. He talked about Baptism and how baptism should not be a missionaries main focus. Our end goal is getting our investigators to the temple. 
- Elder Decosta (also from Hawaii) and Sister Galaxy (from Utah) shared their conversion stories. 
- Watched Elder Holland's "Missions are Forever" talk. If you have not seen it, WATCH IT!

Monday February 15, 2016
- Once again, the fog rolls in.
- Morning studies :) 
- Monday's are always weird. We have forty minutes of Study time and then exercise time and then more study time. 
- An Elder popped out his elbow playing volleyball. I have no idea how that happened, but it did. 
- More reading and writing! Yeah!
- Ran around our classroom and practiced our grammar out loud. 
- Today's recurring topic was also Obedience. 
- Chik-fil-a for dinner O.O
- Had Skype TRC today. Skype TRC is where we teach investigators over Skype. it was really neat. Although, it is a tad bit difficult to fit three girls into the same frame while still trying to be as close to the built-in microphone as possible. We kind of had to speak up. If you were to walk past the computer lab while we were Skyping, you would probably have seen three sister missionaries yelling a whole lot of mandarin at a computer screen...
-More study time.

Tuesday February 16, 2016
- It cleared up today. I actually saw the sun! 
- Tuesdays are district Volleyball days. My district loves to do things together.
- Personal study and language study was, FEICHANG HAO!!
- took part in a development focus group. They are trying to test out and implement Ipads in some missions. We tested out some of the language apps and answered their questions about online searches and website layouts.
-  My district laughed A LOT today. I mean we laugh a lot every day, but today was just ridiculous.
Man, we are awesome. 
- My district calls my li hing mui candy my "drug" candy because they can not distinguish what exactly is on the candy but it just tastes so good, they cant stop eating it!
- Studiously Studied.
- Went to choir practice. Sang, "Nearer my God to Thee"
- Had Devotional with Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the twelve. If you have not read his talk titled, "The Divine Call of a  Missionary" I would highly encourage you all to do so. He talked to us about this talk. It was a wonderful devotional. I KNOW I was called to Taiwan because that is where I am supposed to be.
-Did service! :)

Wednesday February 17, 2016
-Woke up to a very beautiful cotton candy sky! It is actually kind of warm today. 
-Stuck a load in the laundry
- Went to a 7:40am endowment session in the Provo Temple. 
- Got lunch. 
-Hopped on a computer
- Ate some cookies.
- Ran out of things to say so trying to figure out a way to end this email.
- Want to thank everyone for all the letters and packages I have received. 
- Want to thank everyone for all their LOVE!!

TWO WEEKS TO TAIWAN!!!!

-LOOOOVVEEEEE YOU ALL!!!
Sister GOO :)

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