Missionary Letters--Goodbye, Alice in Wonderland

Monday, February 16, 2009 9:19 AM

Nihao,

And welcome to another Preparation day at the MTC. The first of the "older" districts of missionaries are leaving today. One missionary going to Hong Kong mandarin speaking, and an Elder from France, going to France Mandarin speaking. He's excited to go back. His hometown is actually IN his mission. So that should be interesting. I think he misses france a lot. But anyways...

First of all I want to thank everyone for the Valentine's stuff. It was fun. One piece of advice I learned from Gen and Gigi's missions though is that in the post office they have flat rate shipping boxes, that would have saved you guys quite a bit I'm pretty sure. Especially once it's going to a foreign country. That's just what I think though, i'm not sure. Rexburg is closer than SC so that might be why sending them something to the MTC was cheaper. Much appreciated. Although you guys are ALL slackers, there was no new email when I checked today. And I didn't get anything this week but the packages. Haha, but I guess that's acceptable. Um, Gen thanks a lot for the stockings I asked for!! That's what I needed the most...and the hot cheetos. I was like sad when the other package didn't have any, but I ended up getting some, so life is wonderful. Haha.

This week has been interesting to say in the least. Monday night my nose started bleeding and my body was shaking. It was pretty awful stuff. My whole district ended up coming down with this fevery cold. I felt bad for our teachers Tuesday and Wednesday because we all just were barely staying awake...we just stared at them during class...like ehhhhh. But at the MTC, if one person gets sick, it's everyone...at least in your district, and it slowly filters to others in the zone. Pretty sure we got a couple guys sick. Haha...but what can you do.

Um, this week at the TA, we got a real investigator. It was NERVE wracking. Seriously. Especially since the older missionaries that had to teach straight Chinese had gone right before us and totally confused her. And she's our teachers tutor at school in chinese. Sufficeth it to say that she definitely needs to hear the gospel in her tongue like the D&C scripture. But the time for Chinese lessons for us was not yet. Our teacher was like "I'm excited for you guys to teach, this is my tutor, she's not a member" Sister Ackerson and I were SO nervous. In the 15 minute chinese scenario beforehand, we talked Chinglish because she really wanted to understand what was happening and wanted us to explain stuff to her...so anything we ting bu dong'ed in Zhongwen, she told us in English. We found out she believed in God and Jesus, but didnt believe in afterlife? So we went in and prepared for our English scenario...which was no longer a scenario, it was a true lesson. So, when we got in there she asked us to speak REALLY slow English because she had a hard time understanding English. We tried our best. She had a Chinese book of mormon to follow with us, but no doctrine and covenants or bible. Next week, in case we get her, I will bring mine. At one point she read in English and confused thee and three. My companion and I were blessed to know just enough chinese to explain some simple concepts. I explained thee is to you like in chinese nin is to ni. One is just a lot more formal, and so they use formal in the bible. Her question she was confused by was that she understood that christ suffered, but she didn't understand how it affected her in her life. Our objective the whole lesson was to get her to understand shuzui (the atonement). And we did a great job because by the end, she had this CLICK go off in her head and she was like OH, we can't do it alone because we sin and he didn't! It was the most awesome feeling ever to know that was a TRUE knowledge she had just gained. Sister Manning, one of the Chinese Teaching Evaluation teachers watched us and only gave good feedback. She thanked us for the comfort Jane felt and everything...and we later found out sister manning is her roommate and they met at conference. They've been living together this last month...so if she was comfortable, sister manning her friend should be able to tell. She told us she wanted to talk to us again next week, so there is a good chance we could teach her again. She's so sweet. It's just confusing. She says she loves the feelings she gets when she prays and yet she believes in nothing after life? But I think it will all slowly come together for her, with all her LDS friends loving her and encouraging her, not to mention she LOVES coming to the TA every week to help us with our scenarios. She's a really great investigator.

Okay, I have 10 minutes left, so that's all i have time for so i can check this later.

See ya next week

Fu jiemei.

P.S. I need stuart and michael's emails I don't have them on my list...and Aunt Allison's address. Thanks.