Week 9

Hi family!

 

Well, its time to email you again! The time here goes so fast! Its crazy! Haha, so at first my keyboard was configured to some strange language, I think it was cambodian for a bit, but Im not sure.  haha.  Ok, so theres quite a bit to report about this week, so I'll try to fit it all in the thirty minutes that I have :D ready go!

 

Ok, well first I have to thank Sister Clark for her package! She sent me Twenty-Four Doughnuts from Krispy Kreme!!!!! Crazy huh? the mail-room girl was like: "what in the world? You are loved by somebody!" Haha, so I'll have to write to her thank-you.  All the Elders in my district loved them.  It actually brightened up the day of a few missionaries.  Because the New Missionaries are being overwhelmed by chinese, I thought I'd share some with them, so I did.  Turns out, they had all had a really rough day because their investigators are really difficult and the doughnuts brightened them up.  I love the Lord's timing in all His works.  I believe that they were inspired. As weird as it sounds for doughnuts to be inspired, but by little things are great things brought to pass!

 

So to answer your little questionaire, I did recieve all of the packages listed and no, I did not know that 1/3 of Americans flush the toilet while they are still on it... that seems kinda gross... but I might try it.  I feel like I'd get wet if I stayed on the toilet.  Haha... Oh yeah, about the departure date, It's estimated to be the 17.  I'm supposed to get my travel plans on Thursday (cross your fingers) I need to check with the travel office if I've received my visa yet, but I'm not sure.  Depending on the status of my visa, I might be transferred to a different mission for my first transfer of my mission.  I think that'd be supre cool.  Who gets to go to THREE missions? (Provo MTC, first transfer, and Brisbane) Whatever happens, There's definitely going to be something good about it! Even if I get stuck in the MTC for a bit longer! I might even see Vicky, and If I host, maybe all of you! :)

 

About calling you, I actually didn't know that I could call in the Airport, but that's cool! I'll let you know when I get my travel plans when I will call you.  Right now, I really don't know much about my travel status or anything.  Hopefully I'll write a letter to you when I get my travel plans.  I'm really excited about it! Our whole zone is.

 

Well, I did get the durian candy, and I think one of our elders put it best when he said: "It was ok at first, kinda like salty pineapple, but then weird things started happening to my face.  Then I burped and my companion passed out" haha, we loved it here.  Mostly just because it smelled so bad when you ate one, so we'd all just stand outside the spanish Elder's rooms and breathe heavily.  They all think we're all disgusting now.  YES! haha.  No, we love the spanish elders.  They're so funny.  English elders though... haha, just kidding. I just thought how weird it is that we have 2500 Missionaries here, all with the exact same purpose! how cool is that? I thought it was pretty cool, but I might just be crazy.

 

One of the funniest new Elders is Elder Babin (BaaabOE) that's how to say it I think.  (put the emPHAsis on the right syllAble) haha.  Ok well, he's from France and he's SO french! it's hilarious.  He has an accent and definitely is one of my favorites.  The other day, he kissed me on the head (which was really weird haha) and started speaking french to me.  It was kinda weird... not gonna lie. My other favorite elder in the new generation ( oh ps, Vicky is going to meet all of these I think! :)) is Elder Hawkes.  He does parkour and does the CRAZIEST stunts.  haha, but he's so funny, he always comes to our room (our whole zone loves our room, they always come to talk because we are the coolest :P... but really, we are hahaha just kidding) Last night, he was teaching me to do some flips and I was teaching him how to dance, Funny elder.

 

Now to the fun part.  Mom might like this one. :)  I performed in front of all 2500 missionaries on Sunday for Devotional.  :)  We tried out on Thursday and they really liked it so they had us perform.  It was a lot of fun.  There's not much to say about it though haha.  BUT Chad Lewis spoke ( I don't know if you know him).  He played for BYU and the Eagles evidently.  He served in Taichung Taiwan and is one of the coolest speakers we have ever had.  He gave us so many one liners.  though my favorite quote was "Yo-yo ma is the best cellist in the world, but I would have rather listened to "Oh My Father" played by a missionary with the spirit of a missionary, a thousand times more than listening to him." Another one was: "Let your greenie light shine forth!" YES! which reminded me of a saying one of the elders keeps saying to everybody who breaks a rule: "Welcome to the MTC Scrub." Evidently new missionaries are called scrubs... I had no idea... 10 weeks here will do that to you :)

 

After the devotional, everybody wanted to go talk to him and shake his hand.  (this is my favorite part) He only wanted to speak to the mandarin missionaries so he told President Brown that and President Brown announced: "If I can read your tag, you shouldn't go to the back with Brother Lewis" hahahaha.  Well, we asked him to bear his testimony in chinese for us and we understood it! except for this part: Zhen jin bu pa huo lian.  Our teacher tells us that it means: "Pure gold doesn't fear the refiners fire!"  When he said that, I definitely thought of all of you! you all have been so good to me in supporting me and raising me to be a better missionary. You're all pure gold! Don't be afraid of the refiners fire! let it strengthen you! trials are here for us.  Without them life would get a little bit dull. (For fear of having one of these lines quoted and framed by mom, I'll make you promise that you won't frame ANYTHING I say.) haha

 

One of my favorite experiences here was conference.  First of all because of what it did for our investigator.  We're supposed to pretend that our investigators are really our investigators.  So we encouraged our investigator to fast for an answer to let him know that our church is true.  We joined him in the fast and then challenged him to listen to zonghui jiaoyou dahui... I forgot what it's real name is hahaha.  I'm becoming so weird already.  When I get home, I'm going to be such a weirdo.  anyway, when we were listenting to the session we had challenged him to listen to, all of the first three talks were perfect for him! it was AMAZING! they answered all the concerns we didn't know how to and encouraged him! The church is true!

 

Oh yeah, thing about our investigators.  Vicky, I know I already ruined it for you, but you're not supposed to know that they're your teachers, but this will help you.  The investigators that you have in the MTC are our Teacher's favorite Investigators.  They are the ones taht they loved the most in their field.  If you ever think that they aren't real.  They are.  They are the closest ones to the teachers' hearts and it breaks their hearts when missionaries don't understand that they are real people.  Our teacher loved this investigator.  He told us about him and I could definitely tell that he recognized the investigator as a child of God and had come to love him so much.  Just remember that when you're teaching.  Even though you know it's your teacher, remember that they are pretending to be one of the most important people to them.  I don't know how to stress it.  Do your best to make it real.

 

Well, I haven't gone over my thirty minutes ever yet,( Which is a problem for a lot of missionaries, I usually wait 10-20 minutes longer for my comp) so I"ll end right there :)

 

I miss you all and thank you all for all the support!

 

Elder Chen.

 

See you soon! :)