Hey guys! (I mean elders and sisters, or… brothers and sisters? I dunno) I’m doing pretty good here, we have been learning a lot and teaching a lot. It’s been rough, but I’ve been here for 4 weeks now, so I kind of know what I’m doing, or I think I know.

Today was pretty cool. We go to the temple early in the morning and this week we did initiatories. As we were walking up to the temple it looked like there was a lady pruning the bushes, we said hi and when she saw our name tags, her face lit up and asked us what we were doing at the temple. We told her and apparently, she had a lot of names she needed us to do. She even gave us an envelope with postage and her address so that when we were done, we could send her the names back.

That made the temple a lot more special.

So, this week has been quite the difficult week. Elder Turner caught the cold and today I took a short nap because, unfortunately, I have it too. Here at the MTC we share a lot more than just the gospel.

So last week we got new missionaries and because of the first week schedule, we haven’t really been able to meet them much, but they are pretty cool. It’s weird to think that we were those same people not even a few weeks ago, I feel old. We have a lot of missionaries that are learning 中文 despite already knowing French and English, apparently the Lord needs a lot of trilingual missionaries.

So, on Thursday I saw Jared Beckstrand! He’s going to Russia. It was really cool to talk to him and see another familiar face, it seems like that’s what happens every week here now, I don’t know who to expect next week so if you guys have any tips, then tell me. I’m jealous of Russian because they have an alphabet so Jared (I mean Elder Beckstrand) can already read everything Russian… It was his 2nd freaking day. I also saw and got to talk to Tyler Wilson! He’s going to Milan Italy and he got here last week also! He’s going to probably be leaving around the same time I will. It’s cool to see people I know.

We taught TRC on Saturday and me and my companion taught a Brother Richardson (Hyrumn Richardson) who served in Taipei and knows Whitney, he then tells our Teacher brother Anderson (served Chinese speaking in Australia) who apparently also knows Whitney. I can’t believe I didn’t even ask… It’s a small world when it comes to Chinese Speaking Missionaries. We also talked to a man who didn’t serve a Chinese speaking mission, just learned Chinese and lived in China for a while.  It was pretty cool teaching him because it was like teaching a real

investigator, he didn’t know very many gospel words. That’s a first, us knowing more 中文 words than our investigators…

Time is starting to pass by pretty fast as I finally get used to the schedule. It seems like yesterday was last Sunday. This past Sunday I got to bless the sacrament, in 中文!!! I was really nervous, but I got through it the first time. It’s pretty neat because I got a little card that has all the other Priesthood ordinances in Chinese too. That was awesome. It was strange because as I blessed the sacrament, I had no problems with the tones or pronunciation as I did it. I was really nervous, but I did not mess up the words or anything. That was pretty special.

When we auditioned for a musical number last week, we had the greatest performance, except we didn’t know it was going to be in front of the MTC presidency’s wives. That was a little intimidating. Anyways, we made it! Although, the problem is that because we don’t leave until

October, we have been put into a later pile. I hope it still means that we perform, but all we can do now is wait until they call upon us. BTW, apparently, they don’t notify you until 5 days before you perform. That’s dumb.

So, now that I have been here long enough some of you may have forgotten me, I have some interesting things to tell. I have accidentally told an investigator that the Holy Ghost is a ball, had to dry clean my blue suit coat because of a suspicious stain on the side of the coat, had an elder accidentally start my laundry over again one P-day (38 unnecessary minutes of waiting), had to break up an argument over Satanic churches in my district (yes, 2 elders in our district had an argument over that), had two very Asian men pronounce my name wrong (still mad that of anyone in the MTC, they had to), and my companion has had a bloody nose (altitude) for so long that he’s starting to look pale, oh and we’re sick… Fun at the MTC.

So, I started rereading the Book of Mormon the day I got here, and I finished it on Saturday. Sometimes, when we would have Study time, I would just sit down, turn on my Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and read. I planned on finishing by Sep 1, so I guess there is at least one goal I

have finished early and am pretty good at. I also have been reading Jesus the Christ cover to cover, my Chinese language book, and I am working on Preach my Gospel also. I am always reading something.

We had a devotional Sunday Night with the MTC director of curriculum Tracy W. Watson. He announced there will be a release of the district 3. We were about as excited as if Sharknado 6 was released…. I’m sure it will be great, they followed around ipad missionaries and he

said that a lot of missionaries in Europe also get to have iPads. That sounds like good news. Yesterday we had a fantastic devotional by President Maynes and he talked about the impact of one missionary. He talked about the impact one of his baptisms had. He taught a young man

and young woman during his mission at 19 and now that young man is a mission president over Argentina with that young woman. Super cool.

So during all our devotionals, I can’t help but notice that there is a brother who sits on the stage who looks exactly like Nick Saban (University of Alabama head football coach) I think he is a director of security or something like that. I’m not sure if that’s true, but it doesn’t matter, he’s almost a complete replica. Maybe he is??? Oh yeah, and I’m not saying I need to know, but ummm, you know, some college football scores would be nice to know… You know, for missionary purposes… Every day we go the temple, you can see LaVell Edwards Stadium. Just 2 more years and I’m going to watch a college game there. BTW, I’m banking on top 4 college rankings being Ohio State, Alabama, Notre Dame, and maybe Michigan or Stanford. Don’t quote me on that.

So yesterday we got to learn how to teach… drumroll please… The Law of Chastity, in Chinese. All fun new vocabulary. I’m just gonna leave that there. Aaaaaaaaaanyways, we also really had some pretty tough questions about our companionship teaching and it had been bothering me for a while, and after consulting many of my teachers, I didn’t get an answer. However, I realized that what I’m looking for is wrong. When you teach someone by the spirit, there isn’t much of a formulaic approach as what I’m used to. That is why I guess missionaries are especially blessed with the ability to recognize and understand the spirit. It’s nice to find out now rather than later.

We have so much to do here, but I always leave time to just think and ponder. It’s something you learn to appreciate here.

I’ll upload some photos to google drive, and hopefully send some in email for Brett and Eli (I mean elder Johnson and elder Layer…)

我爱你门！

方长老 (still working on that, tell me if that’s right)