Hello! How are all of you? I miss you and love you. Life this past week has probably averaged at "fantastic." It's been so great. Thank you for all of the wonderful mail and packages! Dear Elder really is the best. Some of you have been wondering whether or not I've been "winning" in my district with the most mail. My answer to that is that I'm much too mature and lady-like to be involved in a contest such as that one, but if I were.... I'd be burying everyone else in how many letters and packages I'm receiving. :) Thank you! Oh, and don't worry - I'm still able to maintain general popularity by sharing my packge goodies with people.
I've really been catching the missionary purpose this week. It says in PMG that the missionary's purpose is to invite others to come to Christ by having faith in Him and His Atonement, by repentance, by being baptized, by receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and by enduring to the end. One thing that i really loved is when my teacher spoke about how Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father's purpose is to "bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man," and how essentially by doing this we're achieving the same ends. So not only are we representatives for Jesus Christ by wearing his name on our chests, but we're His representatives by doing what He would have done if He were on the Earth - same purpose! I love it.
I wrote last week that we already started teaching our investigator, Wu Pei Rong (started on the 3rd day!). Well, we ended our experience with her this past week - she came in and started telling us how it felt to be the investigator. She understood what we were teaching, she felt happy and loved, she wanted to do what we told her to because our testimonies were so powerful, and she felt the Spirit as we testified! I was SO happy. Not only that we were miraculously able to communicate after only a few short days, but that she wanted to do the things that we told her. We watched a short video clip of a sister who got baptized afterwards and I felt this huge flood of joy as I imagined being able to have one of my investigators do that. And that's when I realized that I'm here because Heavenly Father wants me to have joy. It's not only to improve my testimony, to make me a better person, to let me have joy in the future with my posterity from these experiences, but so that I can have joy NOW. He knew that I'd get the most happiness - now and afterwards - from going on a mission! I was so grateful to have that realization - it's made everything better.
Chinese is still going well - thank you for your prayers in that area! Wu Pei Rong became our second teacher, and she's Taiwanese, so I'm sure it'll keep getting better. About your prayers, though - I've been surprised at the amount of information that I've been able to retain thus far. I'm probably up to between 300-350 words. As I thought "I can't believe that I studied this word for only a few minutes and I still remember it," I realized that it wasn't me at all - that it was coming directly from all of the prayers for the gift of tongues in my behalf. Thank you. Favorite word of the week: Wugui. It means turtle, and when I found out, I yelled: "Oh my gosh, it's JUST like Kung Fu Panda! This MAKES SENSE!" And everyone else just stared. Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool. This past Sunday I bore my testimony in church - it went really well! I only made a few mistakes - I said "I'm grateful to learn the chinese people" instead of "I'm grateful to teach the Chinese people" (must be my southern accent kicking in), and I couldn't remember the tones for "restored." At least it was better than another elder in the zone - instead of saying that he knew that Jesus Christ was alive, he accidentally said that he knew that Jesus Christ was a monkey. Whoops! Our branch president speaks Chinese fluently (he was a mission president in Taiwan) and he was laughing really hard. I've discovered my new favorite Chinese learning activity - Whack-a-Zi (Chinese character). It's like whack-a-mole, except you whack the chinese character when you hear the syllable. Sounds kind of dumb (probably because it is), but it's funny to see how into it everyone gets. Oh, last thing about Chinese - I suggested to our district that we start singing the hymns in Chinese a little faster since we currently sing it at a funeral march pace and we're getting better at pronunciation. Everyone just looked at me and one of the elders said: "Hooooooooold up, Jiemei!" in a gangsta voice. It was really funny and now we say it to each other all the time. It actually inspired me to do my southern black woman impersonation that night as I was getting ready for bed. People got out their cameras and everything (no lie) - I felt like a celebrity.
You asked me how choir's going - it's great! There are two conductors, and I infinitely prefer the older one. He's Dallin's stake president, actually. Anyway, he gets super into the pieces we sing, and we sing much better under his direction. One thing I love about all of the MTC devotionals and meetings is that we sing like 3 prelude songs and THEN we sing the opening song. So fun. This last devotional was really great - President Monson didn't come (bit of a disappointment), but Elder W. Craig Zwick and his wife totally made up for it. His mission president was Elder Richard G. Scott - so cool! Anyway, he talked about prayer.One thing I loved is that he said that prayer consecrates the worst experiences for the welfare of our souls. I think that'll totally be true for the mission - I'll grow from everything, good and bad. He also talked to us about his disabled son, Scott. He said that Scott has offered thousands of prayers, but he doesn't think he's ever heard him ask anything for himself. I want to be more like that, for sure. You also asked me about the temple - we go once a week at 6:30 AM - it's really great to start the day that way. Mom, it's still weird for me to not hear your voice next to me as I do the session every week - I loved being able to go with you so often before I left. Thank you.
Sorry if this was kind of preachy, but I promise it's really how I feel! :) I love all of you, and I'm so grateful for your prayers, your love, and your support. Favorite scripture from this week - D&C 123:12-17. I'm so excited to preach the Gospel to those people. Last thing - I know some of you wanted to know what you could pray for specifically. Honestly, I think that praying for me to be able to focus is what's most important. If I can focus, I'll get everything else in order. The church is true, and I love you!
You're in my prayers - English and Chinese.
Love,
Sister Winters
No comments:
Post a Comment