Dear All,
Thank you for all of the letters from the family last week! I loved them - they were awesome. In answer to your questions I am STILL finding things to entertain and amuse you (I'll talk about a few of them later in this letter). I hadn't really been able to talk to Daniel much - companions were making things a little difficult, but then I was able to talk to him quite a bit for the past couple of days, which was fantastic. I think he's really grown up a lot. I kind of strictly chastised him yesterday about something he said that all of the other elders say too, but he took it very well and promised that he'd stop. His Chinese is SO great, too! Both of us bore our testimonies on Sunday (I also said the closing prayer), and I was so proud of how perfect his tones were. I think he felt the same way about me, which was almost equally delightful.
I also want to let all of you know that I am SO EXCITED TO GO TO TAIWAN!!!!!! Really, I can't wait. We got our travel plans, and here they are:
I leave the MTC on 1/10/12 at 6:00 AM. My flight from the SLC airport is at 9:45 AM. I arrive in the LAX airport at 10:50. Then at 3:50 PM I fly from LAX to Taipei. Two awesome things about this travel plan. 1: I get a direct flight from LAX to Taipei! 2. I have a super-long layover and I'll get to talk to you! Oh, and fun fact - we arrive in Taiwan at 10:35 PM the NEXT DAY because of the time difference! I think if my calculations are correct without the internet to help me out, it's a 16 hour time difference from Georgia. That'll make things fun on Mother's Day and Christmas!
Oh, one favor I have to ask - I've finished my Mormon.org profile, and I need you to put a picture on it for me (choose a good one, please! No 13-year-old Rebecca on the internet). My username is rwinters404 and my password is the usual. Thank you!
Speaking of mormon.org, I have become almost obsessed with that website. It's just so great! I get inspired whenever I hear other people's stories about their lives. We recently discovered some Chinese/Taiwanese members and LOVED watching those - we could even understand a lot of what they were saying! My two favorites (yes, you should look them up even though there aren't any subtitles) are Kaiping the Taiwanese tour guide and this girls named Shi Ling? Something like that. She's a food and travel reporter in Taiwan and her "about me" says that she's "an extremely happy person." I can't describe how excited I am to serve the Taiwanese people! They seem so happy and polite and wonderful.
So, you might be wondering what my subject heading is all about. I learned a Chinese tongue twister (more like a way to demonstrate different tones): "Mama qi ma. Ma man. Mama ma ma." It means: "Mom rides the horse. The horse is slow. Mom scolds the horse." You need the tones to get the full effect (I've been practicing so I can say it to you next week), but isn't that crazy? It all sounds the same/looks the same, but the words all mean something different! More exciting news: I got my Chinese name! It's Wei (my last name) Bei Jia - translated it means "Bud" (like rose bud, or I like to connect it to the 'last flower falling' in Mulan) "Beautiful, good, happy, wonderful." Obviously I couldn't compain with a translation like that! The fun thing is that my teacher tried to match it up with our English names. So "Becca," "Bei Jia." Get it? I especially like that my whole name, "Wei Bei Jia" sounds like "Rebecca." It's just too perfect! Oh, funny story about my name really fast. When my teacher wrote my name on the board, she wrote the translation over it. The only thing is when she wrote "bud," it looked like "loud." I kind of ask a lot of questions and am a little talkative in class, so I got really worried for a second! But then it said "bud" and it was all good. :)
I really am doing so well - life is good in the MTC, and I have a feeling that life is going to get even better in a week! I'm still working on being more selfless - with okay results. I accidentally had a little Freudian slip last week with my teacher - she's switching districts because of her new class schedule, so I wrote her a note from the whole district. She loved it and explained that she would put it in her scripture case to remind her of us. My companion wasn't sure about what she had said, so I explained: "She's putting it in her scripture case so when she looks at it she'll be reminded of me.... I mean 'us.'" Oh, well - I've still got a while to work on that, right?
My other teacher, Mao Laoshi, said that we should work our hardest this week so we could "hit the ground running." I loved that analogy - I feel like I relate my experience with running and XC a lot to the mission - all about enduring and "no regrets." So, pray for me this week that I'll "hit the ground running!" I'll pray for all of you in return. Love to you all, and I'll talk to you next week!
Love,
Wei Bei Jia
No comments:
Post a Comment