MTC Week 7

Dear Family,

It sounds like you've all been busy. I hope all is going well, and moving is not too difficult. The house looks great, and very exciting. Does the land include the forest? Will the fence keep Q in? How much is Becky going to get paid to mow that lawn? How is the Orem house selling/not selling?

It sounds as if you all ate like kings (or Bill Gates) up in Washington. I bet it was really fun. If only they'd keep up, eh?

How did the Moving Sale go? I hope you did't sell too much of my stuff but I'm sure the art went fast.

This week had quite the surprise: we got a new companion. That's right, we're now a three-some with Elder Huey or Huang Zhanglao. His parents are Chinese, so he already speaks some, and he's learning more for 5 weeks. Then he's learning Tongan for 9 more weeks because he's going to Tonga speaking Mandarin and Tongan. 14 weeks in the MTC is hard to imagine, but he'll hopefully do well. He's nice and easy to get along with.

Ke Laoshi gets married tomorrow and he's not coming back, so we're getting a new teacher.

I donated the Icelandic and Italian Book of Mormons to the Teaching Resource Center, Mom. Thanks for sending the books.

I can't really think of much more that has happened this week. Just a typical week of studying all day and sleeping all night. We have not had a chance to go to the RC this week much either, so I haven't had interesting experiences there either. I am, however, keeping quite busy with the studying and new companion. I will hopefully have some more experiences to share next week.

Love to all,
Elder Myers

P.S. By the way, I now have a first name. It is Jie. It means Hero. So I am Mai Jie.

MTC Week 6

Dear Family,
This week has been pretty good. I've been learning a lot of Chinese, it comes easier all the time. I can usually get at least 30 words a day, but I can do more if I have more study time. I am also trying to learn to read & write. I have been borrowing a book from Elder Otte called, "Reading and Writing Chinese", I think, and it is good.

We'll be getting a new teacher instead of KeLaoshi next week because he's getting married (to another Chinese teacher) and starting school.

We've started going to a place called the LRC where we get to talk to native speakers. Last week, we had a lady named Noah who was very funny. And not just because she had an English name that was for a man. She taught us lots.

Apparently, many Chinese people choose (or are given) terrible English names. We've heard of names like "Cloud" and "Seven." Tang Laoshi told us the best one, though. This was a name given by a missionary at an English class as a prank... he named him "Chewbacca" or "Chewie" for short. So after a few weeks, the Chinese man returned and asked why everyone would laugh when he would say in broken English, "My name is Chewbacca. You can call me Chewie." He got very mad and refused to talk to that Elder for about a month.

I did well on a test we had Saturday on 6 pages of vocab words. I missed 3, got 2 incorrect tones, and 1 wrong letter out of 48. Not too bad.

Elder Gibbons fell out of bed Sunday night. It was funny because in the morning he didn't remember it at all, but in the night when he fell he groaned very loudly and I talked to him to make sure he was okay. Apparently that same night, I was calling out in Chinese in my sleep.
I've got a little RC Gushi (story) for you. Well two. First one: I got a call from a Catholic saying that he thought "we should respect right to your own religion and not force everybody to be in our church, and that we shouldn't workhip that Gordon Hinckley!" I resolved some of his concerns, pointed out that we do worship God, and at the end, pretty much all his emnity was gone, and he said he could tell by my voice that I was a good person and a Christian, and that I should tell the other missionaries to be more like me. That was a good experience because I saw that man had a complete change of opinion towards the church. He wasn't about to be baptized or anything, but he was very nice by the end.

Second story, to put it briefly: A 17 year old girl whose parents are athiests called, and when I asked a few questions, I found out she was calling more to be taught about God than to get a free video. She didn't want missionaries (she said her parents wouldn't like that) but she wanted to learn more about God. So I taught her a first lesson on the phone, starting very basic because she hadn't had religion in her life. And know what? When I taught her about the Holy Ghost she said that she had felt it telling her everything I said was true. That has probably been the single greatest moment yet of my mission -- helping someone who has never known God feel that He's there and loves her and wants her to know about the Gospel. The Spirit testified of it, and that's real missionary work. Unfortunately, her dad yelled at her and she had to get off the phone, but hopefully she'll have more contact with the church. God will provide a way.

Anyway, have a great week everyone. Love to you all,
Elder Myers

MTC Week 5

Dear Family,

First of all, thanks for the letters this week. It's always great to get letters.

It sounds like you've all been very busy. Good thing you have Grandma and Grandpa to be your slave labor!

Mom, it was awesome to get those brownies. It was good that you didn't send the ones you made on Monday, cause the mail staff got the day off for Pioneer Day! They were delicious anyway.

Wow, I just found a large beastly winged insect on me, it was scary. I killed it, though.

So, you're probably wondering about the situation with the toe. It's been hurting for a while, and it had been getting worse, so I decided to just go to the nurse to see if it was ingrown. It didn't take a second of looking at it for her to say "Ouch. Yep, it's ingrown." Thanks to mom's suggestion, they called Dr. Jaramillo's (our neighbor) office and made me an appointment for him for Tuesday. I figured I could make it 3-4 more days fine, and I did, but I was definitely ready Tuesday to have it fixed.

When we arrived, Sister Jaramillo got out of the car with a box of donuts for me from Mom. (They were very good, and are making me fat, so you probably shouldn't send many more... though it would be awfun hard to ever turn down more of those blueberry ones. I think they're my new favorites.)

Sister Jaramillo also had a card for me with some stamps... they are very kind. They told me not to worry about the copay too.

For the actual surgery, I first got the three most painful "numbing" shots I've ever had, in my toe. The nerves down there don't go out without a fight. Then after letting the anesthesia set in, he went to cut part of the toenail, but, oops, that part of my toe wasn't numb! So, after 2 or 3 more shots, I was numb enough to go ahead and cut the part of the toenail off, and it really hasn't hurt since. I soak it twice a day, and use neosporin.

Will you send me pictures of the houses you like? I think I get 5 votes myself. I hope you find something we'll like!

I got 3 more names done in the temple today. I will need more.

In the last 2 days, I've learned 125 words. If I keep this up, I'm going to really need some more humility... I think this counts as prospering in the language, and I need to make sure not to fall into pride because I'm able to memorize amazing amounts of words. I need to remember that I'm not doing it myself.

We had 2 only-Chinese days this week, and they went well. More missionaries come in 6 dyas, so that's exciting. All the old ones left, and it was hard to say goodbye to all of them at once, but it was a good reminder that the MTC does have an end. We also inherited a Christmas tree, some candy, and I got a robe.

Gospel study has gone very well lately, and I've been feeling like there's been some spiritual progress. It's kind of nice to just be able to study scriptures for a few hours a day.

So, all in all, things are going well. I've been well taken care of, and studying is getting more and more helpful.

Love to you all,
Elder Myers