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