Week 4: Not the new mandarin missionaries anymore!

This week has been awesome! My favorite week here for several reasons.
The main reason it was the best was because I had so much energy all
week. Every morning I prayed that I would be able to stay fully awake
throughout the whole week. The Lord provided! The other reason it has
been my favorite week is because I feel like I had access to the Yu
Yan de EnCi (gift of tongues) on Saturday for about 3 hours.

On Wednesday we got 4 new Chinese speaking districts in our zone! Best
feeling ever to be on this side of things. Everyone in the new
districts are still getting adjusted but Elder Vincent and I have been
making them feel welcome by talking to each other really fast in
Chinese when we are by them. Just kidding, we haven’t done that. We remember
how much we looked up to the older Chinese elders and wished they had
been better examples to us, so we won’t let that happen to us.

Thursday and Friday were crazy. Every week the MTC exceeds its
previous capacity for the year 2019. We are sitting here at 2100
missionaries and it shows. Dinner is busy! People piling through
doorways, shoving people around to get some cold chicken and beans. I
love it! I got to see a handful of friends come in, but they’ll likely
all leave the MTC before I do, or at the same time. I look at it
as a blessing because I love it here! It’s so good to see them all
come in with such good attitudes and fresh lights about them.

Saturday morning Elder Vincent and I had our second TRC, basically
just teaching someone a lesson in Chinese for 20 minutes. I LOVE TRC,
I believe it’s the single best way I can learn this language. Just
throw me into a room with someone that speaks it fluently, with
nothing but a Book of Mormon and a couple notes. I wasn’t sure what to
expect this week since I had prepared so much less with my Companion.
We planned on doing a scripture share, we would have a small
introduction then ask if they had ever read the scriptures (luckily
they all had), and ask them to share their favorite one and why. The
first TRC was a little bit of a wreck because we were teaching 3
people that didn’t have that much to say. The second one was amazing.
It was a couple that had served their missions in Taipei Taiwan, and
they were so so awesome. They told stories that we couldn’t really
understand that well, and shared scripture and testimonies with it.
They also listened to what Elder Vincent and I had to say as they
smiled and laughed. The lesson went so smooth since we were both
feeling the spirit help us say whatever we wanted almost fluently! (Yu
yan de enci)

Side notes: Saturday night we played beach volleyball and it was the
most fun I’ve had in 3 weeks. People laughing, smiling, and getting
mad because my team wouldn’t stop scoring, kinda random but I thought
you’d enjoy:)

On Sunday I got the opportunity to give the lesson in priesthood, I
would have done it with my companion but the zone leaders (our
roommates) only called us to teach and there’s 2 priesthood classes.
So I got to teach alone! My lesson was on recognizing the spirit, such
an awesome topic! We discussed who the spirit it’s, why we need it,
how we can obtain it, and how to recognize it. The spirit was present
in that room, so many people sharing such powerful stories and
comments. The power and the gift of the Holy Spirit are real! Take
advantage of having the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. I
learned a lot from teaching but ultimately I learned that Heavenly
Father gave us the Holy Ghost because we loves us! Love you all!! Have
such a good week :)