Okay i'm literally being counted down for how much time i have to write so there might be a million grammar/spelling errors. i don't care though. all that matters is that i get the words out! eek!
i saw elder erickson in the cafeteria the other day and also on monday morning. it was so weird not to call him by his first name. i think he's doing well though (:
my roommates are all from utah--except my compantion who is Sister Latimer (JUST LIKE I SAID IT WOULD BE). My other roommates are sister burrows and ganowski. they are going to tai chung. we have the best time and laugh a lot (because they are all crazy and such a hoot). sister burrows told me today that she knows bentley from the bachelorette. lol. apparently he's actually a really good guy and super active in the church and they told him that they were going to make him be the bad guy on the show. weird. i officially don't hate him anymore.
in the mtc, you practice teaching investigators. (of course everyone knows that they are just hired to act so you can get practice, but it's still awesome and you end up loving them just as much as regular investigators.)
our investigator is Lin Jie Mei (sister Lin). She has a 23 year old son with brain problems and she has cancer. her husband also died recently from cancer and she lives with her older sister. its actually a terribly sad story. we've met with her three times and she seems really interested in coming closer to christ (which is what my purpose is--to bring people closer to him). Our first lesson with her was a little hard. we taught her that God loves her and that she is a child of God. we also told her a little about the book of mormon and invited her to start reading it. By the second lesson, she had read the introduction. she asked us about joseph smith. we taught her briefly about the restoration and also that through Christ's atonement, she can be with her husband again. i bore my testimony to her that i know her husband loves her and that he is waiting to see her again. i testified that i know that through christ's atonement, she can indeed see him again. it was a really powerful moment that brought tears to our eyes. the spirit was incredible strong so we took that opportunity to explain that the feeling she felt of peace and comfort was the spirit and that she can feel that again when she prays to know if joseph smith is a prophet and if she can see her husband again. the third lesson was much harder. we went in with the intention to begin teaching her about the plan of salvation, but she brought up stuff that lead to a discussion of the apostacy. the problem here is that all of these lessons happen in Chinese so we really didn't have the vocabulary to teach her about the apostacy. after a long difficult discussion (because of the language), Sister L and i just bore our testimonies of the truthfulness of the gospel and that it will bless her life. since she didn't pray to know if joseph smith was a prophet, i challenged her to do that again. we will see her again on wednesday, so i'll follow up on that invitation then. for our wednesday lesson, we've decided to back things up and help her feel the spirit so that she can come unto christ that way. We've come up with two questions that she seeks help with (that we are currently praying about) that we will discuss with her and look for the answers in the scriptures. we hope to help her receive revelation through the scriptures and prayer. i anticipate that this lesson will go well because Sister L and i have been praying a lot about it and we've refocused on her needs rather than just telling her more pieces to the puzzle. it's amazing how this works.
i'm loving the mtc. the spirit is so strong here and everyone is so happy all the time. my district/class has a great time. although we sometimes get distracted, we do work hard and invite the spirit into our class discussions. Sister L and i are the only sisters in our class of eight (we are all going to tai pei). during class last night, Brother Anderson (our teacher) spoke english for the first time (yes we've been here almost a week and this is the first time we've heard him speak english). Instead of having a lesson on Chinese, we spend half the class discussing what ways we can focus more on the investigator and inviting them to come unto christ (which is our purpose). It was an amazing class and inspired the new approach to teaching Lin Jie Mei that i mentioned above.
yesterday (and every monday that i will be in the mtc) we had (will have) to do a service project. For the sisters in my zone (all chinese speaking) and the sisters going to cambodia, we work together on our project. We each have to clean the bathrooms in our building. That's three floors of bathrooms. This meant that yesterday i cleaned 24 toilets. I hate cleaning toilets, but i was surprised as to how much i enjoyed it. First, i could speak english (lol) and second, we were serving. It really is such a blessing to be able to serve people.
My chinese is coming extremely well. i can now pray (better than i could before), bear a longer/fuller testimony, and use a lot of the vocabulary that we used in our first three lessons. It's still pretty hard, but i've been noticing how much the lord is blessing me for my diligence. Sister L and i only use chinese in class and outside of class we use a pretty decent mixture. The elders in our district always ask us for help on grammar, how to say things, and pronunciation. we are all growing together. At this point thought, i'll be in the mtc until Jan 22. Even though my chinese is good, my other option would be 3 weeks of english and 3 weeks of chinese--that would just be way too overwhelming so i opted to stay here.
lastly i want to share a spiritual thought:
When Nephi and his brothers went to get the plates of brass, they tried twice to no avail. Nephi's solution to this was to try again and keep the commandments. It's amazing how the lord helps you when you are obedient. The Lord asks us to do hard things (like learn Chinese) and the times that we are most obedient will be the times that we are the most successful (:
Time's up!
I love you all.
Love,
Sister Anderson
aka Caela Bean
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