3 1/2 weeks in . . . still going strong!

 

September 2, 2013

 

Hey Mom and Dad!

Today's been such a nice P-day! Haha. The temple is closed because of Labor Day, so instead of going to the temple, we just went back to the residence and slept for another 2 hours and it felt so good! I miss naps, haha, but then we did laundry and had lunch, and it's been a good day so far! I just sent quite a few pictures. I did some of the map one, and that Taiwan shirt is one I got at the bookstore, that was earlier this morning, and the one with the other Sister is because we met thru a mutual friend and we figured out who each other were, and then one is of the last day with one of our teachers, and then the others are of my room.

This week's been good! I saw Thomas Parker! Haha finally! It was so random, we were just getting lunch or dinner, I can't remember, and he just said my name and I turn around and he's just walking right beside me. It took me a little bit to realize it was him! Haha, we talked for a while though and talked to each others districts, because two elders in my district are also going to Singapore, so that was fun! He said thank you for the donuts! Haha, we're meeting up on Tuesday after choir but before devotional to try and take a picture because he leaves next Tuesday, so yeah! I finally got to see him! And the package was perfect! And the cookies were especially delicious, haha I shared some with my district so I didn't eat them all, but they were amazing, haha thank you.

 

Um, for senior companion there's really not much else I had to do. We switched this past week, but pretty much you just make sure you're doing companionship prayer and inventory and making sure everyone's getting along and everything, not too crazy but still kinda cool. We had TRC (Teaching Resource Center) again Saturday and it was probably even better than before! We taught 2 girls for 20 minutes each, and one was from Taiwan and the other from Hong Kong, so it was super fun to talk to them. They were both converts and super nice. It was good too because the one companion who's kind of nervous about her Chinese still spoke a lot more and everything, so it was good! The one from Hong Kong thought it was super cool I lived in Shanghai for 4 years and I'm going to Taiwan now, haha. So yeah that was good!

It's kind of sad though, we lost both our teachers! We had Bi LaoShi (Bi is the name, and LaoShi is teacher) and Shi LaoShi. Bi LaoShi told us he was leaving for school, but Shi LaoShi just had to switch classes, so now we have two new teachers, they both seem nice but it's just kind of weird. When you spend like 6 hours a day in class you get kind of attached to your teachers, haha.

The studying is going good. I've been reading the Book of Mormon in English and in Chinese, but mainly in English at night, and I've been trying to do vocab for Chinese during the day. It's hard though because I never know what to study for sure because I already know quite a bit, so I've been focusing on some characters lately. Now I can write like 3/4 in simplified and 1/4 in traditional (characters), so I'm getting there. And my teacher said my tones are getting a lot better, since mainly everyone just writes in pinyin (phoenetic spelling of  Mandarin) because they don't really teach characters here, so I think that's good.

Let's see, what else happened this week. In about a week my district will be the oldest ones in the building, so that's crazy. And I actually bore my testimony in full Chinese during church, and everyone said I did a good job, so that was cool. I'm to the point in Chinese again where it's just easier to think of a sentence already in Chinese, like versus thinking of what I want to say in English first and then translate it. I mainly just think in Chinese and then use English words when I don't know how to say it. So that's pretty cool. I can't believe I'm almost halfway done with the MTC, it's crazy. It doesn't seem like it. Which I guess is good.

OH! For devotional Elder Anderson came to speak! Two apostles in 3 weeks is pretty awesome! Haha, and it was raining like crazy when we had to walk home, but it was super fun. We were all just drenched and laughing, and then we had district meeting after that, and it was hilarious, haha.

I can't really think of anything else that happened. I actually think I might be a little sad when I leave the MTC, haha, my district has basically become a family, and it's like all of the other Mandarin districts in our building and in our branch are like our extended family, haha, it's fun.

Well, I miss you guys! But I'm still doing great! Haha, I keep waiting for the moment when I have a bad day or when I don't want to be here anymore, and it hasn't happened yet, so I guess that's good! Haha, and by the way Dad, I will say that the traditional characters do look much nicer. They are definitely harder and more tedious to learn how to write, but once you can write them, they do just look classy, haha.

 Well I should go, I'll write a letter either later today or tomorrow and send that, but I miss you! Tell everyone hi and I love them!

Love you!

 -Qiao Jie Mei