July 13, 2015
Family,
Thanks
for the dried apples, chips and pretzels. They are awesome, especially
the dried apples.
Sadie
- MTC till Aug 10-12. Not sure when I leave yet. I don't get travel
plans till about 1.5 weeks till we leave. I cannot speak the language
well yet, although I can get my point across. The food is all the same,
but fine. It's nice I don't have to cook for myself. Saves time.
Dad
- The assignments for the zone leaders aren't that much. They last 3
weeks long. We assign people to teach priesthood, organize sacrament
besides the speakers, interview all the district leaders. We have a lot
of meetings Sunday mornings with the Branch Presidency and other
leaders which takes up the 3 hrs we used to have Sunday mornings to
study. We have to do some others stuff when new missionaries come in, but
we didn't have any last wed and I we aren't getting any this wed.
Mom
- There are 6 Mandarin zones, though 2 of them
leavetomorrow morning. Liza is in the other mandarin zone. I
see her quite a bit. She is just a few classrooms down. I report to
the branch president. The investigators are members. They are
actually our teachers who act as people they taught on their missions.
Our zone has the coolest teachers out of all the Mandarin teachers I feel
like. We have one dude who you can just tell is a stud, Liao
Liaoshi. He is half chinese and half vietnamese. Our other teachers
is OuYang Liaoshi. He is a stud too. He is from central
america. He speaks fluent spanish, english and chinese. It is funny
teaching them. Sometimes when we need to call our investigators, they
take off their teaching tag and pull out a pen and we use pens as phones to
talk to them. They just start speaking really fast. When our teacher
is going to be an investigator, he always says he is going to eat food.
When he comes back from being an investigator, we ask him how his food
was. They make no acknowledgement that they are investigators.
Pretty funny. The time is flying. I can't believe I am already more
than halfway done at the MTC, but yet it feels like I have been here for a long
time. Our lessons are fine. The doctrine is fine, no problems
there. It is just being able to communicate what I want that is
frustrating. Sister Bain is going to Taiwan. Her name is Bei Jie Mei. I
probably won't be performing our piece for a while, since we have lost most of
our time with little stuff we have to do for the zone. The old zone
leaders leave tomorrow morning.
This
week was a good week. We got to clean the temple last Monday. That was
kind of cool. We were asked to clean the base of the chairs in the
endowment rooms where they are bolted into the carpet. We took little
brushes like toothbrushes and brushed our any dirt, hair or whatever might have
found it's way there. Then we go with a damp soapy rag and wipe it down.
Then we go with q-tips and clean all around where we couldn't get
earlier. They sure do a deep clean. After that we cleaned and
vacuumed the chairs, cleaned the floor boards all around 3rd floor. We
had a lot of elders doing other crazy deep cleans for the rest of the
temple. There were 6 sisters who spend the whole 3 hrs just cleaning one
chandelier. and that was a smaller one in one of the sealing rooms.
I can't imagine the one in the celestial room of the provo temple. That
one must take weeks.
We
had an all Chinese day on Friday. That was really hard. We couldn't
say anything in English all day. I had a huge headache by the end of the
day. It just fries your brain trying really hard to understand everybody
all day.
We
get to be investigators now to each other in the zone. That also takes up
much of our add study time, teaching and being taught with our district.
It is great to be an investigator. We did this a lot in mission prep
class at BYU. He actually had us go in groups of three with 1 teacher and
2 investigators to teach. This is because you learn a lot more about how
to be a good teacher from being an investigator than you do from teaching.
Elder
Woolley and I dominate at Spikeball. It is this new game that caught on
at BYU this past year and they have 2 nets out at the field of the MTC
that we play on. I'll have to send you a pic next week. It's really fun. You
play 2 one two. You use a little ball and a volleyball net in a circle a few
feet off the ground. You get 3 hits to bounce it off the net. If the ball
hits the ground it is the other teams point. I don't know if that makes
any sense. Anyway, it's a blast.
Some
funny things with the language. During our TRC (this is where we teach
members or real investigators who volunteer to come and let us teach them for
20 min on Sat.) I was trying to use the word specifc which I thought was
juti (2nd tone one the u and a 3rd tone on the i). I was wrong. I guess it
means pigs feet. I might of been pronouncing the tones wrong.
Anyway, specific is actually teding, no idea on the tones. Also, one of
the sisters in our district was explaining to our teacher that she needed to
call the investigator. She accidentally said she needed to "poop
words" instead of "hit electric words" (phone call).
We
got to attend President Packer's funeral on Friday. I don't know if you
got to watch it, but I'll say some things I liked from it. Ballard or
Oaks said that Packer always said, "Let the pending items pend." when
they were trying to make a decision. I think that was cool. This
can relate to revelation and answers to questions. We are promised that
the Lord will answer our questions, but we need to know that it will not always
be answered quickly. Bednar said in the closing prayer, something like,
"may this be a new beginning of renewed service."
On
Tuesday we had our devotional from Spencer J Condie, an emeritus member of
the Seventy. He said a lot of things that I liked. He talked on the
first vision and it's central importance. He told us to speak slowly and
let the spirit carry the message into the hearts of the investigators
especially when reciting the first vision. He told us there is great
converting power in the first vision. When our investigators hear the
first vision account, he says, they should be changed forever. He told us
to never let it become commonplace, never lose the wonder of it all for it is
the investigators first time hearing it. He told us to tell it as if you
were a witness standing behind a tree in the grove. If questioned about the
truthfulness of the first vision, he said we should tell the investigator to
pray to God. "don't take my word for it. Ask God. He was there."
He said, "the things of God are understood by the Spirit of God." He
shared a response a prophet made, i forgot which one, when someone told him
that it was egotistical to say that we are the only true church. He said,
"I didn't say it, the Lord said it. I'm only quoting him." He
also explained the importance of testimony. Quoting from Elder Ballard,
"the Spirit cannot be restrained, when you bear pure testimony." The
number one converter for people, President Monson found while Mission President
in conducting a poll, was humble and simple testimony of the first
vision. Brother Condie explained that the 1st vision is at the heart of
our religion. These things reminded me of some leader of the church who
said, we don't need to defend our words, they defend themselves. He told
us that we might need to teach investigators the same principle multiple
times. Look at 3 Nephi 11. The people didn't understand till the 3rd
time. 3 times Nephi was constrained to kill Laban. Joseph was
appeared to 3 times by the angel Moroni that one night. I liked that
reminder that our investigators are the same way. They might not
understand till it is explained to them multiple times.
I
love what it says in Ch 8 of PMG on accountability. " The attitude
you have toward your mission experience is a reflection of your love toward
your Heavenly Father and His Son." I love that. That can apply to
anything we do in the church I believe. We need to make sure we have a
good attitude and are obeying for the right reasons, out of love instead of
fear or duty.
I
also love what it says in 3 Nephi 17:3. This is a great principle to
learning anything in the church, learning through the scriptures, or learning
through the temple. "Therefore, go unto your homes, and ponder upon
the things which I have said, and ask the Father in my name, that ye may
understand, and prepare your minds for the morrow and I come unto you
again." All those steps are crucial. Step 1 is pretty easy: return
home. The others aren't as much. Step 2: ponder on what you heard.
Step 3: ask Heavenly Father that you may understand. Step 4. Prepare for
the next time. We were able to go the temple this morning and it was
great. After leaving though I realized I had not done very good at step 4
leading up to going to the temple. I'm going to try and implement these
steps better in my study and temple attendance. It is great counsel.
We
had our Priesthood lesson, Sacrament topic and our Sundaydevotional all on
the Book of Mormon. PMG says some great things about it in Ch 5. I
don't have time to talk about it. I could talk forever on this
topic. It was a good reminder to always teach from the Book of Mormon and
to always be studying from it every day. I hope to be able to become more
familiar with it in order to answer my Investigators questions with a scripture
from the Book of Mormon. I could answer their question using my words,
but there is a power in the Book of Mormon. As it says in PMG. "The Book
of Mormon, combined with the Spirit, is your most powerful resource in
conversion." If you have any time, read Ch 5 from PMG. It's
awesome. Ch 4 is also awesome. And Ch 6. And Ch 10.
Well, it's all pretty amazing.
Thanks
for all your prayers and your support. I know the Book of Mormon is God's
word through the power of the Holy Ghost. And by that same power, I know
Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, the Savior lives, and the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints is once again established again on the earth
preparatory to the second coming of the Messiah.
Love,
Elder
Stratford
