Thursday, March 13, 2014

HEN BANG (VERY AWESOME)!

Elder Dexter, Elder Warner and Elder Willes

So much to write this week! This week was by far the fastest week. Super busy, but it feels like yesterday I was emailing home last week. Anyway we got about 8 new missionaries in our district. One sister is from New Zealand and one elder is from Australia. They are all very nice. They are very quiet and don't talk much to the elders and sisters that have been here awhile unless we initiate it. They are very nice though and working hard! 





To answer some of your questions. I have not received my all character name tag nor do I know when we receive it. I hope soon!  When I get it I for sure will send pictures! Yes I am healthy. I feel super tired all day everyday, but I am healthy :)  Yes, we do have Mandarin evaluations. We had one last week. It was interesting. There are about 8 questions. A few you have to teach principles from Preach my Gospel all in Chinese. One question asked you to say a memorized scripture. Others were asking questions, meeting someone, etc. I scored a 4.5 on it out of 7. The average for our class was a 4.0 so that's good. Most Mandarin speaking missionaries leave the MTC around a 3-4 on their evaluations. We have another evaluation I think next week so we will see how it goes. 

No word on my visa or flight plans or anything. I think we should be getting info next week or something. We go to the temple every p-day. Surprisingly a lot of elders and sisters in our zone don't go because they are busy cleaning, writing letters, etc. We always go and we made it a goal not to miss an opportunity to go the temple so that's awesome. 


Sister Smith, Elder Willes and Elder Warner with Elder Dexter photo bombing

The MTC is awesome. I love mornings when we have personal study, companionship study, language & additional study. Personal study is awesome because you can just do your own thing and study what you want to study.  Class is also awesome. My teachers are really cool and we have had many spiritual experiences in roll play teaching, sharing scriptures or experiences etc. I will miss the routine I guess.  I'm just very comfortable with the schedule here and all of our meals are cooked for us so that's nice. 

This week was awesome. My companion Elder Warner's parents spoke at the Sunday devotional. Crazy huh? So we hung out all Sunday night with the MTC Presidency and Elder Warner's family just walking around the MTC. It was so awesome. President and Sister Nally (MTC President and his wife) kept us company and were very friendly. We also sat on the front row and got a nice camera shot when his mom said her son was in the MTC.  It was way spiritual. The whole congregation sung Called to Serve and when the chorus hit everyone stood up. It was SO cool. We knew the harmony too so we did that ;) Overall awesome night!

Elder Willes with Elder Warner, his parents and brother and Elder Dexter

I also spoke in church on Sunday. I spoke on the Holy Ghost.  It was crazy!  5 minutes of nothing but Chinese but it went awesome. People told me I did good so I think it went ok. The new missionaries all had blank stares on their faces because they had no clue what I was saying. It was cool though. I also played the piano in priesthood meeting. I wish I had learned more hymns! Nate and Jake play and learn hymns! They are beneficial for the mission! 

On Monday we had the chance to host senior missionaries. We were assigned to greet them at the door and guide them inside. It reminded me a lot of Grandma/Grandpa and Mamoo/Boppy. It was so cool!  All the couples were so excited to serve! They were all so happy. I asked one couple where they were serving and they said PROVO, UTAH! They were so excited and I admired how diligent and happy they were. It was awesome. The senior missionaries are awesome examples and I hope I have that desire to serve when I get old. 

This week we also had a skype TRC lesson. We skyped a TRC member of the church. She was from Taiwan but a student at BYU. She spoke Chinese so fast.  Holy cow!  We asked her to read a few scriptures and she read them in 2 seconds. We were like hen bang (very awesome)! It was way cool though! We taught her about receiving revelation through prayer. Oh I also took a few pictures for Elder Warner's dad on the 5S! It was weird handling a phone and it seemed foreign to me haha.





Overall this week was awesome!  I'm loving this work. This week I accomplished my goal of making general lesson plans for all 5 PMG lessons. Major helpful for when we plan lessons. This gospel brings so much joy to my life. 

Love you all!

Elder Willes

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