Week 2- May 8, 2012

What’s good!

This week went by fast. The days are really really long but at the same time the days seem to blur together. Not much changes from week to week haha. My Chinese has slowly been getting better and better. We finished teaching our investigator at the end of last week and we just got a new one yesterday. The investigators are actually our teachers but they take it very seriously and act like real investigators. They change into street clothes and go into rooms. We have to knock and then go teach them using only Chinese. Me and my companions can teach in Chinese a lot better and can understand more of what the investigator is saying. By next week the teacher has challenged us to teach the investigators without using note cards so that will be tough.

Sundays are probably my favorite days. After going through a long week of classroom and study all week you get really tired. But then on Sundays, a member of the quorum of the 70 comes and does a devotional. That usually rekindles my fire and motivates me to be a good missionary.

I can’t wait till I can get out of here and out to Taiwan. I definitely have learned a lot while being here but it gets tedious and boring at times so I’ll be excited when I can get out and to do some work. The older generation of Mandarin missionaries are all leaving next week. They have been here for around 9 weeks and they all got their travel papers a few days ago. So since they are taking off, that means that my generation of mandarin speaking missionaries have to step our Chinese up. We now will have to give talks and do sacrament prayers all in Chinese. We normally don’t do those things because we don’t have enough experience and can’t pronuciate effectively but since they are leaving that will all change.

I met a cool elder going to Taiwan the same time that I am, except he is going to the Southern area, called Taichung (I think that’s how you spell it). Anyways, his name is Elder Edwards and he has a scholarship on BYU's football for when he gets back. We're good friends and we lovin talkin about sports at night before bed.

The Lord has blessed me. I've asked to be comforted because it gets boring and frustrating at times when learning teaching principals and Chinese all day long and my comps get me annoyed at times but the Lord has given me peace and the ability to work through it with a positive attitude. I was dying to watch some basketball and to play in a basketball game and while I still really want to do those things, the Lord has helped me to be at peace with those things.

The food here is actually pretty good. I think it is BYU that makes the food and they actually make some good food. Like they made fried chicken one day and burgers another day. Then they also brought in Papa Johns pizza and BYU creamery ice cream one day so that was nice after a long day of classroom work.

I love you all and miss you tons

Wo ai nimen! zai jian. (aka - I love you guys! bye.)

-Jordan