MTC Week 2


Week 2:

I am LOVING the MTC. Being on a mission is a gift and a blessing. I have 2 full years to just devote to the Savior and to serving others, and I know that I will come out better for it as well. It's really exciting and rewarding to be working so hard and learning so much and feeling like it's for a good cause.

This week I got to play basketball. We are supposed to always SYL (speak your language) so common shouts on the court are 'chuan!' (pass), 'wo kanjian ni' (I see you), and of course 'guan' (dunk). Except we're not allowed to guan at the MTC, otherwise I would by now. Whenever my companions and I play together as a team of 3 we dominate. It's a blast and I love playing against some of the guys here who are pretty good. Basketball is such a great way to relax since the rest of the time my mind is on Chinese.

It's pretty cool how much we've learned in just under two weeks. Some missionaries get discouraged thinking we're not going fast enough, and it is frustrating to not be able to say what you want, especially when we are teaching lessons and really desire to get the message across, but honestly we've learned SO much. We throw Chinese words into every sentence, and probably 20-30% of our conversations are completely in Chinese. It's really hard to learn especially because Chinese is a tonal language, meaning that depending how you pronounce 'Shen' it could mean 'God' or 'pig'. But it's going well and I know the Lord is blessing me because I am dedicated to learning it so that I can teach. My companions and I had a 25 minute conversation completely in Chinese. That's a blessing.

Every day when I wake up I'm usually pretty tired. Then after lunch I'm usually tired too. Then whenever it's time to go to sleep I'm not so tired. But it all works out. Whenever I am tired I do some pushups or if I'm in class I basically do a squat I just sit a half inch above my chair and get a quad workout. Getting the blood moving helps me stay awake. 

I prepared to give a talk in Chinese this week since our Branch President just calls random people up. Honestly I would have nailed that talk. I really love it here at the MTC and I'm glad I'm able to have that attitude. I also have been looking outward for how I can lift others up. I try to bring a positive mindset and some laughs to our district and keep everyone's spirits up. It's pretty funny how everything is relative here. Like 2 weeks ago, watching the latest Netflix show or scrolling through Instagram was how we keep in touch with the world. Now it is common to see missionaries longingly checking the weather back home for any semblance of connection with their life outside the MTC. It makes me laugh every time. 

My companions and I are a bunch of jokesters. We work extremely hard and are obedient to the mission rules, which leaves us room to be stress free and just laugh. Like when we walk by people we always talk to them in Chinese, and then if they don't say anything we begin talking about them in Chinese. "They don't speak Chinese" "They can't understand us" "He loves his mom" "He loves the prophet" "We can dunk on you guys". To us this is so funny because we spend all day talking in Chinese and it's a pretty serious atmosphere here so whenever we can lighten the mood it's great.
This almost got my companion into trouble once however. We were sitting in a building studying and a couple missionaries walked by. As usual we said "Ni hao" and when they didn't respond we started our usual Chinese practice with them as subjects. Except this time we had just learned the word for "I like" and "I don't like" so my companion said "I don't like them" "They are bad missionaries" just as a joke. This whole time the Sisters talked to each other and looked at a painting on the wall. A minute later, the Sister turned around and began speaking to us in Chinese. The look on my companion's face when he realized she understood the language was priceless. What was even funnier was that she was actually good at Chinese and we understood like nothing she said. It was a wake up call for all of us and really funny. 
Something else my companion does is whenever he walks by all these poles that hold up the terraces between buildings he smacks his hand on it and makes it look like he ran into the pole head on. Then he proceeds to fall down head in his hands while I comfort him and look around to see which missionaries freaked out. It's pretty funny too.

These moments stand out because 95% of the time we are quietly studying our Chinese, practicing words, flashcards, or studying the scriptures. It's amazing how much I can learn by working this hard. I love it here and I'm so glad that I'm a missionary. Also on Sunday there was a double rainbow which was beautiful. The rainbows and mountains and sky all just showed me how wonderful God is. 

Elder Halverson

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