你们好!
The MTC is great! I feel like I'm learning so much every day. Learning Chinese has definitely been super hard though. We have to memorize the first vision in Chinese by tonight though and I'm not done yet, so that's what I'll be spending the rest of my pday doing haha. But yesterday during sacrament meeting, I could actually understand one of the sister's whole talk! Which was super crazy because last week I was only able to pick out a couple words from the talks. It's amazing how fast they teach you here! Ive definitely learned so much, but I still have so much more to go! We have two sisters and two elders from Taiwan in our zone that speak Chinese fluently, and Elder Beam talks to them all the time. It's super humbling to hear them talk because I usually have no idea what they're saying haha. Our zone also has a district full of Cantonese speakers all going to Hong Kong, and they're all super cool. But it always throws me off when they speak, because I never realize they're speaking Cantonese, and their pronunciations are way different from Mandarin.
My district is awesome! We spend pretty much all day together-classes, meals, etc. We play volleyball together too. They're pretty much my family away from home. We all have different personalities and interests, but it works in a way that we all get along together really well. One of the sisters in my district (Sister Low) has soooo many funny stories. Apparently one night she left her room to go to the bathroom and she got locked out of her room. So she ended up spending the night sleeping in the hall haha. She got woken up at like 4 in the morning by a security guard.
My district is awesome! We spend pretty much all day together-classes, meals, etc. We play volleyball together too. They're pretty much my family away from home. We all have different personalities and interests, but it works in a way that we all get along together really well. One of the sisters in my district (Sister Low) has soooo many funny stories. Apparently one night she left her room to go to the bathroom and she got locked out of her room. So she ended up spending the night sleeping in the hall haha. She got woken up at like 4 in the morning by a security guard.
My zone does service twice a week where we set up and take down chairs for the devotionals on Sunday and Tuesday. It's pretty easy and kinda fun, just takes a long time. I'm just glad we don't have to do what other missionaries have to do, like clean toilets or mow the grass. I think they feel bad for us since we have to be at the MTC for 9 weeks, so they made our service project fun haha. But the MTC is still good! The food isn't great, but it's not horrible either. I've been taking advantage of the freezers full of ice cream at meal times. And I still don't mind all the class time. We do have like 3-4 hours of studying every day, and it can be hard to focus sometimes then. But other than that, things have been great! If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
It's only been a week and a half, but I've learned so much already. I'll share one insight that has stuck out to me recently. During our district's Book of Mormon study, we were reading about Lehi and his family's struggles n the wilderness. It would have been very easy for the Lord to tell Lehi exactly how to get to the promised land, but instead they wandered in the wilderness for years. And during their years they faced so many trials. Elder Bickmore shared his thoughts-he said that the Lord had them suffer for so many years because he was preparing for the promised land. In the wilderness they learned how to live off the land-hunt, gather food, make tools, build things, etc. So when they finally got to the promised land, they were prepared. So I thought we can really relate this to our lives-we might feel like we're just wandering through life or facing trials for no reason, but the Lord could really be preparing us for things in the near future.
Also, if you want to send me packages or letters (which I know you all want to do), here's my address! Love you all!
Elder Mark Anthony Ensign
SEP10 ENG-MAN
2005 N 900 E Unit 254
Provo UT 84602-1793
-Elder Ensign
Here's some pics!
My district is from left to right (on the sign picture): Sister Low (Taichung Taiwan), Sister Berglund (Taichung Taiwan), Sister Davis (Arcadia California), Sister Sheffield (Taichung Taiwan), Elder Beam (Scotland/Ireland), Me, Elder Bickmore (Singapore), Elder Lindsay (Arcadia California)
Plus a picture of me, the other Elder Ensign and his companion, Elder Fangilinin
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| My district: Sister Low (Taichung Taiwan), Sister Berglund (Taichung Taiwan), Sister Davis (Arcadia California), Sister Sheffield (Taichung Taiwan), Elder Beam (Scotland/Ireland), me, Elder Bickmore (Singapore), Elder Lindsay (Arcadia California) |
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| My district |
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| Me with the other Elder Ensign and his companion Elder Fangilinin |
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