Week Three: Epiphanies, Teaching Experiences and a Calling

Hey Fam Bam.

It's that time again! It's crazy. Now that it's a routine, this is flying by. 

I'm so glad to hear about how the kiddos are doing! I smile every single time you give me details about any of them. It gives me kind of a pang but it's in a good way. 

Also, don't forget to send me some of those pictures that Sister Hawken took. I'm super looking forward to those more than anything! 

Also, before I forget, YES! I've been doing choir. Sorry I haven't been responding to that question. The director is Brother Egget and he's awesome. He's just super funny and he always tells us these fantastic stories to get us in the mood for what we're singing. 

I had a really good experience the other week and I don't think I shared it in my other email for some reason. So I was sitting in my bed criss-cross applesauce saying my personal prayer of that night. I was in the middle of asking him to bless my family when I just got this feeling that I should ask God if he loved me. I don't think I was consciously aware of it until that point, but I was feeling extremely stressed and worried.  I don't know if it's obvious or not but this isn't the easiest thing I've ever done in my life. So I asked him, "God, do you love me?" and I waited for a few seconds and all of a sudden, like a flashback reel, all these images came into my head of people who loved and cared about me. I saw my family members, my friends, my district. All these people who love me and want the best for me in varying degrees. It was incredible. I realized that God was showing his love for me through all of these people. And I've come to realize that this is how he answers my prayers. I don't get a voice that penetrates my soul, I don't get miracles. Thoughts just pop into my head, seemingly of their own accord. I'm almost amazed that I can recognize them as being sent from God because they aren't super dramatic but they are comforting and somehow I know every time that they are divine promptings directly given to me.   

Names that the sisters made for all of us. They put paper ties on the elders' and paper flowers on the sisters' .

This week was pretty interesting. We got 2 new investigators. One's name is Brother Que (pronounced chweehhh), and the other is Brother Lu (pronounced Loo). It's our 2 new teachers acting like them. They're playing real people that they taught on their missions but it's still weird role playing with them in a classroom. It requires quite a bit of imagination.  

Brother Que is a Biology major and wants to become a doctor. He's curious because he has a room mate who's Mormon and doesn't drink tea, but he's atheist so it's been interesting getting him to pray and trying to get him to develop faith. We've only had 2 lessons with him but he's very inquisitive. The first lesson, he asked us what "amen" meant because we were teaching him to pray. I honestly had no idea. Why didn't I know that??? So after my companion tried to explain it and kind of trailed off, I said that honestly we don't know but we'll look it up and tell you next time. The second lesson, we continued to testify of prayer. He asked us a bunch of questions about how we know God is real and that he loves us. When did we know? When did I pray and get an answer? Where was it? etc...After answering a few of those questions, I finally told him "Look, I can give you an example and an answer to all these questions from personal experience, but the only way that you're going to believe it is if you try it and get an answer for yourself." I looked back on it and realized that was an unusually good way to handle that situation. It must have been a prompting from the spirit.   

Personal study gets pretty rough in the morning sometimes. Hahaha.

Brother Lu is going into the military in 2 months. He lives with his mom and brother in the meantime. He agrees to do whatever we ask, but he just looks really disinterested and practically dozed off while we taught him the first time. I think we just need to make sure we don't have any fluff in his lessons so they are as engaging and to the point as possible. 

Anyways, that's about it for investigators. Oh! No wait. We had this thing on Friday called Training Resource Center where people from the Provo community(usually return missionaries and BYU students) volunteer to come in and be taught by missionary trainees. They don't put on a false identity and most of them are members so it's just a really good way to practice the language and know if you are teaching by the spirit. Our first lesson was with a return missionary sister who actually went to Taichung! She said it was awesome but sometimes she talked SUPER fast and I couldn't really tell what she was saying. It was ok though. She was just wondering how she should balance school and church because they're both so important. I asked her how much time she spent in the scriptures each day. She said "I don't know...10 minutes? Not too much." We told her that she ought to spend more time in the scriptures and in prayer. I felt pretty bold in telling that to a return missionary, but it was the truth... After that we talked to 2 other sisters. One went on her mission to Taichung and I'm pretty sure the other one was a native speaker. That lesson went really well. We were talking about God and prayer and the Holy Ghost and one of the sisters asked how we can feel the Spirit every time we pray. I said that we need to make sure we pray sincerely. I also shared the story that I wrote at the beginning of this letter which was really cool. I was relieved that I was able to share it in Chinese. The gift of tongues really is fantastic.  

Me, Elder D., Sister Malyon, and her companion. Elders and Sisters aren't supposed to be in the same pictures together so...

We've been learning a lot about prayer and the Holy Ghost this week.  It's been really enlightening!  It's weird because we pray so much here.  Over meals, before class, after class, after we get up, before we go to bed, when we lose something, etc.  It's really easy for those prayers to lose their sincerity.  Especially when I'm doing most of them in Chinese so it's nice to have a bunch of lessons that remind me to force myself to focus and not just say the same thing over and over again.

In other news, I'm the new district leader! President Dunn came in yesterday morning and called my companionship out in the hall and asked if I would.  I said yes, of course--haha. It was super unexpected, though. I was called at 9:45 and officially became the district leader at 2:00 during sacrament meeting.  I'll be honest. It's a little strange for me. I'm the youngest of everyone and even though (not to toot my own horn) I'm a little more mature than a few of the elders, I can tell it's going to take some getting used to for everyone.  Our first district leader, Elder W., was 20 and he's already been here once before so he really knew what he was doing. So yeah I'm a little nervous about that, but it'll be really great and I'll have to rely on the Lord so all the better:)     

A tree that feel over because of the storm. Woah!! Spiritual metaphor: If you have large branches and shallow roots, when the winds come, you won't be able to resist. 

On Friday, we gave Sister G. a blessing of comfort. It was a really great experience. She came in the classroom and I could tell she'd been crying. She asked me and Elder W. really discreetly if we'd give her a blessing and we said of course!  I guess she's really worried about some things going on at home (I don't know how much I'm allowed to disclose) and she just needed something extra to help her get through it. It was a really great blessing.  Elder W. gave it and he did a really great job. I could tell it meant a lot to her because she cried after which is always a good sign :).  

That's about all for this week. I love you guys! I'm loving getting all your letters/emails so DON'T STOP!! They are a huge pick-me-up and I always smile when I read them.  Also feel free to keep me updated on major world events outside of BYU football, Dad.  :) I feel kind of isolated in here and the only news I can get is from the workers. I did hear the BYU game on Saturday/Friday (whenever it was--the days blur together haha).  The crowd was really loud and we could hear the cannon fire every time BYU scored/made a field goal so that was exciting. 

-Brendan