Week Two: Settled In And Learning

September 2, 2013

Hey Mom and Dad,

Mom, I'm glad Sophie had so much fun at the T Swift concert. And I especially liked your comparison to a 1964 Beatles fan. hahaha! Awesome. And Dad, I'm super bummed you didn't go to Bumbershoot! I would have liked to hear about it. I just remembered it was labor day weekend and a little pang went through me as I thought of the acts I was missing but I got over it pretty fast. 

It's great here! I am getting a little sick of the food. Sometimes I feel like I'm spending all day in that cafeteria! Although, this last week, they had these pork Gyros that were surprisingly fantastic. It might have just been the break from American and Italian food that I enjoyed but it was amazing. I'm not ashamed to say I ate 2. 

This week was a lot more doable than the first weekend for sure. I'm much more adjusted now. I wouldn't say I'm comfortable but at least my head isn't spinning (all the time).  Last night we had a devotional at the Marriott Center and Neal L. Anderson spoke which was pretty cool! He brought up a man who had been a missionary while Elder Anderson was a mission president a while back and basically just interviewed the guy. So it wasn't a super orthodox talk, but it was really cool and his missionary had a lot of cool stories. Elder W.'s friend was the missionary's son, so he went up and talked with his friend and apparently Elder Anderson had only told his Dad, "Come to the Marriott Center for a devotional Sunday." Hadn't told him why. Hadn't told him what he'd be doing. Just "Come to the Marriott center." So it was really genuine and it was a great talk. 

The real excitement came afterward, though, when they told us there was a lightning storm outside and we needed to stay in for a bit. When they finally let us out, it was still POURING. Of course, I don't really get the weather report here so I wasn't warned to bring an umbrella. It took us a good 15-20 minutes to get back and we were completely soaked. It was awesome. The elders all went back and changed at least their pants and hung their suits up to dry but apparently the sisters couldn't get into their residence so they had to go back to the classroom all wet with the AC blowing on them to make it worse. I felt so bad! It was worth it though. We had a really solid discussion with our Branch 1st counselor about the devotional. It was nice. The rest of the week was pretty normal.

Me, Elder C., and Elder R. soaking wet from just walking back from the Marriott center in the rain. My suit's still surprisingly shapely. I've gotten a lot of compliments on it too! It was funny. I told Elder B. that I got it at Val Ville for $15 and he was like NO WAY! Both my suits were $600! Which sounded a bit steep for a mission suit but to each his own. 

We kept teaching our investigator and helped him with finding faith and desire to read the Book of Mormon. We had him read Ether 12:6-20, which talks about faith and different examples in the Book of Mormon. He was concerned because he said Ether had so much faith. He had enough to see God. Our investigator, Eric, was concerned that he didn't have that much. We explained to him that as he reads the Book of Mormon and prays to know that it's true, his faith will grow little by little. It's so frustrating though because I know exactly what I could say that would help him in English but because of how little Chinese vocab I know, I have to use roundabout ways of saying what I really want to express. It does make me want to learn more, though, which is good. We're not teaching Eric anymore, though. 

Our teacher we've had for the past week and a half has been awesome. His name is Ge Lao Shi. He's been here for a couple years teaching I guess. He's from Australia and went to Singapore on his mission. He's just so loving and you can tell he really cares about us and about the Chinese people. Unfortunately, his school schedule isn't going to allow him to teach the same classes anymore. So we got 2 new teachers! One is Sun Lao Shi and the other is Townsend Lao Shi(I forget his Chinese last name). Sun Lao Shi is really smart. He just got back a year ago from Taipei. He's only taught one district before us so I can tell he's kind of nervous but I know he really cares about us and he's trying his best. Our other teacher is really nice too. He's pretty buff. He does water polo and he also went to Taipei. With the two new teachers, we got 2 new investigators, the first of which we're teaching tomorrow (yikes!). I'm excited though. I feel like my companion and I really know what we're doing a lot better this time. 

I also had a really good experience during class when we were studying Preach My Gospel. We read a bit and then we watched a couple clips from Taiwan of people being baptized or coming to certain realizations in the Gospel and it made me realize that I had been thinking about missionary work all wrong my entire life. I'd always thought that when one of my investigators got baptized, I would feel this sense of accomplishment like, "Wow, look what I just did!", but it's not like that at all. I realized that if or when one of my investigators gets baptized, all I will feel is gratitude. Gratitude that I got to be the mouthpiece of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in bringing this child of God to the knowledge of the truth. I will feel so grateful that I got to be part of their wonderful conversion and I will be so happy for them. It was a really emotional experience for me and it just made me think of how God and Christ must feel about all of us. Every single person on this Earth. It was amazing. 

     

Yesterday was good. It was Fast Sunday so everyone was a bit more irritable than normal, but testimony meeting was cool. I was glad that I was able to understand most of what people were saying and I bore my testimony which was a really awesome experience! Oh, by the way, all of our district/zone/branch prayers, talks, and testimonies are in Chinese. It's fun every week listening to the sacrament prayer in Chinese and trying to see if I can understand it without thinking of the English version. The talks yesterday were all pretty good. The speakers at the devotional were the recently released Phillipines MTC president and his wife. They were both good speakers but I'm sorry to say I ate a lot at dinner so I was having a hard time focusing. 

Today, we didn't get to go to the temple since it's labor day which was a bummer. On the upside, I'll probably have time for a nap:) 

So something funny. Everyone thinks I look like Benedict Cumberbatch, which is super flattering, but also kind of annoying. Specifically "Kahn from Star Trek". And it's not just my district too. I was sitting on a bench with Elder C. doing a role-play and this elder came up to me and said, "Has anyone ever told you that you look EXACTLY like the bad guy in Star Trek 2?" I silently thought, you have no idea... It's been pretty great hahaha. I don't know if I already told you this. 

My Kahn Face.

I've seen quite a few people that I know from Eastmont. I saw Shaylor S. He was friends with Weston. Like I already said, I saw James Clark!! He's leaving next week which is pretty crazy. I was really bummed because we didn't get to see each other for very long. I see Krista all the time because she's on the third floor of my building and we have the same meal times. I saw Dane J. from Holladay. I don't know if you remember him. But yeah just a lot of random people I recognize. It's kind of funny!  

Anyway, that's about all for now. 

Love you!!

-Elder Brendan Smith