1/4/2010 Letter from MTC

Dearest Jiating! You are fantastic!
Ah! There is so much to tell you! I will probably write you a letter as well so that you can have all the info that I'm not able to type out today. Of course you can add my letters home to the blog--I am not able to upload pictures onto computers here in the MTC so I will send you a letter with pictures in it.
Michael, dearest cousin, if you are able to read this--I saw Chris Ah Su a couple days ago and thought of you! Also, I met Brother Hancock who was in the same mission as you--he said he remembered you and liked you a lot, and that he had seen you volunteer before at the TRC. You are fabulous-good luck with school!
To my daddio- Oh dad, I love you! Thank you so much for your letter and your words to me. I am so thankful for the opportunity you have to teach and especially to teach quiet kids :) You can use the skills you learn from your "how to make friends and influence people" book! You will do great, and I more then excited to hear that you are enjoying your church meetings and enjoying the spirit there.
Haha, dad you'll love this little bit of information: so, my wonderful tongban Ma jiemei is so fabulous about working out. Lately, about every other day we do this workout that we like to call Ab-Ripper-X! It's so good and it's a whole bunch of ab exercises so don't worry too much about me getting bigger! My skirts still fit :) for now....... Haha, and another reason I love it is because she'll let me count and my zhongwen counting has improved tremendously! Also, we get a better workout because I won't let us come down from holding the pose or continue until I remember the next number so we actually are working out more than we used to :)
Today we got to go to the temple! The temple is such a wonderful place, I love it so much and I love the opportunity to go. It's been so long since I've gone to the temple-the last two p-days the temple has been closed. Wow, I just love being there and being able to experience all that goes on there. The spirit is so strong and the whole time you are there, there is just an overpowering sense of love. I don't even understand how wonderful and supreme our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are to have so much love for each of us individually.
So, in one of our devotionals that past week we heard from one of the administrators who shared Alma 29 and 3 Nephi 28:9 which were such great examples of missionary work and what it means to have joy from serving. They mention that joy comes not from helping people repent, but from just the opportunity to do so. You don't have to be baptizing people every week or have a ton of investigators to be successful.
If you have time this week read Elder Holland's "The Best is Yet to Be" so good. My favorite part is near the end when he says that God doesn't care as much about where you have been as where you are and where you are willing to go with His help. Wow. That is so awesome. He will forget the mistakes you make when you repent of them and change. He just wants you to be the best that you can be and to be willing to continually strive to be your best self.
Ok jiating, here is an assignment for you at FHE tonight--really quick too, page 8 Preach My Gospel, Message of the Restoration activity. do it. :) Report back to me next week and I'll tell you the funniest/best answer ever that our teacher shared with us.
Also, one thing that really stuck out to me this week was the realization of my purpose. I was at first separating my language study and my personal study, and everything else. I was just compartmentalizing them in my head and separating them all out. But, it's not separate. Everything we do here is for one purpose: To bring people closer to Christ. Through whatever means of preparation we need to do such, is what we need to do. Even when we were making a language study plan, it's all focused around our investigator, what do we need to learn to be able to communicate with them about our Heavenly Father's love, about the restoration....Also, we are able to learn languages without special teachers because we are learning the Lord's way. That is why it works. Learning zhongwen will help me communicate with the Taiwanese peole.


Ah! have to go! love you! I'll write! allison