May 18th 2009

Shenme Shang?Welll, I don't know if there's much to report on this week. Ottis didn't answer his phone :(Dominic wanted the missionaries over (he was praying about what church to join before I called)... but he's 17 and his parents don't really like the church. So, nothing new in the RC side of life. Umm... all the older districts are leaving tomorrow. Elder Nix is still gonna be here. He's been here since January, and his mission's been changed to London, English speaking, but he's still in our zone. He's going to the doctor today, so he may be cleared. I'm hoping for his sakes he will.Oh, I'm about 1/2 through the book of Mormon, I wanna say I started it my 2nd week here (I was in Moroni when I got here), and now I'm in Alma, so I should have it done before I go :) I wanna say that'll make it 4 times through... maybe. The Book of Mormon is my sanity here. It's a nice relief from chinese... Only now our teacher says we should try to start reading characters, so that'll be a challenge :) Oh, weird experience; today, in the temple, a was gonna start a prayer, and I thought for a second, then realized it would be really weird to say it in English. So I think my prayers may be permanently Chinese. Wode tonban shuo naga weird. (3'5-2'4-1-??)Oh, Song laoshi is leaving us when the new districts come in next week :( He'll be switching to the class next door :( All the district's really sad about it :( :( :(:( ... ? Alma's awesome by the way. umm.... Yeah... not much happens at the MTC. Oh yeah, there's no sarcasm in chinese. It's all about puns apparently, so I think this would be a perfect language for Mom. But anyway, our district's been trying to cut sarcasm out of our brains, it's working pretty well actually, and surprisingly, there's still things to laugh about. (I really hope you do spell check before you have everyone read this) Let's see... At the TA on Saturday, during the language scenario, we had to help 2 people move things around, the sister was from Taiwan, but the brother was from California, and spoke with a mainland accent. At the MTC they teach you to speak with a Taiwan accent, however, I'll be going to NYC, where they'll speak with a mainland one... which changes things a lot... grrrr. Example: ni cong nali lai? (you from where?) Taiwan: knee tsong gnaw lee lie, mainland: knee chong gnarly lie. I think. I know it's different, I'm not quite sure what the specifics are, but I'll be listening to quite a different accent. ughhh well, I've got 7 minutes, what do you wanna hear? Oh, I don't need the pocket dictionary, it's in the rules only to use the books the MTC gives you... so, it'll just have to stick with my giant "pocket" dictionary. What else can I say? 5 minutes... Oh, I guess I can tell you some great insight alma had... it was something along the lines of "Every man receiveth wages from the one he listeth to obey", basically that means if you work for God, God pays you. If you work for Satan, Satan pays you. Who's would you rather have? It's pretty simple at yet really profound. I think that's in Alma 2. 1 minute. wo ai nimen