7-8-2013

Hello Everybody and their dog (that includes buddy, make sure to tell him hi =)

 

So this week has been really interesting and stuff.. tons happened, it seemed to take forever and to just fly by all at the same time... so lets begin

 

First and foremost I need to thank some people.  Thankyou to the Crandalls for the awesome plate of cookies, they are delishous!  It was great to get them but because I dont really have your e-mail I cant really tell you that very directly but if you are reading it thankyou. After that I just want to say thankyou to the Jack, the Parents the family and Sara for just being aweome, and whenever I ask for something just getting it right to me like the coolest people ever.  I got the sudoku book and just so you all know I have already finished 7 of them, so the race is on mom to finish the book!!!

 

Well one of the biggest things that happened here at the MTC this week is just that I so happened to be here during the 4th of July.  To all who are curious for the 4th in the MTC they had an extra... mini devotional where they had a person speak for a short time but after they turned on a movie which was 14 miracles, which is about the pioneers and just the random miracles that they had happen to them.  Its rather amazing at the things that they went through and the things that they were able to accomplish but also how they were blessed to have such amazing miracles to help them along the way, some that I honestly would not have believed were they told me, like having a person who was out seraching for food run into a man who gave her a ton a dried meat, or a mother who had given up and a daughter that prayed and a plate of food was placed infront of her.  I think that these are just amazing.  But afterwards they allowed us to go out, not off the campus, and stay up a little later to watch the stadium of fire fireworks, which is actually really awesome as people were cheering and it was just a good time.  However a bunch of people were really looking forward to hearing the music that they play during the event but saddly we couldn't hear anyway so that was a little bit of a dissapointment but the display was awesome and we all had a good time.

 

So beyond that I'm slowly coming to realize that things that really wouldn't have mattered at all to me before the mission are suddenly really cool now.  So on the 5th if you remember there was a light rain with some awesome lightening and everyone in my district wanted to go have class outside but the laoshi (teacher) wouldn't let us, but as we were just sitting in class you would be able to hear the booms and everyone would get really excited, it would make me laugh that I was enjoying the booms as well.  But I have loved the weather this week, it has been really comfortable and nice, we (me and my companion) have been spending a bit of time just studying outside so that was great (=. 

 

So every saturday we have what is called TRC which is where we go and just give a short message to someone in chinese.  So last saturday the people we visited were really cool, first was a Group of 3, the Father who learned his chinese from what I think he said was by listening to tapes in the car, and 2 little girls who were in an immersion program, the funnyest thing was just that the girls chinese was better than ours but we had a great time visiting with them and just talking.  After we finished talking with them we met with two people, an RM from I think Taiwan but i'm not sure and a Nonmember from Shanghai which was really cool, however during that lession the lady asked us a question and once we didn't undersand what she said the RM took over and we were just kind of sitting there listening to this rapidfire chinese that they were blasting out.  It was cool to listen to and try to pick up words but it really made me realize that my chinese was not that good and that I will be totally lost once I reach Taiwan.

 

So heres a quick story to be laughing at, I would have uploaded pictures from it but for some reason the computers here are just plain out stupid and wont really let me access my sd card so you will just get words.  So I was just finishing up in the restroom and had just finished washing my hands when two of the elders from my district walked in, one without a shirt on and the other had a pie in his hands, so they yelled to me "hey elder heaton can you help us out real quick?"  So I ran and grabbed my camera and he handed me his and I took a couple of pictures as they slammed this pie (it was apple by the way) into the other elders face!!! So that was really just something funny that happened just this morning.

 

Every sunday they have a couple of clips for us Missionaries to watch and this time our district decided to watch the Joseph Smith movie, which was just a really great movie as I really love the Joseph Smith story.  But during it I had come to realize that this is one of the things that I have a really strong testimony about, and I would like to just quickly share that with you.  This I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet, I know that he restored this great church under the guidance of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  I know that he saw the vision that he tells and that through him we now have the priesthood keys restored in these latter days.  I know that these things are true in the name of Jesus Christ Amen

 

Elder Heaton

He Zhang Lao