February 28, 2011

Ni Hao,


This week was just a solid week. I honestly can't remember much of what happened. Today one of the older temple workers had on some all white sneakers, not the typical temple shoes. It made me wonder if the temple has a gym in the basement and he was going to ball it up after his shift. I think so. I'll have to look into that thought.


Saturday night my teacher was meeting with the sisters and they were practicing teaching on him. He told the 2 companionships of elders to say a prayer and ask God what he wants us to teach, and then pray and ask who he wants us to teach, and then basically go out there and teach. No rules, no regulations, no time limit, just go teach. It was cool because we felt prompted to try to go knock on the security booth door at the front of the MTC. We were nervous because we weren't sure if we could even do that, but we went for it and we shared a message about prayer to the 2 security guards. It was really spiritual and cool. We taught others but that one was the coolest.


Another cool teaching experience this week. We were teaching one of our progressing investigators and they said they felt good when they prayed but how could they know if that is the holy ghost, because a lot of people can feel joy and peace without it being the holy ghost. We struggled for a good 5 minutes trying to explain what the holy ghost feels like in our lackluster Chinese. Then all of a sudden I felt prompted to just stop what we were doing. I told the investigator I was going to share my testimony, and began sharing. It was really spiritual and cool and my Chinese came out really well. Then I let there be 30 seconds or so of silence and I asked the investigator what they were feeling, and if it was the same feeling they felt when they prayed. When he said yes, I told him that is the holy ghost. It was way off the book and not something I would've premeditated doing but it was really cool and really great.


This week we had to learn all the second lesson (plan of salvation) vocab during the week in preparation to teach it Saturday. It was a small window of time to learn. I worked my tail off though and teaching it Saturday went really well. I'm gaining a testimony that the harder you work the harder the holy ghost works to help you. Its really cool. My branch president wrote me and told me that my teachers have told him I've made tons of progress and had great things to say about me this week. As I've focused on just being the best I can be and not trying to slow down or change what I would otherwise do to accommodate my companion's work ethic, I've been able to grow a lot as a missionary. The branch president told me that its tough to not have companions on the same page but he said that he hopes that Elder VandenBerghe steps it up and to not slow down for him or let him drag me down. As I've done that I've been able to grow a lot this week.


Speaking of Elder VandenBerghe I think his best quote this week was, "Wild dreams are what dreams are made of." That was my personal favorite at least.


In other news this week I made a spectacular tie trade. I traded one of the really ugly missionary mall ties we got for free when we bought shirts there for an awesome tie. I sent pictures home on the memory card of this tie. It features leaves and fruits in an autumn type color scheme. It's glory defies all description... I think that's how it goes, I'm beginning to forget the English first vision and only know it in Chinese.


One cool thing about teaching the second lesson in Chinese is the Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial kingdoms translate in a really cool way. The celestial directly translates to "high glory kingdom" than there's the "middle glory kingdom." and the "low glory kingdom." I know what you're thinking "teaching in Chinese to people who don't even believe in God is super easy. Anyways there is a map in our room of Taiwan, and there is always joking going on over mission rivalries of which mission in Taiwan is the best. Taipei is at the very top of the Island, Taichung is right in the middle, and Gaoshung (now closed down, but there are a few teachers who went there) is at the very bottom. Our map is laminated so I took a dry erase and labeled Taipei the High glory kingdom, Taichung middle glory kingdom, and Gaoshung the low glory kingdom. Both of our teachers served in Taichung and our native teacher is from Gaoshung, so needless to say they loved it. But actually both of our teachers have great sense of humors and laughed. I really love our teachers and wish I could go on and on about them but I'm out of time. Amazing people and I'm blessed to be able to learn from them.


I'm outta time and I've got to run because Elder VandenBerghe is getting a haircut, They do an awful job here and just butcher people when they cut their hair so I'm actually really looking forward to it. I think he is excited as well to get his second ever haircut that isn't from a vacuum. Good things at the MTC.


LOVE you all so much. Miss you all
love elder White


Also as district leader I have a part of the white board I can write announcements. I wrote shuo yingwen ruguo in xihaun sadan. It means speak English if you like Satan.