Dear Mom and everyone else in the world,
How are you? I'm doing great! I am
super excited that this is my last week at the MTC! Don't get me wrong, I've
enjoyed my time here, but I am super excited to leave! We've already started
sorting and packing to make sure that we don't have any overweight issues with
our luggage. :) Today has just been a lot of running around getting last
minute things done. I went to go get my books laminated, so now they are
nice and shiny. I've also been taping all of my books that can't be
laminated so the humidity doesn't kill them off as bad... It's funny; I started
out all OCD about taping the books so they wouldn't have bubbles. And
now, I couldn't care less. As long as it's taped nice and tight, that's
all that matters.
Last Monday seemed like so long ago!
I have such a hard time remembering what's happened since then! Thank
goodness for journal writing! I've never been big for journal writing,
but as a missionary we are encouraged to do so. I think when I come back
I'll still write in my journal or at least blog, so I can keep a record of my
doings. I'll have to set apart time to do it though, so I don't
forget. Journals are a great way to remember things that happened.
I encourage everyone to write in journals! :) Anyways, on Monday in the
evening we had to teach our investigator. Once Sister Eliason and I got
back from our appointment, we were surprised with the news that we would be
skyping with members of the Church in Taiwan. We had no time to
prepare! We rushed to the computer lab to make it to our Skyping
appointment, which no one knew about! That's okay though, because our
lesson turned out pretty well. We skyped with a Sister L. in Taipei, who
was super nice! We only had a 20 minute lesson opposed to 40 because she
had to go to classes for school. But she was super encouraging to
us. Skyping with her made us super excited to leave to Taiwan and teach
people in Chinese!
On Tuesday, a strange incident happened.
Sister Eliason and I were waiting for our turn to teach our investigator (mu2
dao4 you3), and we were just being quiet so we could gather our thoughts.
When suddenly, we both started humming "I believe in Christ" at the
same time. We hadn't even heard that song on that day, or even the day
before! It was just a coincidence that we started thinking of the same
song at the same time! Haha! Our lesson with our investigator was
good. We only got to teach for 5 minutes though, because everyone else
went over time. Tisk Tisk!
We also had a devotional on Tuesday,
like always. It was actually broadcasted to all the MTCs in the world!
Robert G Hinckley came and talked to us about how to be a good
missionary. I think a lot of what he said could apply to how to be a good
member of the Church as well. Unfortunately, I forgot my notebook, so I
can't quite recall all that he said. Sadness! There were a lot of
things about making sure that you do your best... I don't remember! Sorry! :(
On Wednesday through Thursday, I
don't really recall much. I was just exhausted. I kept trying to
not fall asleep during class... Yup... I've been going to bed on time. Of
course, I don't quite fall asleep because the light is still on in our room
because the other sisters are writing in their journals. But yup, same
old same old.... Oh, it's been getting hot lately! I think this is
good training for Taiwan! Except, there is not humidity right now, for which I
am grateful! But I only have one more week to enjoy it...
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| Name Tag! |
Sad thing about Wednesday is that we
didn't get to host. We've been signing up, but they don't ever assign us..
Which is very not fun, because we've been wanting to host for 8 weeks now... :(
Now Friday was a good day! We
got our Travel Plans and our new name tags with our names in characters!
Yay! There will be 28 of us who are leaving at the same time to go to
Taiwan. We'll be stopping in San Francisco and Tokyo before we get to
Taiwan. We get to do a bit of time traveling too, since we'll be missing
a day! I'm going to try and sleep on the plane, but we'll see how that
goes....
Saturday wasn't really that
exciting, since we didn't have TRC. I did get a card from Mom which I was
very impressed with! She wrote it all in characters! I understood most of the
characters, but there was a few here and there that I had to guess on. I
don't feel bad about that though, considering the fact that I haven't been
learning characters at all (they expect you to do that on your own time, since
it's not the most important thing for us to focus on) and the fact that Mom had
to use Google translate to write it. But I understood! :) Yay!
Sunday was good as well, though they
are always good. We got to listen to music and the spoken word, which
always is nice to start your day off with. For relief society, we had
Sister Rosemary Thackery come and talk to us. She talked about having
faith to always keep moving forward, and the importance of knowing that God is
in every detail of your life. She also shared the importance of having
enough faith to not have God answer your prayers in the way that you want.
I really liked that point. This week, I read in the Bible Dictionary
about prayer. In it, it says that Prayer is a method in which we can talk
to our Father in Heaven. When we ask for things and it is given to us, it
is because what we ask for aligns with the Lord's will. But if we do not receive
that which we ask, it's because Heavenly Father has something else in mind for
us. It's our responsibility to align our wills, as the Children of God,
to His will. It is then, when we will see miracles in our lives.
For Sunday devotional, we listened to Jolene Allphine who writes pioneers
stories for a collection called "Write my Story too". In the
stories she told of the pioneers, she emphasized the importance of enduring to
the end. We must have enough faith to keep moving. We must have
enough faith to give God a chance to show us miracles. And we must keep a
cheerful and brave attitude in all of our trials. After devotional, we
watched a talk by Elder Bednar that he gave at the MTC. It's called the
Character of Christ. He emphasized that it is importance to not only
learn about Christ, but to learn of him. He says to search the scriptures
for evidences of the Character of Christ. What he meant by Character of
Christ, is the fact that even when Christ was suffering, when he was going
through trials in his life, he didn't pity himself. He didn't turn
inward, but outward. When he was suffering, he helped others who were
suffering. When he was weakened by his afflictions, he went to the aid of
others who were being afflicted. He was selfless. Elder Bednar
emphasized the fact that everyone can develop the Character of Christ within
themselves. It starts with not only having a testimony, but being truly
converted unto the Lord. Because when we are converted to the Lord, we
become more like him. We become more loving and selfless.
Anyways, Today has been pretty good,
though not very relaxing since there is so much stuff to get done! Oh,
but one very very very good thing happened today. I saw one of my best
friends from USU! Elder Blake Johnson! That silly boy/elder didn't
even tell me that he had got his call! That's okay, I forgive him! He's
going to Arizona? I think... I don't know... I was just so excited to see
him! It was so hard not to give him a hug, because as some other people
know *cough*Audrey*cough* he gives extremely good hugs! It was so
good seeing him! I was so sad I didn't have my camera with me, since we were
getting out of breakfast. And to make things sadder, he's living at the
West Campus, so I probably won't see him again! Sad! But I know
he'll make a great missionary, and I hope that I'll have the chance to bump
into him again!
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| This is where we are headed! |
Okay, well, time is running out...
Sadness... I hope everyone is having a good week! I love you all!
Love, Sister Nicholle Peng
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