Once again had a great week! Though this week has probably been one of the hardest, I definitely had some great experiences as well!
This week started off hard for me because so many of my friends and all of the older districts have all started leaving the MTC, I remember on Tuesday I just woke up with just the most tired attitude toward the MTC. I just intentionally was negatively looking at the mundane nature of the daily life here, and was really just getting bummed out that everyone was leaving and I still had many weeks to go. I realized my attitude was very negative that morning so I prayed hard to be able to somehow be helped to change my outlook, because I was just so grumpy that morning, and I didn't know how I could possibly do 4 more weeks of the MTC. It wasn't long before I felt multiple answers to my prayer throughout the day. During companionship study, two random elders came up and asked if they could teach us a lesson, of course we said yes, and they taught us a quick lesson in Mandarin about chishou daodi (enduring to the end). There lesson was quite simple, and not even particularly well delivered, but I felt the Spirit speak to me powerfully as I listened, the Spirit helped me realize that I have this time here at the MTC to prepare myself, that I would not be ready if I were to leave now, and that having a bad attitude would be pointless. I felt a witness about enduring, that my time here shouldn't be something i have to 'endure', but to take advantage of, to learn, and to grow. Later that night my district leader, who had sensed similar feelings in everyone in the district, decided to have us spend our Tuesday night district meeting bearing testimony of why we are all here, to really think deeply about why we have all decided to serve, and it was a very uplifting meeting, and has helped me get right back on track!
My district watched the mini videos about the start of the church in Taiwan and Hong Kong and it was just so cool! I really felt such a strong connection to the church and the members of Hong Kong, and so proud of my family and those early pioneers of the church in Hong Kong it was so amazing! And it was fun seeing Uncle Sheldon in a bunch of interviews talking all about the church, and I couldn't help but wonder what it must have been like back then when my grandparents joined the church there. I am so excited to get there and meet people from the mainland who themselves will be pioneers and missionaries for the church amongst there families, and I look at my family and how we are blessed with knowledge of the gospel, and how all of that can be attributed to the faith of my Grandparents, and the faith of those that taught them the Gospel. I hope I can help bring families and generations to come unto Christ as well.
I also got my first MTC haircut this week, and also won a bet I made with Elder Hammond in the process. In the first week he thought my hair would be way too long and that someone would tell me to get it cut within a few weeks, so we made a bet that I could go for 5 weeks in the mtc without anyone telling me anything, and I won! They're not nearly as strict as I thought they would be. Oh and the loser would have to wear the tie of shame, its this hideous super fat brown tie with ugly patterns and colors that has been in our zone forever, and whenever we make bets (all mtc appropriate of course) the loser has to wear the tie of shame, and they also have to tie it short so that the tie is at least a few inches above the belt. Unfortunately I have to wear it tomorrow so Ill send some pictures of it next week. It's pretty horrendous, my companion also wore it this last week haha it always makes the day a little better when someone has to wear it.
Our investigators continue to progress, we have both of our main investigators committed to baptism, attending church regularly, and reading the scriptures, and our newest two are also learning quickly. I also have the opportunity to act as an investigator (who's background story and personality I based off of one of my high school friends) and it's really fun! It's a great way to practice Chinese but it's also cool to see the lessons from a different perspective. I find that I learn a lot from the lessons, and feeling the spirit as my 'missionaries' really do try their best to address my concerns, especially since I have been asking them some questions that would be hard enough to answer just in English. But I have felt the Spirit every time they bear testimony to me, which always makes my day better!
I have also started to learn characters which has been so cool to learn and has also been a refreshing new thing for me to work on when my mind gets tired of everything else. The characters are all so interesting, and getting all the stroke orders down has been really fun, its kind of like drawing a bunch of mini pictures, and its soo cool to be able to start recognizing characters in our reading. It's still so crazy to me that people just casually read and write in characters, but hopefully I'll get there in a few years! We taught our last in person TRC lessons this last week and they were so fun! Today is my first lesson where I get to Skype with members in Hong Kong which is soo exciting!! I cant wait to talk to them! I already know Im gonna get railed by the langauge though haha no matter how much improvement I think I make every week, I am always humbled in the language. This weekend we watched this film all in Mandarin and I was mindblown, they speak so so fast, faster than our investigators who take it easy on us. I find that after a sentence is said super fast it takes my mind a little while to translate and by then Im already getting behind! I definitely have a loooong road of language ahead of me, but I know the Spirit will bless and help me as I work my hardest! My teacher really humbles us this week as a lot of us started again unfocusing and getting frustrated by the language too much instead of on our purpose as missionaries, and he gave a quick little lesson on the Atonement in Chinese, where he went around saying that Christ atones for each one of us by name, he thought of every single one of us as he Atoned, and he did it for the people of Hong Kong as well, and the Lord has trusted us, we are on His time now, and we have a responsibility to not settle for the mediocre, but to try our hardest, be the best, and give everyone we can the opportunity to learn about their Savior. With that in mind what else is really important? That day I had found myself distracted that day by thoughts of home, friends, family, the past etc etc, then I felt reminded from that little lesson about an experience from Gordon B. Hinckley when he was in Japan a long time ago. He was talking to a man who had joined the church, and because of it he was rejected by his family, fired from his job, and basically lost everything. He asked the man how he could give up so much, and the man said its true isn't it? Gordon B. Hinckley responded yes, to which the man responded: then what else matters? This really has been something I have been pondering this week, especially when I get distracted by anything or feel down, this church is true, this message is true, and people need to learn of their Savior. So what else really matters?
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| This is how they show love in Taiwan (Sister Wang - center - will be leaving for San Francisco) |
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| Bumped into Elder Curtis and Sister Lund |
"We will all be tried like unto Abraham. Think about that for a second. His trials breached the sacred bond between parent and child in that he was to sacrifice Isaac. You and I may not be asked to endure exactly that trial, but our trials will be of the same depth, magnitude, and intensity as Abraham. How much easier is it to have deeper compassion on others when we know they might be in the middle of their own Isaac episode."
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| Saying good-bye to Sister Haws - she'll be laboring in Ft. Lauderdale, FL Portuguese speaking |
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| Some mandos from the zone and Elder Ming from BYU! |
Thank you all for the awesome support, advice, and love!! I hope all you Woolley's had a great time at the reunion I loved hearing about it and seeing all the pictures! Also thanks for sending me the reunion shirt haha my district wrote the reunion motto on the board and made it our motto too!
Love,
Wu Zhang Lao (Elder Woolley)
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| Saying good-bye to Sister Odom, she will be heading for Moscow, Russia |
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| My companion, Elder Stratford was sick this week and freezing cold |
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