Last Tuesday was the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, and rumors were flying that this devotional was going to be particularly special. Even though we tried to arrive early, we ended up sitting like 3/4 the way up the bleachers in the very back. All the floor seating was reserved for the new mission presidents and their wives (remember last week was the big mission president conference). As we were sitting and waiting for the speaker to be announced, a sudden rush of excited murmuring swept through the bleachers. Squinting at the door next to the stage, I could just make out Elder Holland standing there talking to someone. He walked up onto the stage, along with several other older men and their wives. At first I didn't recognize them, but squinting closer I saw Elder Bednar. Then Elder Renlund. Then Elder Rasband. Then, in quick succession I realized that Elders Stevenson, Oaks, Ballard, Christofferson, Anderson, and Cook were also on the stand. It was a crazy feeling, suddenly being so close to so many of the leaders of our church. Looking down at them, I felt such a rush of love towards them, it knocked me off my feet. I may have cried more seeing them than I did when I left my family. The speaker turned out to be Elder Bednar, and he gave an incredible devotional about receiving the Word and letting it grow within us. He pointed out that the Word can mean the scriptures or the gospel, but it also represents Christ. We need to open our hearts and give room for Christ and the gospel to take root within us and grow. As we do this, we will reach our full potential.
Okay so now that that's out of the way, my most important news for this week is that I've finally been assigned a temp mission! I'm going to the Logan, Utah mission to visa wait. I'll probably only be there for one transfer, or six weeks. That's all they've told me. I don't know if I'll be speaking Chinese or not, but since it's Utah, my guess is probably not. I'm super excited to get out into the field and start sharing the gospel and my love with the people of Logan. I feel like at the MTC, I've learned so much more about the love of Christ. There have been numerous times when I'm just swept through with a love so big and powerful, I know there's no way it could possibly have come from me. It's such an incredible feeling, knowing that I am Christ's representative, and that I get to share this love and good news with the world. Our gospel is truly a gospel of abundance.
The MTC just built two new buildings, and we are among the lucky ones who get to have class in them. On our floor we have two of the fancy drinking fountains that have the water bottle filling station with a little display telling you how many plastic water bottles we've saved. The oldest district made a goal to get the counters on both fountains up to 2000 before they left. The last week, there was a mad dash to the finish line. Multiple other districts in our zone got caught up in the fever. In our district, we mainly just tried to drink from water bottles instead of the fountain, and didn't put in any extra effort, but on Saturday we joined in trying to drink as much as possible. The amount of bathroom breaks taken on our hall that day was incredible. I think we had to go every half hour. Every time we walked out of the classroom, we would see at least one companionship come rushing out in a desperate race to the bathroom. If we stayed outside a little longer, we'd see them come walking back, stopping to refill one, two, or even three water bottles. Unfortunately, they forgot to factor in Fast Sunday, and flew off this morning only about 100 bottles short of the goal.
We learned a super cool fact in class today. Have you ever wondered whether the Brother of Jared was Jared's older or younger brother? Well, in Chinese, you never just say 'brother'. You either say 'gege'-- older brother, or 'didi'-- younger brother. When they were translating the Book of Mormon into Chinese, the translators didn't know what to do, so they went to the Brethren and asked them if they should put gege, didi, or use some awkward general term for 'brother'. The Brethren said they'd pray about it, then came back and told the translators to write 'gege'. That's right, because of Chinese, we now know that Mahonri Moriancumer was Jared's older brother. I don't know how useful that is in our daily lives, but it's so cool to see how revelation is still very much a part of the church today.
On Saturday, BYU had its Stadium of Fire show, and the MTC gave us all special permission to stay up and watch it. The new buildings face the stadium and have floor to ceiling windows, so everyone was assigned a room in the building to watch from. We had a really nice devotional on religious freedom, then trooped off at around 10 to watch the fireworks. They were.... rather disappointing. We couldn't turn the lights off, so there was a crazy amount of reflection on the windows. Also, the show was rather poorly designed. After years of going to Matt Vranes' firework show, I was expecting more. They set off maybe 1/3 to 1/2 the amount of fireworks he does over twice the amount of time. The finale lasted maaaybe 15 seconds. Also, we couldn't really hear it, because we were in a building. It was underwhelming to say the least. Still, it was fun to stay up late, and several elders regaled us with crazy stories from their pre-MTC lives, so it wasn't too bad.
The last couple of days have been weird because we've been saying goodbye to everyone. Out of the 10 people from our zone leaving this week, only Sister Fisher and I didn't leave today. She leaves tomorrow, and I don't leave until Wednesday morning, so I get to be companionless for a day. I hate being left behind. Most of the people who left are going to Taichung though, so I know I'll be seeing them soon. From our district though, Elder Rich is going to New York, and Elder Bean is going to Australia, so idk if I'll ever see them again. It was a bittersweet couple of days.
Best of luck this week! I love you all!
Hull Jiemei
Pics:
1: One final district picture with the temple. We tried to put the temple in the middle so it wouldn't look so awkward that we can't touch each other, but it still looks awkward.
2: All of the sisters who are leaving this week. With Sister Fisher and I are our lovely sister training leaders. We're all glad to be leaving, because on Wednesday our zone's getting 20 new elders and no sisters!
3: All the missionaries leaving this week. From the left: Elder Rich, Elder Bennet, Elder Marsh, Sister Anderson, Sister Taylor, me, Sister Fisher, Elder Hansen, Elder Tang, and Elder Bean. We love them all.
4: As part of our training, we get to teach a volunteer who comes and pretends to be an investigator. This is Chen Wan-yu. We got to teach her for 2 weeks, and we are so sad to leave her. Before we left we found out that she actually only got baptized in April, so who knows? Maybe we helped her understand more things and come closer to Christ.
5: We said goodbye to our absolutely amazing teachers on Saturday. On the left of our district is Brother Zhao, and on the right side is Brother Dodge. Both have helped me grow and build my testimony so much. I've considered moving into their ward when I get back just so they could be my Sunday School teachers or something.
6: Xie Jiemei and I dressed patriotic for the fireworks on Saturday and we looked freaking awesome.
7: This is what our view of the fireworks looked like. We spent a long time staring at our faces.
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