What a week! I didn’t think that it was possible for the second week to get any crazier than the first week, but somehow it managed to! There have been almost nonstop classes, studying and teaching interspersed with meal times where we have just enough time to stop and collect ourselves before we get back to work. But I love it! Admittedly it is definitely tiring, but it’s the good kind of tired where you know that you have just finished a long day and can look back at all of the things that you have done and learned. Tiring but worth it!
It’s weird sometimes when I remember that I’m still in Provo because in the MTC you kind of get caught up in your own little world and time. I always look up at the mountains and envy those who are still free to go hike them, someday I will again when I get back 😉 Time is also weird because I feel like I’ve been here for months but also like I just got here yesterday!
Cantonese is still hard and I assure you that I’m still making plenty of mistakes to go around. During one of the lessons that I was teaching with my companion, I was trying to say that God gave us the plan of salvation so that we could become like Him, but I said “him” with the wrong tone and accidentally said poop. And that was one of my better lessons! But there is always something to learn and that is one mistake that I can promise you I won’t make again. Teaching is kind of intimidating because I only know a very small amount of Cantonese. So during the lessons I’m trying to use my 10 or so words in different combinations so it doesn’t sound like I’m saying the same things over and over. But looking at how far I’ve come in just two weeks of speaking this language, I know that I have definitely been helped and can’t wait to be looking back in two more weeks to see how much further I’ve come.
I don’t know if you have ever seen a picture of the Hong Kong flag, but it’s just basically a big red flag with a white flower in the middle of it. When you look at it though, it looks like dolphins with the stars as eyes and the lines as a mouth. Since coming into the MTC I have managed to get everyone in my district to see the flower as five dolphins circling around the middle. In class yesterday, for some reason or another, my teacher was talking about the flag (we have one hanging on the wall in our class) and how it has the rare Hong Kong flower on it when I asked if he saw the dolphins. He stopped and stared for a second, looked at me and then at the flag, then started laughing harder than I’ve ever heard him laugh. And for five minutes the whole class was just laughing about the flag and the dolphins. Like I’ve said before, I love my district!
While the sisters in my district were talking one night, one sister was saying something along the lines of how we must have a lot of talent and capabilities because out of all the missionaries in the MTC we were chosen to learn Cantonese, one of the hardest languages. As I got thinking about this, I realized that the perspective that she had wasn’t entirely correct. We were chosen by the Lord to learn this language not because of any extravagant talent on our part, but simply because He has called us to do so. The Lord qualifies those whom He calls, not the other way around. I know that the only reason why I am able to learn this language is because of my calling and the strength that I have received from it. Otherwise I can assure you I would be having a lot more difficulty. Just know that you can do all things that our Heavenly Father asks of you because He trusts you! How marvelous that we have the opportunity to become something so much greater than we could ever become on our own! Never forget that you are where you are for a reason.
A journey through Thailand 