Youhao de Xinxi (Friendly Notes)‏

This week was really great, but not as eventful as the past couple weeks. So I want to tell you more about what a normal day is like for me.

 

We are supposed to wake up at six thirty, but I have been waking up at six to go running or working out with Sister McKay. I really enjoy that time, to be outside and think and watch the sun rise as we silently jog side by side. I try to really soak in the moment and focus my thoughts on what is going on right now--at the MTC, with my friends here, and especially with the family. I really like to pray for and think about everyone individually as we run, what they might be doing today and what they might be worrying about. It helps me to stay connected to you all, even though I am so distant in a lot of ways.

 

Then we go to breakfast at the cafeteria. I used to think their oatmeal was okay, but I was wrong. For breakfast, I pretty much exclusively eat cereal now. I have discovered the joy of mixing cereals, for a more exciting breakfast. So far my favorite mixes are granola with raisen bran (If you´re feeling healthy), and Life with Fruit Loops (If you´re not). Not to brag, but Life and Fruit Loops is seriously a brilliant combination. The Life is sweet enough to complement the Fruit Loops but provides just enough substance to give the illusion of eating something as filing as Chex. I encourage you all to try it as soon as possible.

 

Throughout the day, we have two three-hour blocks of class, some of which is spent either as companion study or as teaching time. They are long hours in the classroom, but they are usually really fun. I adore my district! (My district consists of seven elders, me and my companion, and we basically spend all day together.) I don´t think there is a single elder that I would trade for someone else. I have made some great friends among them--it´´s hard not too when you share so many big experiences together. We see each other teach, study, bear our testimonies, run off to doctors appointments, auditions, meetings. We can talk all day sharing stories and teasing each other. We go through spiritually uplifting meetings and firesides, and we go through discouraging Chinese lessons together. I feel like they are my little brothers sometimes, because of the love I feel towards them and how much I want to take care fo them. Other days I feel like I´m their little sister--they like to tease Sister Briggs and I about everything from our love lives, to our greater susceptibility to cry when we feel the spirit, to our feminist streaks. (Well, I think that´s mainly me...) But I definitely feel like they respect us, try to learn from us, and listen to what we say. I will miss them all when we leave for the mission field. I really hope Jeffrey has a fun district when he comes here. It makes it so the MTC can be like the best parts of high school, with a strong bond of community that you get to take part in every day.

 

Sister Briggs and I have made a goal to do random nice things for people every day. We were inspired last week because some old man at the temple cafeteria paid for our meals. So far some of the things we have done are writing thank you notes on napkins and leaving them on our trays for the dish washers, buying our elders little boxes of candy and writing notes on them, making our roommates beds, etc. It is very bonding, planning and doing these things together, and it´s fun to see how contagious it is. We came into our classroom one day last week and found little sticky notes all over our desks with compliments written on them.

 

Every night we do little pranks with our roommates. It has become a tradition. Whichever companionship gets home the earliest gets to surprise the other companionship, so when they open the bedroom door they walk into a re-enacted murder scene, or a disney dancing party, or them pretending to be asleep in our beds, or something like that. Some of our favorites have been when we hid in their closets, and sat for ten minutes waiting for them to open the door and discover us. The best part, though, was two nights later. They told Sister Teng, a cute old Taiwanese lady who is the wife of a member of our bishopric, about it. She decided she wanted to do the same thing, so she came up to our dorm room and hid in my closet--I screamed and jumped when I saw her! She was crouching with her head down, so I couldn´t even see who she was.

 

The biggest prankster is definitely Elder Greer, though. He is going to the Taichung Taiwan mission, and is in another district, but he is good friends with my district so we see a lot of him. I think he used to be a big partyer and just in the last year or so decided to get ready to come on a mission. He is really homesick and immature, and is really, really innapropriate at times, but we love him. He does things like run through the hall during personal study shouting, ¨CTR!! Corrupt the Righteous!¨, black out lines he doesn´t like in the White handbook with a pen, come to class wearing Sandals, etc. He is a hilarious story teller, and can talk forever. I kind of love whenever he walks into our classroom, (as long as I dont have anything I have to urgently get done) because I never know what is going to happen. The other day, for instance, he walked in while Elder Cottle was handing me a large can of pringles, and he lunged for them and somehow tossed it up in the air so the can exploded all over our heads. We were laughing so hard--pringles were in our hair, all over our clothes,  all over the floor. Elder Greer gasped, took a couple of steps back, and then said in a panicked, fake-gay voice, ¨Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, I will be back in like, THREE SECONDS with a vacuum!¨¨ He spent the next five minutes cleaning the floor, but mainly chasing after me with the vacuum hose so he could suck the pringles out of my hair. It was so funny.

 

The way people have dealt with Elder Greer has been really inspiring to me, and has made me have a lot of hope in people. At first he rubbed everyone the wrong way, and a lot of the sisters didn´t like him. (Sister Briggs and I have always been loyal to him, though.) The leaders have frequent interviews with him because he really does do a lot of innapropriate stuff that makes other people uncomfortable. But the message that some of our zone leaders gave hime was, ¨¨The Lord called you to be on a mission. He wants YOU to be a missionary, you don´t need to turn into someone you´re not. You just need to be the best YOU that you are capable of being.¨ I love that.

 

And he is really such a sincere kid. In his rare quiet moments, we´ve had really thoughtful, open discussions about life here at the MTC. He has told me about how it is hard to be reading the Book of Mormon for the first time amidst other people who seem to be years ahead of him, spiritually. But he gets excited about reading the book of mormon. He reads during class instead of paying attention to the lesson, which obviously is against rules, but I think it is so sweet whenever he makes announcements like, ¨I read all of Helaman today!¨¨ The other Mandarin missionaries recognize how good this is, too. It is a good reminder to all of us not to get arrogant and think that the gospel is about knowing the scriptures cover to cover instead of having a heart oriented towards Christ. Elder Greer is also a fellow liberal, and we really bonded one time when we started talking about homosexuality in the church and feminism. He now likes to tease me by occassionally making me take his tray to the dishroom after meals or commanding me to go get him drinks, (since I am a woman), but I just think its funny. 

 

Okay, I am so sorry that I always write such long emails! I hope they aren´t a burden to read. I love life here so much. I feel every day like I am learning straight from God, that my scriptures studies and the lessons and firesides we have answer directly the thoughts and questions on my mind. I feel so much love for and from my savior, every day. I am grateful for all the little sacrifices I am learning to make each day, that teach me how to become more like him.

 

I love you all so much! Love each other and listen to good music for me. Please keep writing! Take care.

 

Sister Brown