First things first: I absolutely love the Mandarin language. After years of struggling through it, I thought it would be one of the hardest things I had to do when I got here. It's actually one of my most favorite. Our first lesson, our teacher Gui Lao Shi showed us a video of an investigator telling us about himself. With our very limited vocabulary and some help with the teacher, we were able to figure out almost everything he said!!! It was so incredible. The gift of tongues was helping us already.
The gift of tongues is so real, by the way. I wouldn't have such a love for the language without it. Flashcards and memorizing are so fun to me now. I can't tell you how amazing it is to see Mandarin words pop up in my daily conversation and when I write in my journal at night. The other day I learned that putting 'le' at the end of a sentence makes it past tense, and I don't know why but I thought that was so cool! This language makes me incredibly happy.
Our district is great, there's only 6 of us so we're way smaller than the other districts. But the other sisters in our zone were so happy to have 4 new sisters come in! There's 11 sisters in our zone and at least twice as many elders. Some of the elders are pretty crazy, like bouncing off the walls. Our elders are way chill but we'll see how they are in 9 weeks. All the other districts have told us we'll probably get more done because we have more sisters than elders lol.
The 6 of us in our district have gotten to be a kind of family. On Saturday we had like 3 hours of straight study time, reading flashcards out loud over and over with our terrible pronounciation. We got as much done as we could but got pretty delirious towards the end. We also spent a lot of time talking and laughing. We should probably get better at being productive but it was pretty fun. Here we study and study all the time. Learning the Mandarin translation for English words is easy but learning the tones is definitely not, so that's what I spend most of the time working on.
Out of the 6 of us, 4 of us came in with some kind of Mandarin experience. Sister Young and I probably had the most knowledge, we both have a fairly good vocabulary and are the best at pronouncing words. So yay! Those years of Manadarin in school came in handy after all.
Also, if you've ever gone a couple days without a phone, it's incredibly liberating. I would highly recommend it. Our teacher's phone buzzed in class one day and it was so weird since we hadn't heard that sound in such a long time.
Last night at devotional Elder Bednar spoke to us! He and his wife talked about going through general conference talks and picking out the doctrinal principle, the invitation, and the promised blessings. I totally want to do this now, I think it'll help with watching conference so much. My district also joined the choir and got to sing Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer for Elder Bednar. It was amazing and it was broadcast to all 14 other MTC's which was way cool!! The choir director is hilarious and makes it all awesome. The MTC is really a place where the spirit dwells, I'm still getting used to all the rules but I know they're for the best and I really do love it here. I've learned so much already, it's amazing.
Here we call everyone by their Chinese names, mine is Deng Jie Mei, since Jie Mei is the word for sister. (it's driving me nuts that I can't figure out how to put tones on my typed words). My companion Sister Hoskins (Huo Jie Mei) is awesome, we're having a lot of fun here. She's in her last two weeks of ankle surgery recovery since she broke her ankle twice. :( So she needs someone who can walk a little slower with her, and I need someone who knows where we're going, since I would constantly be getting lost on campus without her. So we work together perfectly :)
Finally and most important, Sister Hoskins and I are teaching an investigator! His name is Wang Xiao Yuan and although we're pretty sure he's actually just pretending to be an investigator to help us practice, it still makes me really nervous. He'll talk to us in Mandarin and we'll pick out a word or two, then frantically flip though our Mandarin dictionaries looking for a way to respond! It's frustrating because he asks great questions and I'd love to answer them in English but I don't know how! Sister Hoskins and I work great together when it comes to these lessons, she's so positive and excited. She's usually able to understand what I can't and tell me something in English so that I can quickly try to string together some words in Mandarin. It's such a miracle that we're able to understand what we can! Every time we teach I feel the spirit. I know that when I don't know what to say, God gives me the words. It's the spirit that spreads the gospel- we're just the tools to make it happen. He speaks through us and it's so incredible to know that we're doing a sacred work. I'm so happy to have finally begun life as a missionary. I know this is exactly where I'm meant to be.
Anyway, sorry that was long. If you know me I tend to get distracted. Thanks for listening to me ramble. If you want to write back I highly recommend DearElder.com!!! you type up a letter, then it's printed here at the MTC and I get it the next day. That way I can have the letter all week and respond on Wednesday. Plus I'll be here for 9 weeks so I'd absolutely love to hear from you! Mail is the best.
This church is true. Being a missionary is wonderful. have a great week. I love you all!
Sister Daynes
