February 28, 2012

Another good week comes to an end! Last friday was our halfway point for our MTC stay! Can you believe it? Already halfway done that is just crazy.

This week was pretty similiar to last seeing as though we have the same schedule every week, but i will try and think of some new and exciting things that happened.

 

First off i will talk about TRC this week. If you forgot TRC is a night where we go to a building here at the MTC and volunteers come and meet with us! We have two 20 minute visits and we have a different subject every week. This week we talked about recieving answers to your prayers at church. I was having trouble thinking of a way to express my feelings on this subject in chinese and right up to the minute before we walked in i was super nervous! I usually am not nervous for TRC but this time i was because i was having a huge brain fart and couldn't think of what i wanted to say! I tried to prepare but couldn't decide on anything so i went in with hardly a plan at all. Before we went in i was praying praying praying for help with the language to say what the people we were going to teach needed to hear. The first people we talked to were two young men who are currently attending BYU provo, one was from singapore and one was from colorado. I had a friend at BYU hawaii from singapore so out of curiosity i asked if he happened to know Bryce Wang. He did! And what is even crazier is the one from colorado was companions with bryce on his mission! They both served in taichung together! I was so surprised! After introductions and everything we had a prayer and then my companion looked expectantly at me. ( I was under the impression he was going to talk first since he already knew what he wanted to say) I looked at him, raised my eyebrows in kind of a quizical look, and then turned to the people we were teaching and just started talking. I told them what i love about sacrament meeting. How it is a time we can sit and think about our savior Jesus Christ and all that he did for us, and renew our covenants with God. Then i talked about how God can answer our questions through the Book of Mormon and during sacrament is a good time to read it and i shared a scripture i like with them (Ether 12:27) After i was done i was so surprised at where that all came from! The Lord definitely answered my prayer throught the Holy Ghost to help me get across what i wanted to say in chinese. After meeting with the two young men we met with Sister Day and Monika! We had met with both of them in previous weeks so we knew them prettty well already. Sister Day is about 45 and served her mission in taibei and Monika is studying at utah state university and served her mission in vancouver canada! The lesson with them went just as well as the last one and the spirit was there. Afterwards i stopped by the two young mens room again and told them if they talk to bryce wang anytime soon tell him that i say hello, and one of them pulled out his phone right there and called bryce and told him i say hi! Hahaha it was so awesome.

 

So here is a funny story. This whole week my companion has been searching and searching for a friend of his that is here at the MTC but he could not find her! Then the other day as we are walking to lunch we run into her and her companion is Demaree Brown! I don't know if you recognize the name but i know Celeste probably will. I haven't seen her in so long! She is going to be serving in washington spanish speaking. How cool! Also, phylip curtis got his misson call! He is going to Colombia spanish speaking! Make sure and congratulate him if you see him.

 

Dad, your package was pretty much the best ever and is really popular among the people living nearby me. Whenever they get hungry they just come over to my dorm and grab a snack :D Also, i love the picture i have it up by the window in our room! Thanks abunch! Love you Dad. Sorry if my english starts to get hard to understand, there is a point in learning a new language when you can speak english or the language you are learning because it is all meshed in your head and i think i am hitting that point. Love you all so much and thanks for all the support!

Love-   Elder Ripley