你好！
This week has been just another one of those weeks that has been a blast. We have been learning so much and have had so many opportunities to serve and to teach, even here in the MTC. And with this coming week, it will only be getting better as we are going to begin skyping people in Taiwan for teaching lessons.
One of the questions I got asked, was is it starting to get crowded here at the MTC. The answer to that is yes and no. With the English speaking missionaries only being here for two weeks, it really feels like it is empty. Especially on Tuesday for dinner in the cafeteria, because all of the missionaries that will be leaving that week, will have already have left and none of the new missionaries will be coming. As for the cafeteria being crowded for the rest of the week, we don't really notice it. We have the first meal times, and so we never have trouble finding seats or anything in the cafeteria. And for us, those meal times don't look like they will be changing. The MTC doesn't really change the schedule of where the missionaries are at unless there is something crazy coming up. This is the same for our residence as well. They will not be putting any more missionaries into our room. It will just be my companions and me, which is pretty epic. I have attached a few pictures of our room. It is pry one of the coolest rooms, I am sure you will notice why when you look at the one with the lights off and all the stars shining. One thing that I have not gotten of photo of yet are my teachers. Generally, we will get photos with our teachers at the end of our stay at the MTC, that way we can have a photo with all of our teachers at the same time.
Also, the Fourth of July. For the Fourth, we had regular classes for most of the day, except the end of the day. They had a devotional planned. We had a speaker talk to us about heroes, and what they have done to make everything possible for us today in our lives. And after that, we watched 17 miracles. I had seen the movie once before my mission, but it is still such a cool movie to watch. Now to explain why they did the devotional. I am sure the MTC has figured out how to time this all so perfectly, but as soon as the movie ended, the MTC President's first counselor announced that sadly, the performance of, I believe, Carry Underwood at the stadium of fire and just "unfortunately" finished. As you may now see, they had planned this out very well. But they then told us that we could go watch the fireworks from out side and eat ice cream that they had provided for everyone. It was pretty cool, but I do have to say, felt like I was back in China because a lot of the fireworks they did are considered pretty normal in China.
Now for the week, and all the fun events.
On Monday, for P-day, it was really switched around. As Trent and Nicole pry know, the Provo Temple was closed for cleaning, so we weren't able to go do temple work. However, we were able to go do a different type of temple work. Our job, as the elders, were to help remove all the carpeting in the celestial room. They then had us also help remove all the glue that held the carpet down. Lets just say that that was quite the labor intensive work out. Luckily for me, I didn't come out with any blisters on my hands, but a good number of the other elders did. Over all though, the experience we had in the temple was really cool. We all really enjoyed the experience and am pretty sure none of us will forget it. Just to let you know what the sisters in our district did, they got to clean the chandelier. They took one crystal down at a time from the chandelier, cleaned them, and then put them back on. They gave that job to the sisters cause they new that they were a lot less likely than the elders to drop them.
On Tuesday, we only taught one lesson, which was in English to a Gold tag. We have really loved teaching in English because it means that we are actually able to communicate our thoughts with the people we are teaching. The only other thing that happened that day, with the exception of studying which is a daily thing, was going to devotional. Brother Lowell M Snow, who was a recent seventy, came and spoke to us. The biggest thing I got from his talk was "Who's image do we want others to see as we are in the world." He related this to us as missionaries and the image of Christ and his attributes, that as we are missionaries, should show to others at all times.
On Wednesday, we had the opportunity to host again. It is always so much fun to see all the new missionaries coming in and finding out where they are going. This time, I hosted a good number of people going English speaking.
On Thursday, we had one lesson, which was in Chinese. Our companionship is starting to get pretty good at teaching in Chinese, but the hardest part is just remembering all the vocab for a given lesson. This lesson, we were teaching him about keeping the Sabbath day holly, but we all kept forgetting words that would help explain why we keep it holy. But, it is always a fun experience and always interesting to see what words we use to try and explain the point we are trying to teach. That evening, we also got to see all the new missionaries that are coming into our zone on Wednesday. There are four sisters coming in and twenty six elders coming in. We are all pretty excited for all the new elders and sisters.
On Friday, we had classes, and then after the classes, we had the activities for the Fourth, the devotional, film, and then the fireworks. We all had a really good time.
On Saturday, we had TRC. We got to teach two lessons, both twenty minutes long. Surprisingly though, one of the ones we taught actually knew one of my roommates from BYU-I. They served in the same mission, but my roommate was English and he was Chinese speaking.
On Sunday, we had Mission conference. The biggest thing that was talked about in mission conference was the importance of using Preach my Gospel to its full extent. They said that Preach my Gospel is one of the few books in the church that all of the quorum and first presidency worked on together. We all thought that they was pretty profound and cool. They also talked to us about the new guidelines for teaching on our missions that were announced here over the past week. Which are teaching all five lessons before baptism. Teaching all five lessons again after baptism, which use to be the wards duty. And then the missionaries remaining in contact with the converts for at least a year after their baptism. We then had fast and testimony meeting, which was all in Chinese. I didn't know this, but the Chinese branches are one of the few that actually use their mission language through out the entire sacrament meeting. Generally, all of the Asian languages are combined because they are not big enough to have their own branch. We then had devotional that night, which was given by Josh Wright. When we first saw him, we were all a little confused. He looks like he is maybe 23 or 24 years old. Then they actually introduced him, and Nicole may know who he is. He is a professional pianist, who has won competitions around the world. It was really a cool devotional. He played four piano pieces for us, I think everyone's jaws dropped as we listened to the music. He related playing music to missionary work. We must be creative on our missions and use our talents to help share the gospel with others.
Hope everyone is having safe travels, and thanks for all the emails and letters!
Elder Okeson
P.S. One cool thing I learned about my mission, President Day loves having his missionaries share their talents. One of our teachers, Jin Laoshi, who also knows Trent, coached a high school basketball team on his mission as part of sharing the gospel. They said they had tones of opportunities to teach because everyone just wanted to talk with the American coaches. Also as a side note, they won the national championship, so he is on a plaque at a school for winning that championship.
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