June 15th, 2009

Nihao my family!

Well, another week has gone by!At the beginning of this week, my whole companionship was sick. The week sort of flew by because the first few days were sort of a runny nosed blur.

Before I came into the MTC, I didn't really know what it was going to be like, and since no one in our family has been, I figure I will tell a little about my everyday life.

Most days, we wake up between 6:15-6:30 am, and get ready until 7, when we have personal study until 8:15. I read the scriptures, the conference issue of the Ensign and Preach my Gospel and the gospel library. Then we have breakfast, then back to class for companion study, where we usually prepare to teach discussions. We also have an hour of gym time 5 days a week, and I usually study on a stationary bike or elliptical, but sometimes we go up to the field and have a rousing game of croquet or foursquare. Foursquare may be my true post mission calling in life. I don't have much coordination to participate in the other sports, but that is okay, because my companions don't either! I really look forward to the exercize time, because it is one of the only times we aren't sitting. We also have class, usually for 3+ hours every day but Sunday. They teach us Chinese, but we also talk about gospel principles and how to be an effective teacher a lot too. I love both of my teachers - Lailaoshi (Brother Lattin) and Tanlaoshi (Sister Tanner). Brother Lattin may be the best example of meekness I've ever met, and Sister Tanner is just really good at teaching to needs. We are really lucky; they are both great. We also have a couple hours of Missionary Directed Time a day, which is just to study whatever we need to study. It is sort of hard to know what is the most important thing to study because I've never taught myself a language before, but I'm doing alright. Also, Sundays here are great. Yesterday Sister Dibb spoke to us in Relief Society (one of the General Young Women's councilors and also President Monson's daughter) and it was really neat. She read to us an excert from Jane Eyre (by Charlotte Bronte) to illustrate virtue, which I thought was sort of funny. It will be the only non church literature I will experience for a long time! On Tuesday night Devotional Elder Bednar came and gave a really great talk, which I only caught part of in the overflow because I had the plague. One of the girls wrote the whole talk down though, so I was lucky and got to still read it. Umm what else? The MTC food often fried and covered in mystery sauces. Or it is rice, which I am trying not to eat until I go to Taiwan (haha). On the bright side, they have cereal at every meal, so I will be fine. Also they have ice cream from the BYU creamery twice a week which is a Johnson girl's dream :) We also do service on Thursday mornings, which is cleaning. We try to be early so we don't have to clean the bathrooms, which are gross. On Mondays (like today) we go to the Temple in the morning and then have P-day in the afternoon, where we do laundry, go to the bookstore, write letters, etc. Today I have to go to the Student Health Center to get a chest x-ray for my visa, so we have even less time. That's okay though.

I love you all big bunches!

FML
Cami