Week 2 of 9

Well you read the title. It seems like I've been gone awhile but I'll still be around for about two months haha. I'll try to entertain you.

I've been learning lots of Chinese this week! Our Role Playing investigator surprised us and is our second teacher. His name is Ding Laoshi. He served his mission in Australia Mandarin speaking. He's pretty nice and he likes to help out. I feel like I'm forgetting most of the stuff I learn but I keep reminding myself that if I really work hard then the spirit will bring the words back to me that I should say right when I need them. 

The Sisters in our district were being dramatic this week, but then they taught the lesson on Sunday and asked if we could kind of start over as a district, since we got off on the wrong foot. I think it'll be better now. The Elders are as cool as ever. We actually had this water bottle challenge, to drink 125 ounces of water a day to get healthier. We were doing good till one day I drank a bit too much too fast, you can guess what happened next.

Our Chinese branch is interesting though. When we came in the Elders that were over us were breaking all kinds of rules and doing things they weren't supposed to. They didn't even know Chinese very well and they had been in there for 6 weeks. It was bad and I was wondering why the MTC was like this. I realized then what Mitchell and Talmage told me. Not every Missionary is the same. You have to choose who you want to be. They had an emergency meeting with all the Chinese speaking missionaries and set us straight. They had a speaker talking about his time in Taiwan and what the people there mean to him. He said we are carrying Jesus Christ's name on our chest. We need to represent him. I wasn't doing anything wrong but I knew I wasn't trying my hardest. I knew I could be doing better to be a real missionary, and I would need to be the example to the new elders coming in each week.(Oh and the speaker was actually my Chinese teacher in high school for a year before he quit cause of the students. Ruan Laoshi.)

But yeah MTC life is good! The food is great, the people are great , and the opportunities are amazing!! There are so many people here though. The week I came in there were 700 new missionaries. We got some more last week, and this week we're getting another 700. It's way over capacity. It takes a half hour waiting in line to eat haha. 

I love you all!! If you have any questions for me go ahead and email! I'll happily answer them!

-Love Elder Grayson Thayne