Week four!

Everyone! 

I'm so excited!  The Provo Temple reopened last week, and I get to go today!  I have missed going to the temple and how I feel when I am there.  We (the Mandarin speaking sisters and I) Have been spending a bit of time up on the grounds, but it is not the same as actually going in and spending time in the House of the Lord.  Our district has planned a trip for P-Day and I am definitely looking forward to it.

In other news, one of our practice investigators this week said he would commit to baptism as he continues to learn about the Church.  We have been working with him on how to find answers to his questions in the Book of Mormon, and yesterday we had a great lesson that helped to answer both some of his questions and some of mine.  It was wonderful.  Shen Jiemei and I are hoping that he will start studying more on his own and will be able to find more answers to the questions he has.

We also had a wonderful experience in TRC (the Training Resource Center, where we teach people from the "outside world" in our target lanugage) teaching some of the volunteers there.  Our first lesson went over a bit, so we only had a few minutes to teach our second volunteer.  Shen Jiemei had a great scripture that she shared from Mosiah 28:6-7 and then from Alma 19:23.  These scriptures show how the Lord honors His promises and answers our prayers.  When Mosiah asked the Lord to protect his sons as they served missions, Heavenly Father promised He would.  As a result we see in Alma that they were protected, even though they were in a very dangerous situation as Nephites in Lamanite territory.  After we shared the scriptures, We asked our volunteer what he thought of the scriptures.  He said that they were a clear example of the Lord's love for us and that they specifically addressed something he had been thinking about recently.  It was amazing to see how the Lord worked through us as missionaries to answer this man's question.  Being a missionary really is a wonderful thing.  I have learned so much already about how to listen better to recognize and follow the promptings of the Spirit.  Something I have been thinking about recently is how when I relax during a lesson it is much easier to figure out what needs to happen in the lesson.  Answers or scriptures will come to mind that we may not have thought of before.  This is the same when we plan for our lessons, as well.  It's interesting- what I have thought for so long is just instinct or impulses is actually in some cases the Spirit trying to communicate with me and help us as missionaries to better serve others.

For some of my Plymouth Ward readers - I have been seeing Elder Barfuss and Elder Wade a lot this week!  We have had some good conversations, and both of them seem well.  Elder Barfuss and I are actually in the same building for our classes, so we run into each other quite a bit, and since we are in language mode we always say hello in our respective forms.  Luckily, it's pretty easy to tell when someone is saying hello to you.

Fun story before I have to go - the other day we were sitting in the classroom and Elder Tsai wasn't in the room.  Elder Zavala picked up his pen and put it in his pocket.  About fifteen minutes later we were sitting around, and the Elders were talking about what pens they owned. (Apparently pens are a way of measuring masculinity?) Elder Young pulled out his Parker Jotter and they all agreed that it was a "good piece."  Elder Zavala pulled out his Zebra 300 series and they all nodded in agreement. ("Oh yeah, that's a good piece.")  Then Elder Zavala pulled out a Zebra 400 series and said "This is a Zebra 400 series.  It's a good piece.  It's also what Elder Tsai is looking for right now."  At that moment across the room, Elder Tsai said "Where is my pen?!"  It was movie-worthy.  Or at least sitcom-worthy.

That's all for this week.  Hopefully next week I'll have a surprise for you all!

Love you!

Sister Beer

P.S. A praying mantis flew into my leg this week while we were out playing bocci ball on the field.  I think it must have been shedding it's skin or something of the like since it was pretty white looking, rather than the green I have seen before.  I found out later that praying mantises can bite/eat people if they really want to, so I'm glad I was wearing pants that day.  A praying mantis bite sounds a little painful, although it would be a very unique injury.  "Yeah, this scar is from the time a praying mantis bit me.  It's not exactly one of your run-of-the-mill injuries, if you know what I mean." 

Post san (three)!

I have been in the MTC for almost three full weeks.  It feels like I have been here for months, and yet at the same time I can hardly believe I am a quarter of the way through my MTC stay!  The amount of information I have learned is incredible, and I am still a little surprised at how much of it I retain on a day-to-day basis.  We are using our Mandarin more and more, trying to SYL (Speak Your Language) and it has been cool to see vocabulary that I didn't know I knew pop up in my daily conversation.  I still have to ask what a lot of words mean, but that is okay.  We are still learning, and that is what is important.

This week we went to the Teaching Resource Center (TRC) for the first time.  At the TRC volunteers come and the missionaries teach them a lesson.  Sometimes the volunteers are real investigators of the Church, but often they are just Mandarin speakers that live in the Provo area.  This week Sister Stevens and I taught two young men, one who's name I can't remember (oops) and Frank.  Frank is in America on a two month long vacation from Kaoshiung, Taiwan.  He was so fun to teach, but so hard to understand!  His accent was very pronounced and he had a slight lisp, so trying to figure out what he was saying was a little difficult.  Even so, he bore a beautiful testimony about the importance of the Atonement and of Jesus Christ in our lives which Sister Stevens and I were able to (mostly) understand.  The TRC, we learned, is stressful but can be rewarding!  This will become a weekly occurence for us.

We had some fun in our district the past couple of days.  For the past bit my companion and I have been trying to figure out what animal best represents each member of our district.  We finally hashed out most of them, so I decided to draw our district in animal form.  By the time I had almost finished the picture, I realized that we had not figured out what my animal was.  Since you can't really choose your own animal, I posed the question to my district.  Their answer?  A hamster.  I'm not quite sure what qualifies me to be a hamster.  I've never really identified with them, to be honest, they seem like timid little creatures.  Still, I drew myself in as a hamster.  I am going to draw another picture with the animals that we want to be, so we can set goals to become more awesome.

My thought for the week: turn out.  I watched a talk this week by Elder David A Bednar where he talked about the character of Christ and about turning out to serve others, even when we feel like we are in need of service.  As we do this, we can better serve others and we can be more open to the healing power of the Atonement.  I would recommend reading his talk from a few General Conferences ago on this topic - it's pretty great.

I love you all, and I hope you have a wonderful week!

Sister Beer (Bi Jiemei)

Post 2 from the MTC

Last week I wrote you from the busy, crowded laundry room. This week I am sitting in the English speaking missionary computer lab, and it could not be more different. Quiet, cushy, only four people... it's ridiculous. As you may be able to tell, there is a bit of a dichotomy between the English building and the rest of the MTC. Our elders first discovered this difference this week as they were exploring the MTC. They walked into an air-conditioned (!!) building and found that the rooms had real, normal sized desks, rather than the weird little half-desk-attached-to-chair things found in most classrooms. Not only that, but the computer lab has headphones with WORKING MICROPHONES. And who studies in this building? Not the Mandarin speaking missionaries, with our 20 pound bags of books, but the English speaking elders.

(I know that reads a little bitter, but I really do love our building and classroom. We have a good time, even if I can't fit my books on my desk.)

In other news, I've completed another week at the MTC! It is crazy to think how much I have learned since coming here. The people are supportive, the missionaries fun, and the material more important than anything I have ever worked with. 

A funny story with one of our elders this week: On Wednesday I was having what one could call a difficult hair day. I had it tied back, but it kept falling down and distracting me. Finally, while my companion and I were at the drinking fountain, I decided that fine, I would just take it down and let it be. As I walked back into the room, one of our dear elders looked at me and said "What's WRONG with you??" He had been meaning to inquire after my well-being and obvious change in hairstyle. However, what came out was not what he intended, and he spent the next minute or two trying to make up for his mistake. Sister Stevens and I could not stop laughing, and throughout the week at appropriate moments we have asked the question "What's WRONG with you??" in the most loving way we can. We have a great district. It kind of feels like a room full of little brothers, which some of you know can be the best and most aggravating thing in the world. I am grateful that we are in this particular group, though.

Our fireside this week was a musical fireside by Jenny Oaks Baker, a nationally acclaimed violinist. It was wonderful, and her music brought the Spirit to the meeting. I have always loved her music and it was very cool to hear her in person. Each song she played was accompanied by a story from her life or a reaffirmation of her testimony. Two of my favorite songs were when she played "Amazing Grace" and when her four children performed "I am a Child of God." I did not realize how much I have missed listening to uplifting music until I heard her play. One unfortunate thing about the MTC is that while music can be performed, we cannot just play it to listen to while we are here. I loved being able to just sit and listen for a while to Sister Baker's music. It was wonderful.

That's all I really have time for this week. I'll remind you that mail to the MTC is free through DearElder.com and that if you want a letter back from me, please include your address.

I love you all!

Sister Beer

The First Letter!

Hello, everyone!

It's my first P-day (preparation day) and I'm sitting in the laundry room, waxing nostalgic about freshman year.  It's weird to be in a place with so many people doing laundry at the same time. . . . I miss my apartment's washer and dryer.  This week at the MTC has been CRAZY.  I love my tongban (companion), Sister Stevens.  She is pretty much the coolest.  Her Chinese name is Shen Jiemei.  (Mine is Bi Jiemei -  "Jiemei" means "Sister.")  She is going to Sydney, Australia and is one of the first sisters to ever go there.  She also is the best at matching clothing.  I do not have her color coordinating skills, I am sad to say.

So far since being here I have learned how to pray, bear my testimony, and ask, or commit, people to do things like read the Book of Mormon or pray.  It has been intense - I don't think I have ever worked this hard before.  Luckily, there is plenty of structure around our sleeping schedule, so I have actually been getting a full eight hours of sleep every night.  That's kind of new for me, which probably isn't the best thing. 

Funny Chinese story: I was talking to Shen Jiemei, trying to say "Hello, we are representatives of Jesus Christ," but rather than saying "daibiao," which means representative, I said "danbian," which I'm pretty sure means cake.  (That may be "dangao," now that I think about it. . . . I probably should have brought my dictionary.)  Anyways, I would like to state for the record that I am not a cake, but indeed a representative of Christ.

I hope that you are all doing well.  Feel free to write me, we love getting letters in our district.  I would encourage everyone to use DearElder.com so you can send letters for free!  Make sure your address is on it so I can write you a letter back, too.

I'll close with this: In Relief Society on Sunday we heard a quote that said something to the effect of "The soul is like a violin string, it makes music only when it is stretched.  God allows us to be stretched because He loves us." Neal A. Maxwell is right--God wants us to succeed, but he also wants us to learn.  That means things won't always be easy, but He still loves us.

That's all for today.  我愛你們! (I love you!)

Sister Beer

 

P.S. The picture you see is from before I entered the MTC, when my dad and I went to visit the Provo Temple with my cousin, Jacob.  We couldn't actually go inside since the temple was closed, so we got some pictures in front of the building instead.

The Obligatory First Post

Here we are!

I am one day from being set apart, two days from flying to Utah, and four days from entering the Provo Missionary Training Center!  I'm pretty excited about the whole thing.  The purpose of this blog is to keep all you people updated with what is happening out in the mission field while I'm gone.  My lovely sister will be posting my weekly letters here for your perusal.

I am so happy to be able to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I am grateful for the opportunity to share the gospel and to serve people in New York.  This is something I have wanted to do for a long time, and I am glad to finally be doing it!

I love the Lord, I love my Church, and I love my family.  I am looking forward to this new experience and I hope that you will enjoy sharing it with me.

Much love,
Caitlin Beer