A quite busy...busy...week!!!

So, this week has been and will be quite busy!  Me and Sister Clark are Sister Training Leaders.  That may be by default since we are the only sisters who are at 6 weeks in our zone.  Although our Branch President assured us that the Lord called us and this is purposeful…well, who knows?  But, I am excited and hopefully I will be able to be a friend and helpful to the sisters that are here.  You guys know how much I hate drama so hopefully I can solve any and resolve problems without getting mad :)  Wish me luck!

All the old zones left which means our roommates did as well and it was really sad.  On the bright side, that means we are the oldest missionaries in the MTC and the oldest district.  We only have 3 weeks left here in the MTC.  We are supposedly getting 10 new sisters and 10 new elders today to our zone.  My companion has taught me that there is a blessing in everything :)  So we have to do a new missionary orientation and make them feel excited to be here!!!  I am excited to meet them all…haha.

This week we taught our first skype TRC and it was amazing!!!  TRC is where we teach a member and it is kind of like family home evening or when you feed the missionaries and they share a spiritual thought; only it lasts for 30 minutes.  We talked to Fu jiemei who lives in Taiwan and it made me so excited to leave!!  She was so sweet and so nice.  We talked about prayer and then she gave the closing prayer and it was the most beautiful prayer I have ever heard.  We felt the spirit so strongly and we were communicating through skype! This gospel is amazing guys!!

Unfortunately, one of our Chinese teachers was a temporary teacher and so his last day was Monday :(  Sad days…  We had to say goodbye to him and we will miss him.  He was pretty sarcastic and also pretty savage, but his class was always fun and we still managed to learn :)  He and our other teacher balanced each other out pretty well so we will miss him.

This week Sister Clark and I also were "chosen" to teach the head of all the teachers at the MTC.  We were super nervous because we wanted it to be good and show him that we have actually learned something.  It ended up going okay, we thought, but we never received any feedback from him which was unfortunate.  It was a good learning experience though.

Quote from the week:

Our teacher always writes on the chalkboard in Chinese, but this time he wrote “DoHomework” up there and one of the elders asks, "What does Doho... ohhh that is English" Chinese has taken over our brains!!!

Spiritual quote of the week:

"Be not afraid, only believe.”  Believe that God will and can help you through whatever!  Just have faith :)

I love this gospel!  I am so lucky to have the opportunity to share it with the people of China!

Wo ai nimen,

Sister Loo

Last day with Jin Laoshi so we all wore sweaters because he wore his everyday to class.

What's Happening...?

Alright.  This week not much happened, but we took lots of cool pictures so more pictures  tha words.

I have now been in the MTC a month and am on the downhill stretch!  A little less than a month left and I will be headed to China.  Honestly, the thought of leaving sounds crazy and although I want to leave I know I am not ready too.  I have lots more to learn before I can even think about China.  I am grateful for the MTC and the things that I have learned here.

This Sunday was one of the best days I have had here.  The lessons that were taught and the spirit was so strong.  Our branch president talked about how we would not compare our Mandarin to his (he's a native speaker), but we will compare it to our companions or someone who is in our district.  He talked about how his younger brother is now a multi millionaire and he is not.  He would not compare himself to Steve Jobs or Phil Knight, but he would compare himself to his brother.  Any comparisons we may make is prideful on our part.  Any comparisons we make only bring discouragement.  Be happy with who you are and who you have become this week :)

As I have been here at the MTC my testimony of the Book of Mormon and the prophet Joseph Smith has grown immensely.  I feel extremely blessed to be able to have this book and learn from the teachings.  We can receive an immense amount of revelation from it, but it could also just bring joy on days when we are feeling sad because it is the word of God.  It testifies of Christ and the fact that He lives!  I would invite all of you to watch this video and think about how the book of Mormon can or has helped you. This book contains all the answers to lifes problems :) 

(https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-03-08-testimony-of-the-book-of-mormon?lang=eng)

Something funny that I said this week.  As we were talking about how in heaven we will be able to see the "famous" people of the past and I was trying to add something to the conversation like I cared about meeting historians and said "yeah I cant wait to meet Emma Frank".  Should have just not said anything hahaha.

Wo ai nimen he wo zhidao Yesu Jidu ai mei yi ge ren (sorry no tones)

Sister Loo

Zone pics after our sunset walks on Saturday 

Me and Sister McOmber are always freezing...

You've heard of Charlie's Angels...We are the Lord's Angels!!!

Ready to take on Hong Kong!!!

Prophets & Apostles

Just yesterday Elder Bednar came!!!!  It was so amazing and before there was so much hype around it and everyone was saying how special it was going to be so we better be on time and on our best behavior.

Well they were right.  As soon as he walked in it was just crazy the spirit that followed with him.  There is just no denying that He is called of God.  That he is an apostle of the Lord.  It was a huge blessing for him to come.

His main message was that the talks we heard at conference are scripture and we should be treating them like scripture.  We should be studying and re-studying the conference talks.  He promised that if we do study them the Lord will be present.  So if anyone is having a bad day just pick up a conference talk and start reading and you will feel the Lords spirit and love while reading!  He also mentioned that when those with priesthood keys give an invitation and then a promise, the promises are sure.  So, get to reading the conference talks! :)

One of the great things about being at the MTC is that we are able to go to the temple every p-day.  The temple is such an amazing place and the place where the Lords spirit truly resides.  It is the Lords house.  We are blessed to have temples on the Earth!

So Elder Youse in my district has "conditioned" me (it is some word in psychology).  Because he always says cat like reflexes and then throws me a ball so now evertime he says catlike reflexes I sit up and freak out and look for a ball even though most times he never has one.  Anyways he think it is hillarious and tells just about everyone.

Things are finally starting to look up language wise.  Me and Chen Jiemei were able to teach a lesson simply and our investigator actually understood the gosple principle.  He also said that he could feel the spirit.  It was one of the first lessons that we walked out feeling great about and that we could actually do this!  It was such a nice feeling and now I am excited to teach again.. hopefully it goes just as good.

Well that's it for now.  It is funny because the longer you are at the MTC the funnier and weirder you get.  Like we laugh at the weirdest things and think things are so funny!  Like we now teach to pictures of people the gospel and crack up.  We find so much humor in it.  But that is what we find fun here at the MTC and I guess that means that we are definitely missionaries :)

​​

Wo ai Nimen

Sister Loo

​The new district with our new sisters that we were so excited to meet and have!

​​This is my district.

The two elders at the bottom sitting with us on the bench

are the fast track elders and they already left cause they knew Chinese.

(top row = Elders Ouyang, Wu, Youse, Meyers, Norby)

​3 of our elders have birthdays this week.

So, so we got them a small gift.

They thought it was funny so that is always good :

I Love General Conference!

Ni Hao!

This week my companion got sick with a really bad cold and was throwing up :( Unfortunately, but a blessing at the same time, another sister in my room also was sick so they stayed together and I didn't miss anything.  I have been praying and chugging Emergen-C to hopefully not get sick.

This week some important Chinese guy came and we were all thinking it was to see if they want to open up China to the missionaries!  We were all so excited and are hoping that they are in the process of letting missionaries in.  How awesome would it be to get transferred​​​​​​​​​​ from Hong Kong to Mainland China to share the gospel?!

Well if I was English, I would be out of the MTC, if I was Spanish, I would be halfway done, but because of the wonderful Mandarin language I am only a third of the way done!  But I suppose I should count my blessings because I am not prepared enough to teach and leave.

A group of missionaries left on Monday and Tuesday, which made me even more excited to leave! But I was like wait, 6 more weeks...  They were all so happy to go and were as ready as they could be.  BUT, that means we get new missionaries today.  4 new sisters and 2 elders!  Our zone is going to be so tiny now and it will take a little time to get used too!

This week was great!  It went by super fast because of General conference, but it was also super weird because we had so much time in between sessions, and before it even started to just like chill and did not really have a schedule.

Anyway, every session was so good and I think it is so interesting how every general authority speaks on relatively the same thing!  I found the theme was very similar to my purpose as a missionary (forgiveness, repentance, the atonement, building our faith in Christ and unique messages about why sacrament is so important!)  I truly love this gospel!

There was so much about missionary work I felt that helped me.  One thing was the importance of opening your mouth and not being afraid.  Someone and at sometime (I lost all sense of time here) said, "Whenever you are trying to share the gospel, you receive an A+"  All we are asked to do is simply try! 

Last, because I am myself I had a couple blonde moments this week that everyone is still teasing me about haha.

1. Some elder was talking about how he was taller than me even when he was standing on a step down and I say, "That's weird I feel like I am tall for my height."

2. Talking about missionaries with disabilities and different languages, "Do you think deaf people learn to read braille."

Glad I still am keeping some people entertained hahaha.  Genius...I know!!!

Something to think about this week from Elder Uchtdorfs talk, "What will we give in return for how much we have received?"

Wo ai Nimen,

Sister Loo

​The huge package I got from my parents & Gma Loo.

​So I wrote this in the journal of an Elder who was leaving the MTC.

All the sisters noticed, but nobody wanted to say anything, so of course I was like...I'll do it.

Oh the ways to have fun here in the MTC :)

(You wear really tight pants,not that it's a bad thing, just wanted to let you know we noticed)

​Ni Hao Aunty Kehau

​Wo de tongban is literally Cinderella.