Still at the MTC

Oh Hai!

Yeah thanks for [calling the MTC] dad. I am not in the slightest bitter since I do agree with you that having an extra 2 weeks is a good thing. Not only cause I can learn way more and have much more time to study how to teach and how to speak Chinese like a pro, but also cause the MTC is gonna send out a choir to General Conference on the first weekend of Oct. which if I get selected for would be awesome! They haven't said anything about who's gonna be singing in it yet though so... fingers crossed! Also, the firesides and devotionals here are really cool since they're specifically for us and always have really inspired messages. They also show movies and recorded MTC talks every Sunday night and we always go to the MTC talks since you can't see those anywhere else and they are always by Apostles or members of the 70 and are really, really good. Went to one last night by Elder Oaks about cultivating righteous desires.

This week was pretty good. The days go by really fast and it seems like I only got here yesterday even though I've been here almost 3 weeks now. I'm still with my new companions Elders Buss and Harr which is good and they're leaving the same time as me since our whole district leaves at the same time. We went and talked to Jeremy Perkins on Saturday (he works as the language tutor guy here... it's funny how many people in the Chinese language program here know people I know like Joel or Cory... or me) and he gave us some really good advice on how to learn Chinese faster and more efficiently since he told me it'd be really easy for me to just coast on the level of Chinese I have right now and not learn much. It was really cool cause now I'm much more committed to learning faster and more independently. Jeremy said that cause he went out 6 weeks early like I will, no one taught him how to study Chinese so he had to figure it out for himself which he finally only really refined like 2/3 of the way through his mission. Good thing i'm getting the low-down now so I don't have to waste so much time haha! I just hope I can be half as pro as Joel was on his mission... can't believe how pro his Chinese is now. It's like he worked hard on it or something. Which I can totally tell the difference between him and missionaries who didn't apply themselves as much - like one of my teachers Chen Laoshi who is a cool guy but I can tell he didn't work as hard on his Chinese while in Taibei.

In other news, just got back from the temple which was good. The presiding altar guy's wife was like falling asleep halfway through which was kind of funny. But not really important. Point is...

Oh yeah! Btw let me tell you what happened when I got called to the district president's office to sort through this early departure business. We were all confused about why I was leaving early and called my mission president in SF to ask him what was going on. Turns out he hadn't even known I was coming out early and like rejoiced when he heard I was coming on the 5th of Oct. He was like, "THE LORD ANSWERS PRAYERS!" It was funny since he said he'd been having trouble with transfers and that my coming would fix everything. Also, he said the Mandarin missionaries have baptized 10 people this month already! Which is really cool and made me pretty excited to go.... in 2 weeks that is. It should be really great.

Sounds like an answer to prayer on the house there. I hope that works out for you guys since living in a hotel is really lame based on my experience when we lived in a hotel at the beginning of my 10th grade and it was really lame. And yes mom I know you love to be busy hahaha :). I hope you find something to keep you that way so that dad can get some peace and quiet sometimes Hua hua hua! Jk lolooollolo!.

Thanks for your emails and your prayers! I know this gospel is true and that it's really the only way to be happy in this life and the next. Thanks for everything! Have a great week!

-Ian