Favorite Scripture

Favorite Scripture:

“Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day.” (Alma 37:37)

Monday, August 4, 2014

My Amazing MTC District

My Awesome MTC District - Taiwan, Taichung Bound!!!

Dear Family,

Elder Shurtleff After a Long Day of Mandarin!!
Man, this week has flown by!! It’s crazy!! Sorry I have such limited time. This week has been really good. The language is still as tough as ever, but it is supposed to be that way!  I see Elder Lloyd daily, that is always so nice for me. The work here is very hard! I study Zhong Wen for at least 8 hours a day, it is tough, and then the rest is devoted to either zhong wen or gospel study.  It is great though.  I love my district.  They really are like family! We do everything together!  Elder Shurtleff in our district is so funny! He is this big guy who went to West Point! He has the kindest heart and the funniest personality! He loves cartoons and he just has the funniest sense of Humor!  We get along really well!

We have some very talented district members! They are all amazing at music! It’s really neat, sometimes at night after class during additional study time our whole district will find a chapel and someone will play the piano and others sing while we read scriptures.  It is much needed some days and really refreshing!  I am liking learning Chinese!! It gets really daunting and scary at times thinking about it, but studying it I already have a love for the Asian people!  Even though this work is so tough, it is so joyful to think that there are people waiting and being prepared right now half way around the world to hear this message!! It gives me a lot of joy thinking about that... That this message will change their eternity! It motivates me to work harder than I ever have before so that I can be ready to relay that message and help them find a happiness that they never thought possible.  Even if it is only one, I find that so amazing! It makes me just already love the people of Taiwan!  

This week was Fast Sunday and I decided to bear my testimony.  Our sacrament meeting is with our whole zone, so about 60 people.  You have to do it in Chinese, so that was cool! I bore my testimony in Chinese! It was very simple. The other thing that was really cool is that I could understand everyone who was bearing their testimony! It was a really neat day.

We have two teachers now for language! We have our first who is a returned missionary who served in Taiwan and W, who is actually from Taiwan and she doesn't speak much English!  It’s super hard to understand her... she only talks in Chinese for the whole three hours!  It is so hard to understand.  It was very discouraging the first day, but I have come to realize what a blessing it is to have her teaching us!  It will give us a whole 7 weeks of practice listening and trying to understand someone who is actually from Taiwan.  Which is very rare!  It’s super hard, but really cool!! I actually volunteered in class for her to teach me a lesson in front of everyone.  I understood a lot more than I thought I would!! It is so hard though!  It was really neat!!
  
I love you guys!! I love your emails and your letters! They really are a great reminder of the blessing I have to have the gospel and the most amazing family in the world.  I love you guys so much!! I wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now!!  This is going to be a great week! Let’s go get it!

Be GREAT!

Love,

Elder Redding

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