Leih hou ngoh ge gatihng! (Hello my family!)
In case you were wondering, the subject means (mom test yourself first on your Cantonese!) "Missionary life is wonderful!"
This week was pretty great. Sometime at the beginning of this week
Cantonese really began to click, and now I'm being able to pick up vocab
a lot quicker and get things faster, like I'm starting to get a better
feel for the language. The tones still need work, obviously, but I'm
being able to hear tones better than before. All my teachers are really
supportive and really helpful--sometimes I feel like I'm a little kid
and they're my parents and I just want to improve so they'll be proud of
me. Haha. Cantonese is a pretty fun language too, even though it's
obviously quite difficult. It sounds really cool. Also, no offense to
the Mandarin speakers (i.e. Dad), but it sounds a lot nicer than
Mandarin too. The MTC is a really cool place since there's so many
people learning so many different languages-- earlier this week at
dinner my friend bore her testimony to me in Slovenian, and I bore mine
to her in Cantonese. We were both like "your language sounds soo cool!"
Sometimes I forget that not everyone can understand Cantonese--it
reminds me of at home when I would say something in Spanish and no one
respond and I would get annoyed and then realize it was because no one
could understand me. Oops! haha.
Also, I'm now more than 1/3rd of the way done with
being at the MTC! (My estimated leave date is August 6) It seems like
that I don't have very much time left and like I barely got here, but
other times it sounds like it's so far away and I've been here forever. I
think it seems sooner because the other Cantonese district is flying
out next Monday, which means we'll be the more experienced district once
the new one comes in! Also, Elder Wu in our district got moved up to
the other district and leaves next week since his Cantonese is so much
better than the rest of ours. We're sad to see him go, but excited for
him. Also, the elder we fasted for last week is going to be able to go
(at least I haven't heard otherwise and he has a travel itinerary), so
that's good!
So now 4 out of the 5 members in our district go to
branch council, because 2 of our elders are zone leaders, the other one
is district leader, and then I'm coordinating sister. The Cantonese
districts seem to basically run our branch since we're here for so long.
It's also been really fun having Sister Borland (from
my BYU ward) as a roommate! We've had fun swapping stories about wardies
and everything.
Yesterday was a GREAT day to be a
sister missionary! Sheri Dew spoke at our fireside last night, which
was awesome because she's just so legit-- for real, if for some reason
I'm a single sister for a long time in my life, I want to be as awesome
as she is! Also, Sister Dalton came to Relief Society yesterday!! She's
so great! AND we all got to meet her afterward and she gave me a
hug!!!!!!!! It was so cool! She's been in the Young Women's presidency
most of the time I was in young womens--she said "I feel like I've grown
up with you all!" She just emanates love. She's so cool because she's
just a strong, fun, energetic, virtuous, Christlike lady, but is so
normal seeming at the same time. I thanked her for being such a good
example to me, and she looked me straight in the eyes and said "You're
perfect! Just keep doing what you're doing!" Suffice it to say, I was
pretty stoked.
Also, next Tuesday we have a super devotional for
mission presidents' training, and apparently President Monson and
several of the apostles will be there! SWEET!
Love you all! I hope you have a great week!
Hahng Jimuih/ Sister Heaton
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