Alex - Week One

I just received a lovely long email from Elder Nightingale and he is absolutely LOVING the MTC. His district is wonderful, and includes his two friends from our branch here in Hong Kong, who also went into the MTC on the same day as Alex. His companion is Elder Ngo, an American missionary from Harvard and Alex loves him and thinks he is great.

Alex seems very upbeat and optimistic about Mandarin and said he enjoys the fact that he is in the Mandarin Branch and all his church meetings are in Mandarin. He said his teacher shared this MTC saying:

Spanish-speaking missionaries leave the MTC fluent in the language.

English-speaking missionaries leave the MTC with an increased knowledge of the gospel.

Chinese-speaking missionaries leave the MTC humble.

Alex has faith that he will speak Mandarin fluently with some Heavenly help. Here is an excerpt from his letter about his Chinese name:

My district is sweet. We are the chinese branch, so all the mandarin elders have church together, we pray in chinese, give talks in chinese, bless the sacrament it's a great way to syl and hear chinese all the time. President Liu, or branch president is from Taiwan and loves teaching the missionaries all about the language. We have so many great missionaries who support one another. There are two elders going to Hong Kong, who love to ask me questions. One's name is Elder Wall, or as we like to call him, the great wall of china. I have a chinese name, or at least a last name. it's Elder "ying" spoken in a first tone which is high. So i am called "ying zhanglou" pronouned "ing junglow" (ow as in cow). The missionaries in my class are so great, we all just work together and support one another, it makes the work easier. Our teacher said something really great the other day. He said "spanish elders leave the mtc fluent in their langugage, english speaking elders leave the mtc with an increased knowledge of the gospel, chinese elders leave the mtc humble" hahaha it made me laugh but is so true, I know that i can learn mandarin with the help of the spirit and as long as I put my trust in my heavenly father, everyting will work out in the end.

Alex described some wonderful spiritual experiences and is absolutely delighted to be where he is. He mentioned the website dearelder.com not knowing that I had already ordered him treats from called2serve.com which will have arrived by now. It looks like his P-Day is Monday.

I'm sure Ying Zhanglou would LOVE to receive letters from people!