Thornley: Half-Way Through The MTC

Well everyone, I was offered a job and so I am coming home. HAHA! No but seriously, I was sitting in sacrament and there is a missionary here from Finland who owns some businesses So He was sitting in front of me and so I politely asked, "Hey Elder! Do you really own a business !" And he turned around and pulled from within his coat a business card which read, SCANDI a modeling business where he and his partners rent out models. He handed it to me and said ever so politely, "I do. And if you need a job when you get back from your mission give me a call." HAHAHAHAHA! It was the funniest inappropriate thing to have happened to me thus far on the mission. He then signed the back of the card and handed it to me. Classic. So, anyways, I am not really coming home yet. Sigh. But The good news is that so long as I do not gain anymore MTC weight I have a job when I get back home in Finland!

Alright, so my week, it was very good. The days here are SOOO long but the weeks are fast. It is crazy to think that this week I will have hit the one month mark. I love it so much here... but I cannot wait to get out of here all at the same time! We had another TRC this week, which is where volunteers who speak the language come in and we teach them lessons. My former district leader Elder Dickson put it like this, "It feels like when in Monsters Inc they line up at the doors on the scare floor and count down and then suddenly a buzzer goes and we enter the rooms to scare." It seriously is though. They line us up at the doors in a hall and then say, "Okay missionaries say a prayer with your companion and begin. You have 20 minutes." And then we all enter the rooms to begin teaching. Which at times feels more.. well like a scare floor run than a missionary opportunity but I love it. The Chinese volunteers are incredible! And I am beginning to be able to teach better. By that I mean, my companion and I are starting to understand how each other teach and alternate off allowing the other to say something intelligent. I will admit sometimes I need to hold back and allow sister Nicholas teach. That is my goal this week.

The Lord truly is blessing me here. I can say honestly he is giving me the gift of tongues as I now can recite the first vision. There is no way that is on me. But it is definitely something I have to work for. I feel like Enos, I am literally praying like all day. I have a cool story-

So I have made a goal to memorize 40 words every other day and I was sitting at the computer for TALL which is a program for language speaking missionaries to help us cause it has native speakers recording. Anyway its very valuable time and we are only given an hour for it. So I was sitting staring blankly at the computer not sure what words I should learn that day. And i had idled away 30 minutes of the time I had. STUPID. But I knew I had to be productive. So I said a prayer. I asked for him to guide me on what words to work on and to please bless me with the gift of tongues. And for the next 30 minutes I was able to memorize 35 new words. The Lord lives. He is blessing us.

Alright, so I LOVE when it is my week to be senior companion! Cause then the week goes how I want it to go and it ROCKS! (for me.) And this week is my week! Whoot Whoot! OOOOHHHHH!!! Good news! I saw Hailee Waldvogel! She is such a cutie and lives in my building .. for the week that she will be here. She is such a gem. Although I find it hard at times not to get jealous that she gets to go so soon when I am just barely passing the half way mark this week. But it is okay. It's humbling because I see them leave so much more converted to the gospel in one week than I am after being here for 4. Perhaps that is why I was called to speak another language.

I think last week I said something about the statistic of missionaries getting hit by cars in Taiwan? Breanna, you are not in Taiwan. Stay away from the cars you could get hurt ;) HAHA!

So the last bit of good news I have for this week is that I now get to be an investigator! Well we all do. We will begin teaching each other this week only its us acting as someone else. I am so stoked to make the Elders life so hard! okay no, but I am really excited, although its a little odd to pretend not to understand the gospel. I think it will take just as much prayer and faith to be an investigator as it is to be a missionary. Well, farewell for now!

Zai Jian!

-Sister Thornley