Week 4 - Bednar try your best, Priesthood lesson solo, Monk tradition and a quiet place, Worthwhile nuggests amongst daily work

Another week down here at the MTC. Things are speeding up a bit. We've been having to teach multiple Cantonese lessons a day which is pretty intimidating. I sometimes feel that they ask too much of us for only having 4 weeks of Cantonese under our belts, but it's not too bad. The progress is slow but it's there. The big exciting part of the week was that Elder Bednar came and spoke at the Tuesday night devotional. He talked a lot about how you can only really know that you are being a good missionary and following the Spirit if you are trying your best at all times. He said we don't have to be good at the language, we don't have to be the best teacher in the world, we don't have to please anyone, as long as we are just trying our best to be good. Not perfect. Good. So that really helped me with my concerns about Cantonese and gave me a good boost throughout the week.

Being District Leader is pretty easy. The only bummer part was that I had to wake up earlier than everyone else on Sunday for a branch meeting. Then, to rub salt in the wound, my companions got sick and stayed home from church all day. We were supposed to give the priesthood lesson together but I ended up having to give it alone with only half of the notes that we planned. I got through it somehow but it definitely wasn't pretty. So Sunday was not very fun, but hopefully I only have to wake up early for one more week. They are combining both Cantonese districts into one on September 2nd and will have to call a new District Leader. The other district is full of some super smart people. A lot of them are going to Ivy Leagues and have crazy stupid high test scores, but most of them all seem pretty miserable. They put so much stress on themselves that I think they forget that being a missionary can be fun too. When we combine, hopefully our portion of the district won't lose its chill.

One way that we have kept our chill this week was that we found an abandoned part of the MTC where we go to study. I'm not allowed to disclose the location because the best part of it is the privacy and quiet. Most of the missionaries in the MTC are still in loud high schooler mode so it is nice to have a quiet place to go. There are couches and clean bathrooms. It is super great. We also started this thing called "The Tradition". Late at night, we all get up and walk down the hallway like monks and take turns drinking from the water fountain. It's super hilarious and a lot of the other elders think it is ridiculous, but in four days, we've doubled our numbers. I don't know whether to feel proud of the beginning of something great or concerned that so many people are willing to participate.

Apparently things have not been slowing down too much in Hong Kong. We heard from our teacher that President Philips has shut down a few areas of the mission for safety. Hopefully we get to go there on time, but if not, a transfer to North Dakota would only kind of be the worst thing ever. 

Honestly, things are getting pretty boring. It's hard to stay motivated all day through classes and stuff. The food is still the same old same old. Every day is about the same thing. But through all of the not fun stuff, there are a bunch of little nuggets that make it all worth it. For example, our TRC, where we have to teach a random member a full lesson in Cantonese, it was the first time that I really felt the Spirit as we taught. The members shared some powerful experiences of the Holy Ghost and even though I could only understand 1/10 words, I could understand the significance behind what they were saying. It was really cool. 

Here's to being 1/24th done with the mission so far! It wasn't so bad. Here's to a good 1/12th! See you all in a while!

-Elder Murray

Pictures

1) our temple trip last week

2) cool sunset over the MTC

3) when my phone got stolen by elder yee

Week 3 - Hong Kong Elders reassigned to Ogden/Idaho Falls, Endless Cantonese Vocab, District Leader, Last Volleyball with Elder Cahoon

The third week is down and I can't believe it. Looking back, it feels like last week was so long ago. That's encouraging and discouraging all at the same time.

Early in the week, each day was full of practice lessons and endless Cantonese vocab. My language is still slow in coming in the eyes of some of the teachers, but I still feel like I'm progressing way faster than I normally would be. I'll keep on putting the pedal to the metal though because there is a long way to go.

The bombshell news this week was when the older Cantonese districts all got told in the middle of classes that they wouldn't be going to Hong Kong for at least a transfer. A lot of them got reassigned to Ogden or Idaho Falls. They said that a guy just came into their room and said that the brethren didn't feel it was safe at the time. Some were ticked off, some were bummed out. The rumors started floating around about the specific reasons why, but nobody knows for sure. You all probably know the situation better than we do. So we have been having district prayers the past couple of nights to pray for whatever is going on.

The other things that happened this week are that I got made District Leader yesterday. I'm not very excited about it because it is just one more layer of pressure on top of everything else but I will do my best anyways. One of the highlights was that I got to play sand volleyball again with Elder Cahoon, this time on the same team. He leaves this week so it was good to catch up with him. We discussed how different it is to be a missionary, how weird new languages can be sometimes, and how tough it can be to be with a companion 24/7. We also won most of our games so that was good.

Our district, since the elevator incident, has been kind of known as the rowdy district. We have been trying really hard to dispel others of this because our teachers are really worried that we hate each other. They were worried about this because it's very likely that when school starts at BYU, there won't be enough teachers and they will combine the districts into one. That was fine with us because all the guys in the other district are totally cool. But we have been going to surprise birthday parties and spike ball tournaments with them just to prove it to our teachers.

Overall it has been a good week. Hopefully nothing too crazy has happened in Hong Kong and it will stay that way. I hope everyone is doing good. See you next week.

-Elder Murray

our "apple" chart. It's a scale we came up with for when we get too distracted in class. Pineapples are the worst, crabapples aren't so bad 

 The district in class again

Sweater Saturday with the whole zone was super hot - a year long zone tradition 

(along with Floral Fridays)

Week 2 - MTC Choir, James Bond and the Spoon Game, Parsley and Peppers, Gift of Tongues is Real Y'all

This week has been pretty uneventful. I've just been getting into the groove of things, learning how everything works better. It felt good not to be the new guys anymore once all of the new missionaries got here on Wednesday. I got to find Elder Sommer and Elder Chidester at their first meal here in the MTC. They are both from Woods Cross and are both going to Hawaii. It was cool to see them. On Tuesday, we got to sing in the MTC choir at the General Authority devotional. That was a super awesome experience. There were about a thousand missionaries in the choir so it was crazy loud but still sounded pretty good. The devotional was great too. It was all about missionary work... crazy how that happened. The big takeaway was that we have the Lord on our side so no matter what we go up against, we can't fail. Even if we failed in our efforts, we still succeeded with Heavenly Father and that's all that matters.

At meal times, I've been hardcore playing the spoon game. Thanks for that one Parker and Marlie. For everyone who doesn't know, you play the spoon game by taking a spoon from the cafeteria, and hiding it on another Elder without them noticing. Not to brag or anything because that's not very christlike, but I'm pretty much the best that there has ever been at the spoon game in the entire universe. I started out small, just slowly slipping them into belt loops and side bags. Then, I graduated to pants pockets and then finally, shirt pockets. The trick is to distract them, get in close, grab them by the shoulders, and drop the spoon as you walk away. So basically I'm James Bond. Just kidding, it's a lot of fun though when the whole district gets in on it.

The past two weeks, as we've been walking around the grounds, I noticed a bunch of plants everywhere that looked like parsley. After a while, I got the courage to finally try some and sure enough, it was parsley. It kind of freaked out my Canto teacher when she saw me just reach down and eat something out of the flower patches. I'm still super confused as to why they just planted parsley everywhere but I got even more confused when I found all of the pepper plants everywhere. They are kind of hidden because the peppers are small and red and they are right next to red flowers, but they are definitely peppers and they are everywhere. The other evening, I reached over and picked a couple for a couple of us in the district to try. We ate them after class and convinced our Canto teacher to eat one too. They were pretty hot. Ok... really hot. There was lots of yelling and crying and running towards the water fountain. It was hilarious and super fun. The best part was that they were fantastic tasting peppers! I'll definitely be picking more later for meals.

(I didn't take any pics or video of us eating the peppers but here's what they look like.)

I'm starting to understand Cantonese a bit more. It's super hard, memorizing the vocab is especially difficult, but I'm starting to understand and create on the fly more. The gift of tongues is real y'all. Cantonese is so tough and I totally wouldn't be able to learn as much as I have in 2 weeks as I would normally. I've been thinking back to high school mandarin and how long it took to get to where I am right now in Cantonese, in mandarin. It's totally crazy how fast things have happened. It doesn't feel like two weeks at all. It feels like such a long time which is great sometimes but not so great other times.

 The best parts of the day are the personal study times. We have a study area right outside our classroom that has huge windows with an awesome view of the mountains and the temple. There's also a speaker system that plays music all the time. It's super relaxing and I learn so much during that time. I also signed up to play the cello during sacrament meeting sometime so hopefully that will follow through.

The MTC is great. It's a lot of work and a lot of pressure, but perspective really is everything. I'm super pumped to start another week, hopefully even better than the last. Hong Kong is going to be great. Unfortunately, the Hong Kong temple is going to be under renovation the whole time we are there, but luckily we will have Disneyland to go to so that will be fun.

Anyways, things are going good here. I know it's only been two weeks out of nine, but I'm starting to get really antsy to get to Hong Kong. I'm trying to enjoy things here as I go though so that I don't miss out on the experience. Thanks for everything! See you in a while!

-Elder Murray

Only other picture I took this week

From Elder Duke's Mom - Spencer and Conner having a smile war at MTC

Week 1 - MTC, Companions, Locked in the Elevator, Pizza Rolls and Twix Ice Cream

Hey all! My first week here at the MTC has been pretty exciting, intimidating, and super fun. The first day was kind of a blur. After saying goodbye to my family, I went through the processing line. It was crazy how fast things happened, but luckily I had Elder Lee from high school to experience it with. Our Cantonese teacher threw a lot of material at us and I got really confused. I tried to translate from Cantonese to the small amount of Mandarin I remember, to English. It didn't go very well. Our teacher, Brother Smith, advised us to try to not think about Mandarin at all when learning Cantonese because they may have their similarities but they have way more differences that can really screw you up. There are six different tones that are super difficult to differentiate. So that's pretty fun... Cantonese is going to be tough but I'm confident that I can stumble my way through it. Luckily, among all of the new missionary confusion, Elder Lee and I got the chance to see Elder Duke a couple of times. It was cool to see how he was handling it. We also got to see Elder Vance, who has been here longer than we have, and he gave us some good tips.

I've got two companions, Elder Siu and Elder Yee. They are both super cool and easy to get along with which is a huge tender mercy. Elder Siu also already knows some Cantonese so he is able to help us out. We have a party with the whole rest of our district. There's Elder Lee with Elder Mead. Elder Mead is from Yorkshire so his accent and overall British-ness brings endless entertainment. It usually ends with not-so-passive aggressive comments about the Revolutionary war. It's all in good fun. There's also Elder Sloan and Elder Mumford. They are both hilarious and have super strong testimonies. The whole district is one big family. I'm glad we are able to joke around and share so easily despite only barely knowing each other.

We've been through thick and thin together, struggling to speak Cantonese, navigating the cafeteria crowd, and getting stuck in an elevator for an hour and a half. On Saturday, after the way back from a workshop, we got in the elevator in our tower. Normally, a couple of guys jump together while a few of us just watch and roll our eyes. On this particular instance, Elder Lee and I made eye contact and kind of communicated "Why the heck not?" so the entire district decided to jump between floors three and four. Yeah... Big mistake. The elevator fell about a foot when we landed (though it's hard to tell) and stopped completely. We had to call someone for help and they told us that we would have to sit still until the OTIS guy could arrive. After some pictures and uncontrollable laughter at our own stupidity, we decided it would be a wise use of our time to watch the Church's "Safety Zone" videos. Funnily enough, they didn't have a section on elevator safety. When the OTIS guy finally opened up the doors and helped us climb out, he very angrily told us we "broke it really good." Yeah... definitely not my proudest moment. We all studied extra hard that day to repent. So far no one has talked to us about it besides other missionaries just wanting to tease us about it.

The rest of the week consisted of class, devotionals, workshops, and more classes. The highlight though was when I finally found my cousin Elder Cahoon. I'd been looking for him for days with no luck, but on Sunday I heard someone yell "Elder Murray". I turned to see Elder Cahoon running my way with a huge smile on his face. It was so good to see him, it really lifted my spirits. We only were able to chat for a little bit but it was enough to make the whole week worth it. I really hope that we cross paths again before he leaves for Rome here in a bit.

Yesterday was Fast Sunday so by the time dinner arrived I was starving. Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to eat because we also went to choir practice so I was still pretty hungry (any future missionaries, go to choir practice, it's SOOO good). When we finally got back to the residency for the day, I decided that it might be a good idea to get some pizza rolls from the vending machine. I was so excited, I'd been looking forward to them for hours. To my dismay, they got stuck and no amount of shaking would get them loose. I was forced to buy the Twix ice cream bar right above them so that they'd fall. At first, I was kind of ticked off. I'd have to spend even more money on something I didn't even really want in the first place. But, I decided to change my perspective about the whole situation. I started to see it as a tender mercy. Kind of jokingly, I thought "Hey, the Lord must have known it was a rough day so he was throwing me a little extra treat that I didn't even know I needed." I know it's kind of a dumb story but the principle is true. It's all about our perspective. When things don't go the way we want, it's important to find the bright side of things, otherwise we'll just sit in our own bad mood because literally nothing ever goes exactly the way we want it to. 

Anyways, it's been a pretty good week and I'm walking into this next one with a bit more confidence. Thanks for everything. I love you all. See you later!

-Elder Murray

Here's some photos of the elevator incident, my companions and district, and the things we found in the fixtures of our desks.