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.
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