Once President Wahlen got there and drove us to the mission office, I started to see how similar and how different Canada really is to the US. For a lot of the drive, I felt like I was back in Bountiful or something. But Vancouver is way more diverse than Utah. Seriously, there are communities of every different ethnicity and nationality here.
Luckily, I got the privilege of serving in one of the Mandarin areas. Unluckily, I hardly remember any of my Mandarin and what I do remember gets confused easily with my Cantonese now. It's good, I'm learning, but I'm basically mute for the time being in lessons and such. My companion is Elder Sun. He's from Beijing but he and his family emigrated to Toronto Canada a few years ago. He's awesome. His English is fantastic, but his "Cantonese" is hilarious. It's the equivalent of an American adding "-ito" to the end of every word and calling it Spanish. It gets a laugh out of the few Cantonese members of the ward. Elder Sloan from the MTC and I are in the same apartment so we get to practice together still. We even went out on our own to teach a lesson to Cantonese members from the ward. It was a ton of fun, like stretching your legs after a long drive.
The rest of the week has been a blur, I don't really know where I am most of the time, we drive all across Langley, BC to visit people. But it's fun. I had to gear up on sweaters and thicker pants from the thrift store next to the mall so that I don't die when Winter comes around. Since it was by the mall, I got brand new pants and sweaters from like Tommy Hilfiger and Banana Republic for 8 american dollars a piece. Pretty good haul especially since one of the second hand sweaters came with 5 american dollars in the pocket too. Another highlight of the week was trying poutine for the first time. We just got it from the Costco food court, but it's super tasty. It's fries topped with cheese curds and beef gravy. All the best things for your arteries.
Another good thing is that our chapel is right next to the Vancouver temple, we get to see it multiple times a day. We went in for a session on P day today and it was really cool. Monday was also Canadian Thanksgiving, so we went for a Chinese ward group potluck on Friday night to celebrate. Our job was to bring a game, so I used an idea from Youth Conference. I can't remember who exactly came up with it, but thank you, it was a hit. It was the thing were you all take turns taking things away from a list of things in your life to narrow it down to the few things you value most. We tied it into gratitude and thankfulness for families and the gospel. I say we but it was really just our two native Chinese speaking companions who did it. All the nonmembers at the potluck loved the game so I'd call that a success.
Anyways that's all for me this week. I'm still adjusting to things here, getting settled in, but it's a good time. See you next week!
-Elder Murray
No comments:
Post a Comment