Week 13 - Christmas Materials and New Handbook, Mandarin and Finding Fun, Skyped Cantonese, Stay Positive and Happy

This week was a pretty darn good week if I do say so myself. We had zone conference on Tuesday where President Wahlen came and showed us all the Christmas videos and materials we'll have to use. It was super cool, no spoilers, but the church made a historically accurate nativity video and it's awesome. Part of the stuff from the missionary department for Christmas is a giant chalkboard set up thing for a big city square or something. The idea is that there are prompts or questions all around the chalkboard and we as missionaries go around talking to people about them and the church but in normal clothes, no tags, and going by our first names. Everyone is pretty stoked about that one. Also we got a little more information about the new missionary handbook coming out soon. There's been a lot of crazy and fun rumors and theories about what exactly will change with it. I personally hope there's a specific clause in there that allows missionaries to go see Star Wars episode 9, but that's just a guess. The real big change though is that it's going to be a lot more reliant on our agency to make righteous choices and be responsible. One of the big things President wanted to teach us is that we should look at everything we do with the perspective of how it will fulfill our missionary purpose, not just if it falls in line with a rule or guideline.

The work this week continues to be work. My Mandarin is getting better slowly, but I'm still practically deaf and mute in all of our lessons. It's good though, I do what I can. Our zone has been doing this "Amazing Race" type challenge thing where you have to do a bunch of objectives while out finding. One of them is to use analogy of the gospel with a rubber duck, or compliment 10 people on their shoes, or use the word llama. It's been pretty fun, making the work seem less like work. One of the brighter spots is that one of our friends this week passed his baptismal interview and is planning on getting baptized next week! This whole time we've been kind of wondering how well he's accepting what we are teaching because he's a 17 year old, but there have been little signs along the way. Like, he started to come to church in a suit, he started to pray on his own, he started to go to youth activities. Then, when we got to brass tacks about the interview questions, like being asked if he believes in God and the Restoration and stuff, he was like "Yeah, of course I believe it." So that was pretty cool to happen this week. We're still working with his family. 

Elder Sloan and I also had our first Cantonese tutoring over skype. The teacher told us that he and two other people had been hired by the MTC to specifically teach all the Hong Kong missionaries their languages so that they can be ready when things ease back up. Apparently this came directly from the Quorum of the Twelve I guess. No pressure or anything. I was planning on just focusing most of my time on Mandarin, but I guess I've got to focus on both. No problem at all...

Other than that, it's been pretty normal. I'm still getting used to things, finding a groove, but it's been a fun ride so far. I had an exchange with an Elder who is going home in a few weeks, he gave me a lot of advice on how to stay positive and happy throughout the whole two years. He had a bunch of crazy stories to tell. He had some really rough challenges to overcome, but he was always able to look back on it fondly and see the bright side of things. I'm going to try to be like that, have no regrets, just good stories. He said that's why God gives us challenges on the mission, they're tender mercies so that we can have cool stories when we get back. I like that perspective. I think it can apply to a whole lot of other stuff too.

Anyways, see y'all around, eh?

- Elder Murray