Week 15 - Good news - on my way to Hong Kong!

Well I've got some good news. I'm on the way to Hong Kong right now. We got a call yesterday at 8:00 AM saying that we got the greenlight to leave and we would leave at 4:00 AM the next morning. So yeah. Pretty wild. I spent most of the day packing and prepping. We had to drive down to the Richmond office for dinner with President and Sister Wahlen and then slept at the AP's house. It doesn't seem real. It was weird to say goodbye to Elder Sun and Elder Tan. We're all pretty stoked because we were all fully prepared to stay for a long long time in Canada. It's also pretty sketch because we have heard a little bit of what's going on right now on the news. But we'll be fine, the areas where all the crap is going down are closed. The funny part is that the older group of Hong Kong missionaries are still stuck for another transfer due to Visa problems. Anyways, not much else happened this week, lots of lessons and finding through Tai Chi and ping pong. It's hard to leave Willoughby right now because I feel like I'm finally just getting comfortable in the area, finally able to talk somewhat with our people we are teaching. Seriously, they just barely started to acknowledge my existence, but I guess it's time to go. Wish me luck! I may have time to write a more fleshed out letter later.

-Elder Murray

Week 14 - Baptism, Canadian Toque, Halloween, Cello Playing Again, Chinese Flashcard on phone

Happy Halloween! This week has been pretty good. I'm still plucking away here in the great white north. I got a real canadian Toque (beanie) this week so that's pretty flippin sweet. 

The big exciting thing that happened this week was that our friend was baptized on Saturday. It was pretty great to see. He is the first in his family so far. We had his friend from the priest quorum baptize him. The only problem was that our friend is like 7 feet tall and the priest is like 5'2". So he had to be dunked three times, the last one on his knees. It was really cool to see how he changed afterwards though. After the confirmation yesterday, he and his family came to practice fencing in the gym. Both Elder Sun and I noticed that he seemed more confident, stood a little straighter, and just seemed more sure in who he was and what he was doing. He's in high school so that is super important to have. Hopefully is family will notice too and follow his example.

Other than that it was a pretty normal week. Lots of time was spent on my part trying to follow conversations in Mandarin and trying to chime in every once in a while, but that's rare still. It's tough, I don't have nearly as much time as I would like to study, but I'm still getting better. Thank goodness for phones so that I can have chinese flashcards on me at all times. 

On Halloween, we had to be in at 6:00, but as we were driving home, there was a huge house fire right next to the temple. It was crazy, there were a ton of fire trucks, the flames were super tall. Luckily they got it under control, but the house butts up right next to the edge of the temple property, it was pretty exciting. The house was abandoned so nobody got hurt. The mission office thought that since we had all this extra time on Halloween, it would be a great chance to deep clean our apartments. Gee... Luckily I still found time to put up some halloween decorations and carve pumpkins with Elder Sloan. It was a blast and our apartment is now sparkly clean.

Yesterday evening, Elder Tan (Elder Sloan's companion) and I went to a rehearsal for our Stake's performance of the Messiah for Christmas. Our ward mission leader was super kind and rented us instruments to play for this and service opportunities at senior care facilities. So I got to play cello for a while last night and meet some new people. There's a few members of another faith that came too so we got to chat with them for a bit. President Wahlen is keen on the idea of having us use this opportunity to reach out to people through music. In any event, it's just nice to be able to cello again. 

But yeah. That's it for this week. Life goes on. I've got that 1/8th of the way checkpoint under my belt now so that's nice. Hope things are doing pretty good on the homefront. See you later!

-Elder Murray

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

Week 12 - Candy, Soda, and Chinese Signs; Unstoppable Future, Rain, Here to Listen and Mourn and show Heavenly Father's Love

This marks 2 weeks in Canada now. Most of the time I forget I'm in a different country, everything is so similar. The only big noticeable differences between here and the US are the candy, the soda, and the crazy amount of Chinese signs. All the candy has different logos or is something from Cadbury. Cream soda is popular here, but it's pink. The  most popular kind is Crush cream soda which is a bit different to see. And in some parts of Canada, like Richmond, you feel like you are in a totally different part of the world. Downtown Richmond is almost entirely Chinese stores and shops, it's crazy.

My week has been pretty long but really quick at the same time. It's long because a lot of it is spent trying to listen to my companion speak Mandarin to people and comprehend what they are saying. I'm definitely learning a lot of new Mandarin words and grammar principles, but I am a long way away from being able to participate much. All the Mandarin I learned in school and in Taiwan has been replaced in my brain by Cantonese. I'll think of something to say in Mandarin, and then my mouth will say the Cantonese words for it. But think, once I get the hang of both, I'll be unstoppable! 

It's very wet here. It has been raining pretty much nonstop the whole week. This is good for me because I love rainy weather, but it kind of makes it hard to find people. It's nice that we have a car, otherwise I don't know how much I would enjoy the rain. People say that it won't really snow here except for one day in February maybe. That's a bit of a bummer and a blessing because I love the snow but it can be a real hassle. 

One cool experience I had this week was going on an exchange with an English elder in Richmond. We went finding at a park right on the beach. It was so cool to see and touch the Ocean, but it was windy and cold as all get out. When we were leaving, this guy sees the English elder's Book of Mormon in his hands and yells at us "Hey! Is that the Bible?" We were a little stunned so all we responded with was "Uh... it's similar" and he yelled back "What do you mean it's similar?" and started walking towards us. We were nervous he wanted to bash or something, but he immediately told us that he had felt drawn to come to the beach and to talk to us when he saw us. He was a bit drunk we could tell, but he talked to us very animatedly about the death of his son and the funeral the day before. We did a lot of listening while he got a lot of things off his chest. It was a super sad story and you could tell he was just sick with grief. In between his words, we managed to share our condolences and our testimony of how the Book of Mormon will help him find peace. We told him we knew he would see his son again and that we had both been led to find each other (we had felt prompted to walk down the street he was on but didn't think much of it). We managed  to give him the Book of Mormon with the missionaries' number before he left. I hope he reads it and finds some peace, but I think that's not the main reason why we were supposed to find him. I think that God put us there, in the way of his grieving child, just to listen to him, to mourn with him as he mourned. It wasn't much but I think that just a listening ear really was what this man needed. I hope more comes of it for him, but if not, I think we fulfilled our purpose there. It was tender to so clearly see how much Heavenly Father loves his children all over the world.

Anyways, I'm still here, still adjusting. There are good parts of every day and not so good parts too. But what matters is that we focus on the few good parts than the bad parts. I know that the gospel helps us enjoy those good parts more fully and endure the bad parts a little easier. Keep on being awesome!

-Elder Murray

Week 11 - Vancouver or Bountiful? Assigned Mandarin after learning Cantonese, $5 Thrift Sweater Bonus, Canadian Thanksgiving

Hello from Vancouver! After the two hour flight on Monday, I landed in YVR and breezed right through immigration. A little too easily actually, no one was there to pick us up. We were supposed to spend hours getting special work forms and things filled out, but the two immigration officers just looked at each other and said "Do we have to do anything special for missionaries? Nah." and sent us right on in. 

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

Week 10 - Vancouver BC, Uchtdorf Hobbit Adventure, Goodbyes

Well, I'm off. This week we got some exciting but not unexpected news. We were all reassigned for at least a transfer. I'm been sent to the Vancouver Canada mission. Right now I'm on the plane to Canada writing this letter. This all happened pretty fast between finding out we would be reassigned, being reassigned, getting our flight plans, and then packing and leaving. It's been wild. I still don't know if I'll be called to speak any Chinese or not, but I hope so. I don't want to lose all my hard work with Cantonese. I don't know how long I'll be there. My Cantonese teacher from Hong Kong thinks we could be there by February, but one of my branch presidents thinks that's pretty optimistic. So we'll see. I'm not complaining, British Columbia looks like an amazing mission, I could totally see myself spending a lot of time there. There's also a lot of Chinese speakers in Vancouver so hopefully I'll get called to one of the Mandarin branches at least. It's exciting and daunting to finally be heading out into the field. I've been in the MTC so long that I thought I might never leave. I'm excited for Canada but I'm also worried for Hong Kong. I hope we get to go there sooner rather than later.

The last week in the MTC was pretty fun. It was hard to say goodbye to more friends as they left and even harder to say goodbye to our Cantonese teachers. They were both super amazing friends and teachers. Brother Smith and Sister Yau really did a lot to help us be prepared for the field and to teach as best we can in Cantonese. I think everyone in the class will miss them. The bright spot of the work was getting to watch Conference. It was super great, especially Elder Uchtdorf's talk when he mentioned the Hobbit. Everyone in the auditorium was freaking out a bit. It was fun. I especially liked Elder Anderson's talk on joy, I can't wait for them to all come out on Gospel Library.

That's about it. I'm feeling a bit nervous right now, butterflies in my stomach. It feels surreal to be out in the world again. I'm hoping I can make my way through these first couple of weeks in the field well. Wish me luck!

UPDATE

I made it to Vancouver, we apparently messed up going through customs so we possibly might be here illegally but we'll see. We just told them we were missionaries and they kind of like asked "do we need to do anything for that?" Shrugged and let us in. Apparently we need some work forms or something. We got out a couple hours earlier than expected so we waited for a bit for our mission president to show up. Canada is pretty much the US but just a little bit north. It seriously feels like Davis County. Another fun thing, they thought we were learning mandarin in the MTC but that is 100% not true. So we have plans to go street contacting tonight in Mandarin so that will be fun. Honestly, this is all so surreal that I hardly know what's going on. It's pretty sweet, I'm pretty pumped.

-Elder Murray

Me with Brother Smith 

Me with one of our tutors Brother Ngh

Made it to Vancouver with 3 MTC Fellow Cantonese Learners

Week 9 - Good News and Bad News - Still in the MTC, $5, Adopted Beto Burrito, Match His Message

Well the good news is I'm still here. But that's also the bad news, I'm still here. We should have left for Hong Kong at 3:30 AM today, but on Tuesday, we got an email saying that the brethren would like to wait until after October 1st, the China celebration, to make a decision. So that means we are stuck here an extra week. On Friday we got flight plans again for the 7th that I hope we get to use. It's not a huge deal, just kind of a bummer. One of our awesome Cantonese teachers was planning on quitting right after we left, so his last day is Tuesday. We have to find another teacher for the rest of the week to fill in. We've had to say goodbye to a lot of good friends last night who are all leaving this morning. We wish we could be leaving with them. Oh well, I'd rather be in the MTC than in the Hong Kong airport during a protest. We had a couple from our Branch Presidency return from Hong Kong the other day from an extended stay. They said it was totally fine and safe during the day, but after 8:00PM or any weekend day, it's pretty much a mess. He said that in the evening, the police will stop buses and trains and search all the young people, especially if they are wearing a gas mask or something. So if we do get there soon, we'll have to listen to our mission president's instructions very carefully. I'm not worried though, I'm sure the brethren have a good grasp of the situation and are receiving revelation right now about what to do with us. We are definitely in the Lord's hands. Also I officially won the bet with Elder Yee. I'm the proud owner of a slightly wrinkled but very valuable five dollar bill. We got a funny picture of him passing it along looking all sad and me all happy. Really we were all a bit sad, but we had been expecting this for a while, so it was just kind of a confirmation.

Other than all that excitement from the week, not much else happened. On Monday night, I got a package from home full of all of the instant ramen in our house, all the legit stuff I collected in Taiwan. Noodles around here are the most valuable thing you can have. People are desperate for any kind of different food that they just go ape for ramen. I had way too much of it, so the whole night, I was like ramen Santa, handing out bowls and packets to everyone looking down. It honestly sounds ridiculous, but it really did make people's day. I gave the really good stuff to the Elders in the district, I got to be a hero for the night. We ate the good stuff from Taiwan together and it was amazing. We felt like Sam and Frodo, having forgotten the taste of food and water. It tasted so good and made a lot of people very happy. Best package ever.

The devotional speaker from Tuesday was Elder Kearon from the Seventy. He's a Brit, so Elder Mead was very pleased to hear him speak. He also gave a totally amazing talk, really good stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if he was one of the next apostles. He and his wife talked about not worrying about the things that are out of our control. Even things like the language have to come with time. What we can focus on right now is matching His message. If we show in our behavior and on our faces how much we love the Gospel each and every day, that's what's going to drive people our way and that's how they'll be converted. It was super uplifting, it really made me worry a lot less about the field which I needed. 

On Friday morning, I just randomly found a fresh, uneaten Beto's bacon and egg burrito just lying down on the sidewalk on the way to the field. Who would just leave it there? Certainly not my older brother Parker and his wife, they know how much I love burritos and would never just leave them lying around somewhere for just anyone to pick them up. That would just be ridiculous. I decided to adopt the poor thing by putting it in my jacket to take back into the MTC. It was delicious.

Sunday was a bittersweet day. It was sweet because we had a really good fast and testimony meeting with all of the departing Mandarin elders who we have made really good friends with, and bitter because we had to say goodbye to them too. I also had to say goodbye to Elder Duke. It was such a blessing to be in the MTC at the same time and to work so closely together at service and things, but it's going to be hard not to have that. He'll kill it in New York. He's probably one of the most dedicated missionaries I know. 

Overall, it was a pretty decent week. A lot of not fun things combined with a few really fun things made it pretty darn okay. The trick is to focus on the really fun things and not the other way around. I'm going to head into this next bonus week trying my best to make the best of it. Anyways, that's it for me. See you all in a bit!

-Elder Murray