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

Week 8 - Diligence until end of MTC, Flight Plans Christmas, Double Decker Couch Book of Mormon Video Night, MTC continues

We got our flight plans this week! It was pretty exciting to see "Hong Kong" on the letter, we all freaked out a bit. This is the first bit of good news we have seen in a while. But then we remembered the last group got their flight plans like this 10 days before as well. Their plans got changed 3 days before they were supposed to leave. So we are still stoked. We're just hoping we don't get any more emails from the travel office this week. 

There wasn't much that went on this week besides that. Classes have been really emphasizing being diligent until the very end of the MTC so that we can head out into the field as confident and ready as possible. So we have been working extra hard, learning extra grammar and vocabulary, trying to cram in as much as possible. It's been hard work, but good work. All the extra roleplays and teaching visits really are making me excited to be out in the world. They all are super slow and take place with really broken Cantonese, but they still are good lessons. We had little teacher interviews the other day and one of our Cantonese teachers took us out and asked us how we felt about the language and leaving for Hong Kong. I told him I was nervous and a bit intimidated by it all, new culture, new leadership, new companions, difficult language. My teacher responded by saying that he's not worried for me at all, I've learned how to learn Cantonese and deal with difficult new situations. I don't know how much of that is true, but it was definitely reassuring to hear. 

The most fun things happened on Friday this week. We knew we might get our flight plans that day, so we anxiously waited for the email to drop in. There were several false alarms that agitated everybody, but eventually, at the end of class, we got them. We had a good time being excited with each other, we all took pictures by the big map. To celebrate with the Mandarin Elders on our floor who also got their flight plans, we had a Christmas party. They call the day that you get your flight plans "Christmas". So we jammed out eating a whole lot of chips and dip until 9:45 again when we had to clean up like lightning again. These parties are becoming a bit of a regular occurence. We are going to have one more right before we leave and it is supposed to be a real rager. 

 

On Sunday, we had to say goodbye to our Branch President unexpectedly in Sacrament meeting as he was getting swapped around in some big rotation. It was a bummer, he was a really awesome guy. But our new Branch President seems really cool too. 

After Sacrament meeting, our companionship had to go teach the priesthood lesson. Despite only planning for a few minutes the night before (nice) we taught a really good lesson about keeping the Sabbath day holy and making it a delight. It made me a bit homesick for all the fun family parties. After all the rest of the meetings for the day, we had our devotional all about Preach My Gospel from some branch missionaries serving here. It was pretty darn good, we know a guy and he got us the best seats in the house with the international missionaries who need translating. After that, we had movie night. We fired up some bags of popcorn, hopped on one of the bunk beds like a double decker couch from the Lego movie, and put someone's phone on the desk to watch the first episode of the new Book of Mormon videos. There are pretty decent, a little cheesy at times, but decent. It was fun at least just to have something to do last night. 

Other than that, it was a pretty boring week. I'm pretty sick of the food and the same schedule and things every single day, but I'm also anxious to make the most of this last week. We are just praying that nothing bad happens in Hong Kong these next couple of days, especially with that holiday coming up. Anyways, thanks for everything!

- Elder Murray

(UPDATE on Flights: They got a letter this Tuesday that they were allowed to forward to us.  They are staying in the MTC until at least Oct 1 when the Brethren will assess and make a decision.  Oct 1 is the Anniversary of People's Republic of China. )

Week 7 - M&M Salad, Elder Lee Birthday, Jellyfish Shark Tank, TRC Gift of Tongues

Seven weeks in! I'm starting to get a bet antsy to get out of here. Don't get me wrong, it's great most of the time, but I'm ready for something different. The food has repeated a couple of times and almost every day is the same in class. But there are some really good things I'll miss about the MTC. For example, everyday brings a new spiritual experience. We get so much time to study and share our thoughts about the scriptures that I feel like I've been able to learn something new everyday. The devotionals are especially uplifting whenever we have a GA come by and teach. And the MTC itself is just a fun place a lot of the time. People do dumb fun stuff all of the time. I went down to the Mandarin Elder's floor in the residency and they showed me their jellyfish and shark tank. It was literally a cardboard box lined with a few clear trash liners, filled with water and those slimy dinosaurs that grow in water and a few rubber gloves filled with water. It was great. They all had names and the elders had an extendable back scratcher that they would use to lift things out of the water. Their enthusiasm about it was super awesome. So I'm ready to get out of here, but I don't want to leave just yet. I'll do my best to make the most out of these last two weeks.

Monday was P-day and I wrote emails, did laundry, and went to the temple. It was fun but we had our first member TRC over Skype with someone in Hong Kong. The problem was that no one actually from Hong Kong picked up. We sat around waiting for a while when Elder Lee's mom (who speaks Cantonese) finally was able to be taught by two elders, and a TRC worker's mother from California could be taught by us. It was a super awesome experience as she actually knew Elder Siu a little bit. I was able to understand a lot of what she said, but she was super helpful in helping us out when we had misunderstandings. We had time to share a little bit of a lesson and then share our testimonies. I got in the zone and my Cantonese flowed a bit better. Gift of Tongues is real. By the end of it, we actually had her tearing up which all gave us a big boost of confidence that we really do have the Spirit on our side. I'm excited for tonight's TRC. I hope it goes half as well.

Tuesday we were back to class as usual. I don't really remember much from the day, but in the evening, we had Elder Stevenson come speak to us. He spoke about using the scriptures, the missionary handbook, and Preach My Gospel as our missionary toolkit. We need to learn these things inside and out to be more effective missionaries. It was pretty short, but nice and sweet.

Wednesday was Elder Lee's birthday, so at the end of it, we held a party for him. It was pretty crazy. Elder Lee invited elders from all over the MTC so the little study area in our building got packed. We ate snacks and joked around for a good 15 minutes but made a mad dash to have it all put away by quiet time. It was pretty hilarious, I'll put in some pictures of it. 

At dinner, Elder Siu was getting salad, but he wanted M&Ms at the same time. The only problem was that he didn't want to carry two bowls, so he put it all in the same one, ranch dressing and everything. The picture was after we asked him about it so he hammed it up, but at the time, he was dead serious about it being a good idea. It was hilarious. 

Elder Hilbig from the Mandarin district decided to draw a hyper-realistic portrait of the event.

Thursday, was a just a boring old day. We had class and everything. My slow Cantonese progress improves a little bit each day. One funny thing that happened was that our teacher was super sick (probably from us) and was struggling to teach. To cheer her up and make her healthy, we thought it would be a great idea to steal one of the handsanitizer dispensers from down hall and put it in our room. We kind of just put it down and sat down at our desks like everything was normal. She just kind of stared at it a bit, then went over and got some sanitizer and started like everything was normal. It was pretty dang funny and we all cracked up for a few minutes. She made us take it back of course but not after we all got a picture. 

Friday morning, Elder Sloan and I took an early morning run. It's been pretty nippy, but it was worth it to see the MTC empty in the dark with all the lights on. Pretty trippy. Then, during study time, Elder Yee fell asleep in the chair next to me, so we decided to take advantage of the situation. He was seriously out, so we just kept seeing how many tissues we could put on him. We eventually gave up because we didn't want to waste an entire box, but it took him forever to wake up. Everyone thought it was pretty hilarious.

Saturday, the only memorable thing was the Great Bean Dipping war. For those of you who don't know, it's basically a game where you try to slap each other on the chest as hard as you can. Elder Watts (another Canto), when we were all back at the dorms at the end of the day, screamed "LETS START A WAR!" People went crazy, there was yelling, running, much pain and great anguish. At one point, a group of Elders came to me with a truce, but they betrayed me and held my arms back as I got destroyed. It was awful...ly hilarious. To get back at them, I put a pillow up my shirt to try to protect myself as I went gangbusters. Unfortunately, they quickly got the pillow away and I got destroyed again. War truly is an horrible thing. But it was a lot of fun too.

Yesterday, it was nice not to have to wake up early for Branch Council for once. I didn't have to speak, but our district did have to go usher people for the devotional. It was pretty fun, but I was surprised how many missionaries have a problem sitting a few rows over from where they wanted to sit. Kind of funny really. We watched the face to face with Elder Soares. It was really good, but they kind of lost me when they tried to translate Portuguese and Spanish on the fly. It didn't make a whole lot of sense, but I bet they said some good things.

We haven't heard of anything crazy from Hong Kong lately which I guess is good news. The earliest we would have any sort of flight plans would be this Friday, but it is doubtful. They'll probably wait until the last minute just to see what happens. We are supposed to get there right on the Independence holiday in China when everything is supposed to escalate apparently, so there is reason to believe we might be delayed. But we also have heard the mission is dying for new missionaries now that so many have gone home this summer, so there is reason to believe that they might risk it if it isn't terrible. Who knows, we'll see. 

Anyways, thanks for reading such a long letter. I'm going to have a lot less time in the field to write, so I'm getting it in now. See you in a while!

-Elder Murray

Conner found his cousin who just entered the MTC

Week 6 - Fainting, President Nelson Birthday, Sister Fung - Don't worry and Enjoy The Present

One more week down. This one involved a lot less sickness fortunately. On Tuesday, both Cantonese classes combined into one to prepare for the incoming Cantos this week. It makes it a bit harder to learn in such a crowded room, but it's not awful. Cantonese is still hard as ever and progress is slow. This week, we start teaching members in Hong Kong over Skype so that will be fun. Hopefully we will be able to understand them pretty well. 

On Tuesday morning, Elder Mead (the elder who I spent the last week being sick with) kept fainting and ended up going to the emergency room. They tested him for hours and concluded that it must have just been stress from the MTC. He had to be in a wheelchair for a while just in case he fell or fainted again so he wouldn't get hurt. He had a great time making fun of the whole thing, but it was a bit scary for the rest of us. He's totally fine now so that's a blessing. When he finally got back from the hospital that night, we had a chips and salsa party and played a ton of Uno. It was rad. Sister Fung gave us some good advice that night too during devotional review. She is from Hong Kong and serves with her husband over the branch. She admonished us not to worry too much about the language in the MTC. We should do our best to learn it as best we can, but our first priority should be to deepen our own conversion first. That took some of the pressure off and I have actually been finding myself learning the language a lot better ever since.

Wednesday and Thursday were pretty much normal. Classes, studying, weird MTC food. The works. Then Friday, we got to ditch our evening classes to go set up for the President Nelson Birthday Celebration. They streamed it in the gym, so it was our job to turn it into an auditorium again. The actual celebration was super fun to watch. We learned some cool things about the prophet and got to listen to some really cool music. I think most of the missionaries just enjoyed being out of class a bit earlier. Beforehand, we got some birthday decorations from Elder Lee and the Mandarin district and took a happy birthday picture for President Nelson, it was pretty funny.

Saturday was a pretty normal day too. We taught more TRCs, this time to a bunch of Hong Kong RMs. They had a bit too much fun speaking fast to us and making fun of our language mistakes, but it ended up not being too bad. They gave us good advice about enjoying our time in the country because it goes by way faster than you want it to. I'm trying to live that here in the MTC because even thought it's not the best at times, I know I'll probably miss it when I'm in the thick of things in Hong Kong, eating my third helping of pig brain. But I'll enjoy that too... I hope.

Yesterday, I got released as District Leader which was a very nice release of pressure. It wasn't a very difficult calling, but it made things just that much more difficult. I can't help but feel glad that I don't have to do that anymore. The bummer part is that it was goodbye for a lot of good friends. All of the mandarin missionaries in the zone left this morning, so we had to say goodbye last night. I also said goodbye to Elder Levitri as he goes to Ukraine today. It was a bummer with everyone, but at least Elder Levitri and I made plans to play in a band together when we get back. The funny thing was that this morning, my dad met Elder Beam, one of the mandarin elders, at the airport. What a small world!

We are getting anxious for Hong Kong because the mission is running out of missionaries and really need our group as soon as possible, but things aren't really cooling down as much as we would like. Oh well, there is a still time and who knows what will happen. I know that whatever happens, I'll be able to do whatever the Lord will require me to do. His plan for me is better than anything I could plan for myself, even if it doesn't seem like it in the moment. 

Anyways, thanks for reading! Here's to another good week! See you in a while!

-Elder Murray

Chips and Salsa Party

 The Combined Cantonese Classes

Elder Yee and I in Class

Pretty Sky One Morning

Happy Birthday President Nelson

Floral Tie Friday