The Power of Simplicity

Leih hou!

Time sure is flying by. Once again, SO MUCH TO TELL YOU. So hopefully I can get it all in! This keyboard I'm typing on is super old, so hopefully I can type...

P-Day…so great. We went to the temple last week, but this week it's closed for cleaning, so we just went up and sat by the temple and did some studying this morning. The beset thing about P-Day is P-Day gym time. It's an hour and a half instead of just an hour. Our whole zone plays volleyball and it's the best! My companions aren't super into it, but they understand I need it way bad, so they're good sports to go.

Mom, you wanted a better explanation of the whole investigator-teaching thing. So here at the MTC they have returned missionaries or people that speak the language who are members of the church who come and we are told what room they are in, and we go knock on their door and teach them like we would a normal investigator out in the field. They don't speak any English and they act like a real investigator would. It's pretty cool.

Also, you asked about my Chinese name! I can't believe I didn't tell you! Okay, so yes, we walked into class and they gave us our Chinese names first thing. I am now Loh Ji Muih. I can't figure out how to do the cool line thingies over the letters on the computer but there's a falling line over the o in Loh. And because there's an H at the end that means it's a low tone and the falling line makes it low falling. Then Ji Muih means sister and there's rising tones on both of those but the H on the end of Muih makes it low, so it's low rising. On and the J is kind of a z sound so phonetically it sounds like Loh zi muoy. The muih sounds like buoy like you use in the water, but with a M. Does any of that even make sense?? Haha think that's confusing, try coming to class. But I like it! It kind of sounds like Mo; so it's chill.

So we taught a lesson on Tuesday and it went really well! We taught the plan of salvation and the spirit was so strong!! We still are very limited on our language, but we understood most of what Stellar was saying and we were able to answer most of her questions. The thing about teaching in a language you don't really understand is that you have to get a little creative. I drew out the plan of salvation on the whiteboard and was using really simple words to explain what everything was, and I got to the 3 kingdoms and outer darkness and couldn't find the words to explain it, so I just pointed to the Celestial Kingdom and said "Fei Seurn Hou" (VERY good) then the Terrestrial and said "Hou hou" (Pretty Good) the Telestial Kingdom and said "Hou" (good) and then outer darkness and said "MH HOU" (Very Bad). There's no way if she was a real investigator that she would have understood what I said, but because she's an RM she got what I was trying to say and actually started laughing at me So I figured that was her way to saying "That's a super great effort and thanks for trying. You sound hilarious." But we came out of that lesson so pumped! She accepted our invitation to read the Book of Mormon and she seemed really excited about it.

That night we had our Tuesday devotional and it was AMAZING. Not one. Not two. Not three. Not four. Not even five. But SIX apostles were there! Elder Nelson, Elder Ballard, Elder Bednar, Elder Anderson, Elder Oaks and Elder Christofferson were all there! The spirit was absolutely indescribable. It went dead silent as they started entering the gym and they just kept on coming in! It was crazy!

Elder Christofferson was the speaker that evening and he gave a great talk on the worth of souls. One thing he said that really stood out tome was that, "a mission will be one of the most exciting and humbling experiences of your life." Couldn't have said it better myself. It's such an amazing thing, but you learn real quickly that you need the Lord in everything that you do or you will fail. And fail badly, especially if you're trying to learn a language. No missionary can do it without the spirit. Period. End of story.

This was clearly demonstrated in our lesson with Stellar on Wednesday. Oh boy. It went so awful. We didn't know we were teaching her till the morning of and so we kind of threw together this lesson and I could tell it wasn't going to go well as we were planning, which is never a good sign. We followed up with her on the reading of the Book of Mormon and she said she didn't understand any of it and if we could help her read it. "No we can't help you read it, we don't understand any of it either!!" I didn't really say that, I just thought it. Then we tried to teach her about baptism and she acted super bored and uninterested. We couldn't understand her really and she had no clue what we were saying. It was getting towards the end and it was just real bad and my heart just hurt because there were so many things I wanted to say to her but I still don't know a whole lot. So my companions and I are just looking at each other and I was feeling super frustrated and flipping through my book trying to know what to say and I couldn't find anything. So I just looked at her and said, "We love you and God loves you." And BOOM. Spirit was back. I've never felt so much love for someone I don't know in my whole life. And she's not even a real investigator. So we left that lesson not as excited, but I definitely left that lesson learning a whole lot more about teaching with the spirit than I did in any of our other lessons.

Thursday our district was chosen to go be a practice class for new teachers at the MTC. So we go into this class and everyone spoke ENGLISH. It was great. They were working on a demonstration where there was an investigator and the teacher and our district was a giant companionship with the teacher and we taught a lesson to this investigator. It was definitely something that we needed. I think at that point we were all a little frustrated with teaching because we were focusing way more on the language rather than actually learning how to teach. One thing I really took away from it was that as we teach we need to focus much more on what we feel rather than what we think. And that goes for a lot of things. That's certainly something that I struggle with, and it's hard. But when we focus on the feelings we have of the spirit and where that takes us, rather than what would logically make sense, things go so much better.

Friday was the day of the Sister take over on the four square court. There's 4 other sisters that are in my zone who play four square sometimes and we decided we were sick of the Elders and and all their politics on the four square court, so we all ganged up and would work together to get them all out. It was so great. Sister Brown and I play "Revenge" a lot as well (that game where you shoot from the free throw line and if the person behind you makes it before you then you're out) and I'm pretty sure that somewhere in my setting apart I received special basketball skills because we tear it up!

I got your package Saturday and it was great! All the Elders attacked when they hear the words "homemade cookies" so thanks from all the Elders and me! They were way good!!

Friday they told us that we weren't going to teach Stellar anymore and that we would get new investigators. I was super sad, but on Saturday we showed up to class and guess who our teacher was?! It was Stellar! Her real name is Sister Cook, and I still don't know where "Stellar" came from, but it was so awesome! So we now have two teachers, both Sisters in their twenties and they are both RM's from Utah that both went to HK on their missions. They're the best! We get two new investigators to start teaching this week, so that should be good!

Sundays here are amazing. Our sacrament meetings are cool because our Branch President assigns a topic and everyone has to write a 3-5 minute talk during the week and then on Sunday they just get up and tell us who's speaking. (Just like your zone conferences, mom!) Then after sacrament meeting we have a district review and everyone who doesn't speak gets to share part of what they prepared so it's pretty neat.

One thing I've learned while being here is the power of a simple testimony. I've never been really great at expressing my feelings, and I feel like often when I try to bare my testimony in English that I ramble on and it doesn't always make sense. When I bare it in Cantonese, it still doesn't always make sense, but for a completely different reason, but I'm able to speak with a lot more power. I can't complicate it with a whole bunch of words. The gift of tongues is a real thing. In our lessons and in class you can feel it. We're only able to speak simply, but it's much more powerful that way. We're at the point where we can pray and bear our testimonies in Cantonese and I've got our purpose and half of the first vision memorized. It's incredible because I know for a fact that there's no way that I could do this alone. There's just NO way. It was said in our Sunday evening devotional that, "If you ever think that you can't, you're right. But with the Lord, you can do anything." I know that to be true.

I love you all and I'm so grateful for all your love and prayers. I can feel it! The church is true. Remember, it's all about the little things!

Love,

Sister Robinson

Editor's Note…She apologized for no photos and said there would be lots next week!!