People-Love

Well folks, it's been another great week here at the MTC! I feel like a broken record saying that, but really, every week is great when you're serving the Lord!

So first off. I realized I've never really said much about the people in my district. So here's the run down!

#teamhongkong

Sister Killpack: Ngoh ge tongbuhn! (My companion) She's from Santaquin, Utah and went to Snow for a year. She's super great and way hilarious! She's more of the quiet type, so when she says something funny, it's super hilarious! I love and appreciate her easy goingness and her love for the work we're doing. Very strong testimony and very humble!

Sister Crook: Ngoh ge tongbun! (My companion) She's from Layton,Utah and also went to Snow for a year. She loves music and can play just about every instrument! She is so great to always share her talents and is always playing the piano for somebody. She always has so much energy in the lessons and it helps so much! Great testimony and great love for Hong Kong already!

Sister Anderson: I LOVE Sister Anderson. She was raised on a farm in Spanish Fork and also went to Snow for a year. (Noticing a trend? Basically everyone went there..) She has the most hilarious sense of humor and we just get each other. She has this slight southern accent and we never stop laughing. It's a good thing we're not companions or we wouldn't get anything done.. She always has amazing insights to scriptures that are so cool!

Sister Cochran: She's from St. George and... surprise. Went to Snow for a year also. She's just the best. She's got all kinds of spunk and she keeps us all on our toes! She doesn't think a whole lot about the things that she says before she says them, which we all love! We have a district quote book and she's responsible for over half of it.

Sister Nuttal: Also from Layton and also went to Snow for a year. She studied Opera and has an incredible voice! She's always singing. Always! It's so great. Especially when we have to clean the bathroom for "service." The acoustics in there are great. She's picking up the language super quick and pushes us all to do the same!

Sister Hadley: She's from Salt Lake and went to Dixie and ran cross country there for a year before the mish. She's 5 foot 2 and just the best! She sang in a Jazz band before the mish and has one of the best voices I've ever heard. Absolutely incredible! She has this 6th sense (or really is just super in tune with the spirit) and always knows when you need a hug.

Elder Anderson: (The one with glasses) From Texas and went to that one school for a year. He loves to try to talk smack but he really knows nothing about it, so it's super hilarious. He thought USU was in Salt Lake till last week. But we still love him! He's basically pure genius. We can't google things here, so we just ask him. He's picking up the language SO fast and helps us all out a lot! He's our DL.

Elder Merrell: Fresh out of high school from AZ. He's actually 19 though because his birthday is in June. He's the best! He played football and basketball in high school and we have a great rivalry going on the four square court. He's super great! He loves to beep box all the time and he's always keeping us laughing. Probably has one of the most genuine testimonies I've ever heard.

Elder Kelin: Elder Klein tore his ACL the week after coming to the MTC 14 weeks ago, so had to stay behind to heal. He finally got cleared this week to go to HK and he left today. He's from England and has the greatest sense of humor! We'll miss him a lot, but we'll see him in HK!

So there's probably more than you wanted to know about everybody, but now you know!

With her companions

This week was the week of the great and awful sickness. Both my companions got way sick and so did half our district, so I spent most of the week trying not to breath or touch anything. Through some great miracle I made it through with only a little sore throat on Wednesday, so pray it stays that way! We had to go back to the residence a little early a couple times, but I would just study and they would sleep. Luckily we didn't miss any class.

Tuesday was great. I had one of those "this is why I'm on a mission" kind of experiences. Teaching has been a little hard with the threesome. Sister Crook and I are a little more confident in the language than Sister Killpack so trying to keep things balanced has bee a little challenging. So we were teaching Suki about the Plan of Salvation and it came time for Sis Kill to teach her part and she started reading out of the book. Suki just looked at her and said "Mh mihngbaak maht yeh leih gong." I don't understand what you're saying. Sis Kill just looked at me with a look of complete desperation. I honestly thought she was going to cry. I could have just bailed her out and taught her part, but I just whispered to her to just bear her testimony. Sis Kill proceeded to bear one of the most heartfelt testimonies I've ever heard. It was very simple, but VERY powerful. The spirit was so tangible in that room. What she said had little to do with what she had planned to teach, but it brought the spirit and that's all that mattered.

We had the spirit in lessons before, but never like that. It was just a great example to me of the power of bearing testimony. When we put away the books and speak with the words that the spirit puts in our hearts, great things happen. I've got two great companions, but I'm super grateful for when that third companion is there. (And I'm talking about the spirit for anyone who didn't get that.)

Tuesday's devotional was great! Elder Anderson came and gave a great talk on having the spirit. Super cool to listen to after our experience that day. 

Hosting Elder Sam Tullis from Centerville (Costa Rica)

Wednesday was awesome! We got to host for the first time! It was way cool to get to host some people that I knew! It was great to see Sam Tullis!! It was interesting to see how different families approach the drop off. Some look pretty happy to see their kids leaving and others stand around and cry for forever. It's super heartbreaking to watch some of them. When I first saw Kristin Spencer Kendell (my mom's friend from growing up in Logan) I'm sure she had no idea who I was, but you just get so excited to see anyone you know. Haha hope I didn't freak her out. I see her son Spencer ALL the time!

Hosting Elder Spencer Kendell (Toronto-Mandarin Speaking)

So my most embarrassing moment of my MTC experience happened yesterday. I have this great fear that I'm going to trip or run into someone or something in the cafeteria and drop my tray. And I figure I'm here for 9 weeks. And that's 3 meals a day. So that's just a whole lot of opportunities for something like that to happen. The worst part about when this happens is that it basically goes silent in the cafeteria and everyone looks at you. Don't worry. This story isn't as bad as you think it's going to be. So I was talking to Elder Ben Peterson (went to Viewmont, a year younger than me) in the cafeteria. We were both holding our trays and his starts to tip and he over compensated the other way and his plate goes flying.

With Elders Ben Peterson and Parker Handley (St. Louis)

Shatters on the floor.

Everyone goes silent and stares.

So there we are, both standing there staring at the floor and he look up and literally yelled, "Sister Robinson! Look what you did!!" And everyone, including myself just started laughing and then I went bright red and tried to explain that it wasn't my fault and then I just walked away because I didn't know what to do.

Another funny story. We were teaching about the apostasy to one of our investigators and I told her that "Christ's apostles killed wicked people, so the truth was taken from the Earth" rather than "Wicked people killed Christ's apostles, so the truth was taken from the Earth." So that was great. Basically everything is backwards in Cantonese, so I'm still working on that one.

Best Zone
 #southeastasiaorbust

Cool thought for the day. So the word in Cantonese for charity is yahnngoi. The direct translation is people-love. I thought that was super cool. (There are a lot of words like that in Cantonese. Like Bishop literally translates to something like Lord of Religion, so how about that Dad? Haha) So I've been thinking a lot about charity and studying about that this week. In PMG it says something along the lines of "Charity, like faith, leads to action." That action is service. Think about it. If you have faith, but don't act on that faith, then it doesn't do you any good. If you have faith God will answer your prayers but you don't pray, then you aren't any better off than if you don't pray. Same with charity. If you feel God's love for people, but don't act on it, or serve them and express that love, then it doesn't do you any good.The speaker at yesterdays devotional said, "Charity is not a decision, it is a gift." I thought that was very profound. It's something you've got to work to have. 

With her two Sister Trainer Leaders
Sister Lindley and Sister Ureske (Cambodia)

Still so much to learn!!!  I love you all and I'm so grateful for your support! Choose to be happy and have a great week! Remember, it's all about the little things! Eat lots of waffles because I'm going through withdrawals...

Ngoi,

Sis Rob. (That's what they all call me here. Not as cool as Mo or Mo Betta. But I'll take it.)

Editor's Note: The following video was made for Sister Crook's parent's anniversary…with permission.  It was sent to all of us.