The Sister missionaries going to the temple

Ni Hao Mama, 

My P-Day is on Mondays and I am so happy. I was really surprised to get your Dear Elder letter the other day.  I was having a tough time and your letter just made my day. To be honest, getting letters is like Christmas for me. I love getting letters from people I love especially my family. 

I don't know what I am missing yet. I have everything. My retainer should be in the drawer in my closest. Not sure though. Sorry, I can be a pig sometimes haha. Oh, can you send me a picture of papa? I think of him often. My companion and the other sisters in my residence are always borrowing my stuff so I guess I am more prepared than them. haha.  I am soooooo happy for Ginger.   Have they come up with the final name for him??? TJ Cash right?? I feel so bad for Charlie. Yes I remember Cousin Lance,  it's totally great that Zoey can write me. I would be happy to hear from her.

Me, Sister Brown, Sister Griffen, Sister Hughes and Sister Strong

 We taught our first investigator, Yang Ju on Friday. (These are members acting like investigators). It was so hard. We couldn't understand anything at all. Yang Ju was asking questions and we weren't answering them right or saying the words wrong. It was so hard. We were with Yang Ju for about 45 brutal minutes. We were trying to teach Yang Ju about Heavenly Father (Tain Fu) and Jesus Christ (Yesu Jidu) and he kept on asking us who Heavenly Father was and we must have explained it to him like 15 different ways and he still didn't get it. Our time was up so we decided to pray (qidao) and Sister Strong and I got on our knees and Yang Ju didn't know what we were doing, he just stared at us. We gestured to him to get on his knees, fold his arms, and close his eyes. I think that he thinks we were acting because he was looking at us weird. Afterward, we just brushed it off and went to lunch and I stuffed myself with sugar food to make me feel better ;)

Saturday, we had to teach Yang Ju again. We were feeling discouraged and we decided to work hard on our Chinese and pray for help. Lesson #2 with Yang Ju was sooooo much better. We understood him like 60% and we were successful on teaching him how to pray since we know how to say, "get on your knees, fold your arms, and close your eyes." Yang Ju told us that he didn't believe in God and Christ. So we asked him why. He wanted to know why his parents hit him when he was a kid, and why God let that happen. He was gesturing "hit" since we didn't know what it was in Chinese and my  companion tried to understand him and said, "like this" and hit me. Ow. But we laughed about it afterward. Today we are teaching our 3rd lesson with Yang Ju and I am excited about it. Every single day after arriving at the MTC we have 6 hours of learning Chinese class total with 1 hour personal study, 1 hour companion study, and 1 hour of language study, so basically we sit all day.

The Elders in our district are sooooo amazing. It's true that there are good men in this world. The Elders would always make us feel better and would walk us back to our residence to make sure we were safe, What's funny is that the Elders decided to circle around us and we would walk in the middle of the circle and they said that they circle us with the priesthood power. Our district leader, Elder Taylor, reminds me so much of Justin, his personality, his excitement of the gospel, the way he teases, and how he never smiles at the camera and makes stupid faces. I feel like there is another "Justin" but the real Justin is so much better!

On Friday, I saw an Elder signing ASL during lunch, so I asked him if he was deaf. He said no but was going on an ASL mission. He went to his language lunch table and I sat at my lunch table. I watched the Elder sign to other people about who he had met and that she was deaf and going Chinese speaking.  Everyone was asking who and he pointed at me. Everyone looked at me and there was one Elder who caught my eye, it was my friend, Elder Bryce Jackson. We met at Deaf Conference 4 years ago. Remember a  few years ago...the Romeo and Juliet deaf play we went to??? He was the one that play Romeo. We were so excited to see each other, we started laughing because we signed about how much we used to hate each other and how immature we were. His companion was like, "You hated her? But she is cute!" I laughed. It was so good to see him.

On Saturday Sister Griffen (Our sister "zone leader") pulled me aside to talk with me. Oh by the way, I am a Senior Companion. We talked about how things were going  for me and my companion, how schedules were going along and everything. She said that serving a mission is sooooo hard but at the same time it's incredible to help bring others to come to Christ. She asked me what I miss the most, I just broke down crying and said, "My family, especially my mom." She said that I would be blessed and so would you. Thank you mom for being my best friend!

Can you all pray for me on hearing the difference between the 5 tones of Chinese and speaking Chinese?  I am having a hard time saying things right.  Most of the Chinese pronunciation is Z,S, and T sounds.  These are sounds I had a difficult time with in speech therapy in the past.  Thank You! 

  

Yesterday was the best day ever. Every morning we have been getting up at 5:45 to go exercise. My companion loves to exercise so she wants to do basically 1.5 hours of exercise everyday. So 30 minutes in the morning and 1 hour after breakfast. I don't like the schedule because it only gives me 20 minutes to shower, do hair, and makeup. Anyway, yesterday I got to sleep in till 6:30. It's awesome! No exercise day on Sunday is amazing. Sister Strong is a little sad that we can't exercise on Sunday but I am very happy.

We went to Relief Society and guess who spoke? Sheri Dew! She is an amazing speaker and she spoke about women and the priesthood organization. Later that night, I sat with the ASL group of missionaries for the Sunday night Devotional. The speaker was Stephen B. Allen. He was a funny guy.  He asked a lot of people to stand up if you are new, or departing, or fell asleep in class, or got a Dear John letter. I don't have my journal with me but I will write you soon about his talk. Later, we had the chance to watch Legacy, I love that movie soooo much. All the elders scream when they see the main characters Eliza and David kiss and I just enjoyed it haha. Many of us wondered if there is a end to tribulation? Life is never going to be easy but everything will work out if we have faith in Christ and know that God's way is higher than our way, his thoughts higher than our thoughts. In the movie when Joseph Smith was killed, David was asking why he had to die. Eliza said, "Joseph Smith's work was done on earth, but ours has just begun." She was a woman of strong faith.

Just know that I looooove getting your letters. It makes my heart jump a beat. I love you mom, just 8 more weeks left in the MTC. It's going by fast. I just wish we could talk everyday, so I am grateful to have one day to talk to you. I will write you a handwritten letter soon.

Love you,

Sister Moore