He who never stays long on the phone!

THREE more weeks!!!! I'm almost there! Things are going great here and progressing very well. My companion and I have made the decision to stop speaking English completely. If we talk to somebody who doesn't know Chinese, one of us takes the role of translation. It’s been really helpful. My district on the other hand is still struggling to give up English all of the time, but they know that when they speak to me, “I won't understand them” unless they use Chinese.
With only three weeks to go and with all the excitement of leaving, it’s easy to slack off a little. But to be honest, as excited as I am to leave, I realize that in order to be successful, I need to work as hard as I can. The time I have right now to study is sacred. In the field I’ll only get about an hour a day to really focus on the language and not only language, but scriptures as well. The MTC really is a wonderful place. How many places are there in the world that allows people to really study the gospel all day long every day? None. I only get this opportunity for 12 weeks and 9 of those weeks are up. This experience really is sacred to me. I thought the MTC would be long and dreary, and it has been at times, but in reality, it’s been awesome.
This past week I had the opportunity to make some phone calls in the R.C. (Referral center). I love it there. It’s as close as I can get to real missionary work. Haha. I was blessed with the opportunity to receive a phone call from Deborah Martin. This lady is 50 years old. She has called the MTC 7 times for 7 different items, including the Book of Mormon. She said she’s never really been interested in having the missionaries come over, she just loves the free stuff. Who can blame her, free stuff is awesome! But yeah, I decided to pry into her life a little and ask her if she’s read from the Book of Mormon lately. She said “no” but she reads her Bible every day.
I continued to talk about the Book of Mormon with her, and I ended up teaching her all about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. I gave her the 1st and 2nd lessons in their entirety, haha, and she kept asking questions. I asked her if she believed that Heavenly Father appeared to Joseph Smith and she said “yes.” She then bore her testimony to me about prayer and how hers have been answered throughout her life. I then invited her to pray about the Book of Mormon and she was very willing. She said that she already felt like it was true and I felt inspired to tell her that it was the Holy Ghost that was giving her that feeling. I shared Moroni 10. The Spirit was so powerful…over the telephone!
Then we started talking about families, my favorite topic. I read to her from D&C 137, and taught her how families can live together forever. She asked me to send the missionaries over so she could learn more!!!!! Her phone was about to die. We had been talking for 48 minutes. I continued talking about the plan of salvation until her phone died and I’m pretty sure if I asked her to be baptized, she would have said yes. It was truly an amazing experience. I felt the Holy Ghost teaching through me. It was so awesome and I hope the missionaries going to her house can close the deal. She was definitely one of those golden investigators, and I am very glad she called in and I had the chance to answer the call. I will follow up next week to see how the missionaries are doing.
Anyway, that was definitely the highlight of my week. I can’t wait to have the opportunity to do that in real life. I have to finish learning Chinese first though, Haha, and I will.
I gained my weight back because I started eating smarter and working out more. I’m pretty sure its not fat, haha, if it is then I’m even more excited to get to Taiwan and ride bikes all day and convert people!
President Boone (MTC President, a former LDS Air Force Chaplain and friend) and his wife came to our ward a couple weeks ago because we changed branch presidents. I told him that he knew my parents and he said he was delighted to see me. He is a VERY good speaker and I enjoy his jokes. He shared the poem that Dad has in his reference books (The book of Mormon/TV guide) at the missionary devotional that we have every fast Sunday. It was funny. Well, I’m pretty hungry, and I know you want me to eat more food, so I better say “zaijian” love you.