A Teaching Frenzy

Hello Everyone!

 

What a week it has been! I am loving it here at the MTC. This past week we have been given several opportunities to teach. The first great experience was on Saturday. For the first time since we have been here, we went to the Teaching Resource Center (TRC) where we will now go to every Saturday to teach real people, instead of just teachers or others role playing. The people we teach at the TRC are usually BYU students or others who live in the area that have been to Chinese speaking mission, and also a few people who are from Chinese speaking areas who are here for vacations or who are studying abroad at BYU. So our first go at real teaching, we ended up with this guy and this girl who were attending BYU. I think they were dating, but they may have just been good friends. The guy had served his mission in Australia, Mandarin speaking and the girl was from Taiwan, Taipei. We were super exited to teach them. I was a little nervous before hand, but as my companion and I prayed beforehand to have the spirit to be with us to help us teach i felt a wave of calm come over me. I walked into the room where the two people were and instantly i had a smile on my face and thought, this is going to be great! The Chinese just came to my companion and I and we spoke so well! We were taught the two a little about God's plan for us and how through Jesus Christ we can return to our Heavenly Father after this life. We then talked about the Book of Mormon and how it talked about Jesus Christ and his gospel and that through reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it, we are able to know that it is the word of God, that the fullness of Christ's gospel and His church have been restored, and that we do have a modern prophet on the Earth again today. It was very cool to be able to testify of the truthfulness of these things in the Mandarin language. We then shared our favorite scriptures with them. Overall the first lesson went great! They both told us that they were suprised at how well we spoke the language. It was comforting to hear that from them.

 

The next pair that we taught was a father and son who are from Taiwan, Taipei! They are here in Provo 'til November beacuse the man's wife is going to school at BYU to get her degree. The were both so cool and so kind! We loved talking with them about our families and Taiwan and everything it was so fun. We also, taught them about the same things as we did the other pair. At the end I asked the man how the gospel has blessed him and his family in his life and he explained how throught scripture study and prayer to our Heavenly Father, his family has been able to over come any struggles that they have had. It was so cool to hear his testimony and it really just showed me that the church is true where ever you go around the world. We truly are sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father.

 

The next to opportunities to teach were with Wei di xiong and Mao jie mei. We had meet them both once before. They are our regular investigators. Again our lessons went sooo well. My companion and I just prepared as best as we could to teach the two and we left the rest up to the Lord to help us out, and He really did. There were times in the lesson where I was listening to our investigators speak and I didn't know what they were saying but I could understand what they meant. It was an awesome experience. The spirit truly helped us teach and testify to Mao and Wei. My companion and I walked away from the lessons feeling great. The language has just been coming along so well this past week!

 

I guess the only downside to this past week has been that a cold has been going around and I happened to get sick for a few days. I actually lost my voice from it so I could only whisper in a raspy voice and it was pretty funny to teach like that. I'm pretty sure that it was hard for them to understand me... but luckily it is gone and passed! I'm back to normal now. Well, my time is up for the computer, and I've got to get going.

Hope everyone is doing well! 

Love,

Elder Bastian