Photos from the MTC

Sooo Close

We got our Travel Plans this past week! Next Tuesday, we leave from Provo at around 8 in the morning for the Salt Lake Airport. From their we will fly to the LAX airport and have and wait for a little while before we catch our next flight over seas. We go from LAX to Tokyo, Japan (i hope i will be able to find my way to the connecting flight there....) Then a quick flight from Japan to Taiwan, Taipei. Everyone is super excited. Today is our preparation day to get everything ready for the week, so i spent my time doing laundry, shining my shoes and a little bit of pre-packing to be ready to leave next week. I feel like this week is going to fly by, and then next thing i know, i will be walking of the plane stepping into a foreign land where i'm sure i wont understand what anyone is saying. So cool! I know that once i get to Taiwan, the language is going to take off because i will be completely immersed in it. I kind of hope that i get a native companion in the first couple transfers to really help me learn the language too. We shall see... Much is going to happen these next few weeks.

 

This past week has been great. Lots of studying and teaching. Everyone is trying to squeeze out the last little bit of information they can get before we go. I think the highlight of last week had to be our teaching opportunity on Saturday at the TRC. Two Saturdays ago we had the opportunity to teach a non-member from Beijing. She came with her friend to the TRC because she has gone to a few church activities with her friend at BYU and thought it would be cool to come to listen to us at the TRC. We were able to teach her about the Book of Mormon and invited her to read it and pray about it to know if it was true. It was cool because we also taught her how to pray. She had never really done it before then. But she committed to do the things we invited her to do. The really cool part of the story happened this last Saturday at TRC. We found out about 5 minutes before we were about to start teaching that the same group from the week before had requested to meet with us again (usually it is just random who we teach). We were pretty shocked because we had thought we would probably never see the two girls again, but we were able to! When we met with them, we asked Wu Jie Mei if she had done what we had invited her to do, and she said that she had! She had prayed and she really liked it. She said that she felt very peaceful. So, we continued to teach her about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. At the end, we asked her if she would like to meet with missionaries regularly outside of the MTC and she said that she was interested and would think about it. The two told us that they would be back next week (this coming Saturday) and would like to meet with us again. So as of now we are planning on teaching her again.  She has a lot of question's but is pretty interested and wants to know more about how this can help her in her life. It has been a really cool experience doing this here, since this is what i will be doing everyday once i get to Taiwan. I am learning a lot each day.

 

Anyways time is up, and this is the last email you will get from me here in the States! Next one will be from good ol' Taiwan! Hope everyone is doing well!

 

Love, Elder Bastian

The Countdown

Da Jia hao!

 

Thanks to everyone who has sent letters! I don't have much time to write back individually, but I want to let everyone know that I appreciate them and they always give me an extra boost of confidence and energy throughout the day. Hopefully my emails will give you a glimpse into how things are going, and I hope all is well for you too!

 

The time is counting down until I head out on a 14 hour flight to Taiwan! I am soo excited and trying to use every last minute I can to prepare to go with more knowledge and better skills, so that I might be able to help others. Everyone in the Chinese group is very anxious to leave.

 

Last Tuesday evening, we had the chance to hear from Elder David A. Bednar from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. There is a cool little story that goes along with it. Usually every Tuesday we will leave about 45 minutes early to the devotional but last Tuesday, we thought that we should go about 30 minutes earlier and wait at one of the side doors instead to see if we could try and get better seats. I thought one of the apostles could possibly be coming because it had been about 8 weeks since the last one came. They let everyone in about 25 minutes before it started and we ended up getting 3rd row seats right in the middle!  It was soo cool!. He is a very genuine person and a powerful speaker. Everyone loved hearing from him. Too bad I didn't get to shake his hand afterwards!  Maybe next time.

 

The other highlights of the week were on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday we had our TRC teaching opportuninty. We found out about a minute before that my companion and I were going to be teaching an actual investigator. We were pretty shocked. A bit nervous, but very excited. Her name was Wu jie mei. She is from Beijing and is currently at BYU for school. She has some friends in the church and has always admired the values that our church has, so she decided to start meeting with the missionaries to find out more. Saturday, she came with her friend to the TRC to hear from the Chinese missionaries. It was very cool to be able to teach her about the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon. She was very interested and it was fun to be able to get a glimpse of what it will be like to teach people in Taiwan. The other highlight of the week was on Sunday.  The new Taiwan, Taipei temple president was in town for training and came up to the MTC to visit. He came to our branch meeting and then came and visited with my district afterwards. It was very nice to meet him and his wife. We were able to eat dinner with him and practice a little bit of our Chinese with him. He is a great guy and I can't wait to be able to see him again in Taipei!

 

Only 14 more days till I'm off to the tiny island on the other side of the world! Anyways, I hope everyone is doing well!

 

Love, Elder Bastian

 

P.S. I will attach a few pictures next week so you can see what the MTC is like. I didn't have much time to do it today.

The Buzz

Hello Everyone!

 

This has been awesome! We had, sure as some of you already know, General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints. We able to hear from a lot of the leader of the church, and it was very inspiring and cool! President Monson announced that the age requirement for missionaries was changed from 19 to 18 for the guys and from 21 to 19 for the girls! It doesnt sound to profound from an email but this is a very big thing. The amount of missionaries serving is to expected to increase dramatically over the next year or so. This makes it much more convienient for missionaries to serve right out of high school and more of an opportuninty for the girls if the decide to. I know for a fact the BYU will be changed for ever! Pretty much no more 18 freshman on campus, everyone will head there after the mission at 20. This is such a great opportunity beacuse it will really allow the gospel to spead and move forward at an excellerated rate. Right now there are roughly 58,000 missionaries around the word with some 340 missions open. They predict that this number will go up significantly and subsequently plan to open more missions to new countries in the follow years. Maybe China? haha well we will have to see in time. Some of the other elders in my district have already recieved some letters from some of the friends back at home or at college who had decided to serve missions right away! It cool to see that it's already taking effect.

 

Things are going very well here. Everyone is getting excited because we leave in about 3 weeks and we will probably get our travel plans the end of this week or next. I am so excited. I know that I probably wont be able to understand too much when I get taiwan but i know that i'll start to pick it up quick one i've been immersed in it. As I have been here at the MTC, my biggest priority is to continue to stengthen my testimony of Jesus Christ and his gospel so that I will be able to better help other know of the truths that I know and so many others around the world know. Obviously the next biggest priority is the language. It coming along well, but I wish that I was better at it! Often times when I am teaching I want to share some impressions or thoughts that I have but they come out in very broken chinese. It's frustrating sometimes, but i glad to know and at least have a little patience that it will all come in time.

 

On Sunday, our MTC devotional speaker was Chad Lewis the former NFL football player. I was so excited to see that he was speaking to us! I had met him on the BYU campus back in april as he over heard when I was talking to a friend that I would be going to Taiwan on my mission. He also went to Taiwan on his mission back in the 90's. He went to the mission my brother Marc went to, Tai Cheng. He gave me the biggest pep talk and was so excited for me! He told me how all I needed to know was how to say "Ni hao" and "Zai Jian" (hello, goodbye) and I would be ready to go and have an awesome time. So it was super cool to listen to him on sunday. He talked alot about the experience he had as a missionary and in the NFL and how all of his blessing in life after his mission has stemmed as a result of him serving. He is actually as of right now the NFL Ambassdor to China and translated the last Super Bowl for all of China. Pretty cool, huh? He is an awesome guy. He all so had the chance to hike mount kilimanjaro in Africa with some of the wounded warriors from afganistan and iraq, along with some of the other NFL players like Teddy Bruiski form the Patroit. As he was telling us these different experiences he related them all back to his mission and how when on the mission we need to rely on the Lord and He will do the rest. Often times we wont know what to say, but he said to just keep speaking, if you get discouraged, just pray. If you dont know what to do, just keep working. And as you do your best in all of these things, all areas of life, the Lord will take care of the rest. He will open doors to blessings you could have never have thought of. I really like his talk that he shared with us it was inspiring. I know that this is true. I have seen it in my life and countless others, including many of you who are reading this right now. I encourage everyone to recognize the the blessings you have been given in life, big and small. These are from the Lord. He loves you and is always taking care of you.

 

Wish I had more time to write, but I hope all is well for everyone!

 

Love, Elder Bastian

Being An Example

Shang ge libai guode hen hao! Nimen ne?

 

This past week has been pretty good! Lots of studying, eating and sleeping. Sometimes I wish I had more hours in the day to study everything that I want to. This weekend is General Conference where our prophet, Thomas Monson, the Twelve Apostles, and other church leaders will address the members around the world. There has been a lot of buzz around the MTC starting this week. We are all very excited to see what they have to say. I know that what they do say, is exactly what God wants us to hear at this time. How cool is that!? I hope everyone will be able to see it who wants to. Anyway, time is really starting to fly by. Last sunday marked the the one month count down 'til I leave for Taiwan! I am so excited. This past week we have been watching some of the mormon profile videos on Mormon.org. We watched a couple of the Chinese ones. It was pretty cool because we were able to see how the natives speak and it's a fun little test to see how much you know and cool to see different members around the world, in places where I will soon be! Another big thing that has happened this week is that all of the new Chinese speaking missionaries have arrived. It was funny to see the deer in the headlights expression that first day. I'm sure that's exactly how I looked. It's been great to get to know them a better and help them out.

 

On Sunday, the Branch President asked to speak with me and my companion. At first, we weren't to sure why, but he got to the point very quickly and asked if my companion and I would be will to serve as the next Zone Leaders (leaders for the Chinese speaking missionary group) from the following Sunday, until the older group of us leave to our respective countries. We were both pretty suprised. This has been why I chose to label this weeks email home, "Being an Example." As I have come to notice pretty quickly, is that when you are given an assignment like this... pretty quickly everyone knows who you are, especially the new missionaries and they look to you to been an example. It's been humbling to see all of those around me who I have an opportuninty to get to know better and serve and help in anyway I can. I'm trying hard to make sure that I am always doing my best in whatever I do so that I may be an example to them. The the most important thing that I want to do as a result of this assignment is to really just love everyone. Making sure that I am doing all that I can to help everyone in their needs. I'm excited for this experience that lies ahead of me!

 

On Saturday we again had the opportuninty to teach at the Teaching Resource Center. It was a little different this time around because instead of teaching two 20 min lessons like we have done before we were to teach one 40 min lesson. The person we met with this week was a returned missionary who is attending BYU. He grew up in Singapore and served his mission and Melbourne, Australia. Our topic that we wanted to teach about was the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We were able to discuss with him why he tought it was important, and how it has affected him in his life. As we strived to listen to the promptings of the Spirit we were guided in how to convey our message in a way that would allow him to be strengthened. 

At first, we thought that it would be hard to know what to say to him our how to go about the lesson because this guy was already a missionary and we didn't want to just teach another lesson to him. We wanted to convey it in a way that was personal to him and could help him even though he has already taught this same part many times. That is the goal of each of our lessons is to teach in a way that will convey the spirit to the investigator and allow them to know the truthfullness of the message and help build their faith and desire to act and change for the better. As we stopped worrying about what we needed to say and focused on him, we were guided in what to say. It was a very cool experience. Each time after we teach at TRC we always get a feed-back slip of how the people thought the lesson went. This week the returned missionary had written down our meeting together was the highlight of his week and really helped him to know what he should do in his life. So cool! I love teaching!

 

On last quick thing: I started playing 4 square this week its alot cooler than I remember back in elementary school! When everybody gets into it, its crazy fun!

Anyway, I got to get going but I hope that everyone has a great week!

 

Love,

Elder Bastian