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.