Hey Family,
Things are still going pretty well here at the MTC. I'm just about finished with week 3, which means that I leave six weeks from today. Woo. In other words, I'm down to the entire training time for missionaries learning lesser languages like Spanish or Filipino or whatever. Or, three times longer than missionaries preaching their native language spend here. Thinking of which, our zone just lost a huge part of itself today when a whole bunch shipped off to the Philippines. Oh, and I also have bumped into Justin Thiel a few times here as well. He showed up Wednesday, but I'll still be here for about four and a half weeks after he leaves. :p
I know this week my vocabulary is getting good enough that I can say an entire (basic) prayer in Cantonese, and we do it pretty regularly. Also, me and my companion have enough vocabulary to at least give an okay first discussion. We actually had a really good lesson on... Thursday? Anyway, we were just teaching one of our teachers in investigator persona, but it felt like we actually had the spirit with us when we taught, and I think we actually touched our teacher. We also had the opportunity to teach a real investigator. She was already pretty committed (She gets baptized next month), but we were able to share some of our favorite scriptures with her, and she was very friendly and accepting of our crappy Cantonese. Well, semi-crappy at least; I feel like I'm at least getting somewhat competent with the few words I do know.
… (other elders) both spoke really good Cantonese already so they gave us a few good pointers about the language. For example, apparently blessing the sacrament is dangerous business for a noob like me. I guess "Holy Water" (which is apparently in the Cantonese version) is only a vowel sound away from "Toilet Water" (or "pool water," but that one's less funny). I guess once in a while a little old guy in his ward would pop up and tell him to stop blessing toilet water. What a fun language.
Oh, and I've managed to acquire a nickname here. The) guys that we play volleyball with almost every night next door call me... (If you are reading this out loud, you should take some guesses before reading on.)
Q-Tip!
Yup. I'd say the name resulted about 50/50 because it's a derivative of "Mc-Q-wan" and also because of my Aryan good looks. Or skinny whiteness. Something like that. Anyway, they really figured out how hilariously tall I am when I successfully spiked the ball downwards at them from the very back of the volleyball court. After that, I think the nickname just kind of flowed out of our volleyball games.
The only other real thing that I remember this week was that my companion and I are having a small (mostly joking) disagreement about how to best organize the classroom. (Also overcrowded) Unfortunately, my stupid desk is too short to put my legs under it - I either have to tuck my legs under me, or I have to put them in front of my desk. Unfortunately, if I put them it front, they get tangled up in my companion's chair so he can't wheel back and forth over and over. We tried to scoot things over so that we could both be satisfied, but then the other side of the room complained that the wall was making them claustrophobic. Sigh. Six more weeks, right?
Love,
Elder McEwan
No comments:
Post a Comment