A New Mission Call

Getting to host new missionaries:)

Dear Family and Friends,

Well it's been a very exciting week filled with... everything. haha :) 

We got our Chinese nametags this week! What that means is that our nametags won't have any English on them. Our names will all be in characters. (Which is super cool because I now know my character! It's super easy... haha :) )It honestly felt a little bit like Christmas when we got them. 

In other news, we also found out that our Visas did not come this week. So all of the Taiwan Missionaries will be getting re-assigned this week! I'm really quite excited about it :) haha It's going to be interesting to see what it's like to teach in English... I'm not sure I'll be able to do it :) The only hard part about this re-assignment will be keeping up my language. I'm not sure exactly how it will work, and it gives me a little bit of anxiety, but I know that the Lord believes in me and He has something important for me to do. He will take care of me if I work my hardest. 

Spiritual notes: 

This week was such a spiritual feast :) It was incredible.

So my District is the best. The Elders in my district got upset one day when they realized that other classrooms had more pictures than us.... so they went to other buildings where there weren't any districts and took pictures off
their walls and hung them up on our walls :) haha so we probably have 100 gospel pictures taped to the walls. It's the best. They also went and got a ton of chalk from other classrooms. We're also the biggest district in our zone. So we have the most people, the most chalk, and the most pictures. It's the best :) But the Spiritual part, I was sitting in class the other day and our Laoshi gave us some time to sit and ponder. As we were sitting in the class I began to look at all the pictures individually. There was Nephi, Jospeh Smith, the Prodigal Son, Jesus Christ, Peter,  Mary, and many many more. I looked at all the lives who had been affected by Jesus Christ and his gospel. It was a very tender moment as I thought about each of those stories. Then I looked at all the people sitting in the chairs around me and I realized that here were even more lives who had been affected by Jesus Christ and his gospel. I felt so privileged in that moment to be surrounded by such strong and faithful people. I love this gospel. It has blessed my life so immensely.

Our Elders!!! Every Wednesday is purple day for our district:)

At Devotional on Tuesday we had some fabulous speakers (as per usual), but I wanted to mention something that one of them said. He said he gets asked a lot about Joseph Smith. People say "You honestly believe that God appeared to a 14 year old farm  boy?" His reply was "It had to be a 14 year old farm boy. If Joseph Smith was a minister, we would say that we can't receive revelation unless we're ministers. If Joseph Smith was educated, we would say that we can't get an answer to prayer because we're not smart enough." I loved that. Joseph Smith was a humble boy who asked the question of his heart. And look what happened. God appeared. Just think of what our faith can do.

Yesterday was probably my favorite Sunday we've had here at the MTC. For many many reasons, but one of the main ones was my branch president and his wife. Brother and Sister Teng both speak Mandarin and they are the cutest couple you'll ever see. Yesterday they came to our District meeting (which is kind of like Sunday School). Our District leader asked Sister Teng to say the opening prayer. They don't always speak Mandarin because I think they don't want to be disrespectful to the younger districts, but Sister Teng spoke the most beautiful prayer and guess what? I UNDERSTOOD IT. It was such a tender mercy to me. Then as we went on with our meeting, we talked about Elder Bednar's "patterns of light" talk that is on lds.org. (it's wonderful!). I have seen that many times, but something really stood out to me this time. He talks about the first 2 patterns of light being like a light switch and a sunrise. One is immediate and one is very slow. But I had completely forgotten about the 3rd pattern until yesterday. He talked about how sometimes life is like a fog and we can only see a few steps into the future until we take more steps. I thought that was very applicable to me this week since I really am quite literally stepping into the unknown. I don't know where I'll be serving or going in the next few days, but I trust that Heavenly Father knows. He's going to take care of me.

Thank you once again. This has been the hardest thing I have ever done, but I know that the blessings are coming. I have felt so loved and supported on this journey and it's amazing.

Wo ai nimen

Gu Jiemei