Well, I trust that things are going well. I'll check my email later to see if you've sent me one.

In any case, things are going well. We just hit our six week mark, which means, we only have three left. I'm freaking out a bit because I don't know if I'm physically ready for Hong Kong. Mentally and spiritually, though, I'm prepared. We asked our teachers if they thought we knew enough Cantonese yet to go, and they told us that we didn't need to worry. We could be shipped out now and we'd be just fine.

I feel like I've been speaking Cantonese all my life.

I had a dream just the other night in which I was speaking to someone in Cantonese. He kept saying a word that I didn't recognize, because I've never heard it before. Dongwu. After I woke up I went and looked the word up. Turns out it's a real word and it means animal. A bit of Gift of Tongues there or something. Definitely a cool experience, though.

We've been having a lot of fun here recently. Elder Shipp has been building forts for his bed instead of sleeping. (I'll have to get some pictures of it.) He and Elder Powell-now Zone Leaders-are setting great examples ;)

My comp, Elder Beresford, has been struggling with the language as of late. Part of it is that he's not as "intelligent" as the rest of us. I don't mean that in a bad way, just that, his brain works differently. We pick new concepts up a little quicker. We had a fast for him on Wednesday, and I know it helped. He's doing better now, and when he applies himself, he speaks just fine.

Speaking about speaking languages. We had TRC on Saturday, as usual, and man was it good. I took virtually no notes, and was able to ask questions, understand the answers, teach by the spirit and help resolve the "investigators" needs, all in Cantonese. It shocked me, to say the least. That was when I really realized the extent of what we've all learned. I know I've worked hard, and I've applied myself day in and day out to learning the language, but I also know that there is no possible way I've remembered this much without God's help.

I only have two requests. 1) Apparently, in Hong Kong, when we talk to the people about our families, they're going to want to see pictures. Our teachers actually told us to take pictures of family with us, because it's a great teaching tool. Would you mind printing some that actually look half good? (I know, we're so photogenic.)

2) Would you mind sending some knee pads :D They will be put to good use. 

P.S. Just kidding. Seriously, though. I pray a lot now.

P.P.S. HAHAHAHAHAHA! That's how one of our teachers, Chan Jimuih, laughs. We're pretty sure she invented "hahaha."

P.P.S. I'll send pictures right after this.

My comp and I, Oh, and Elder Anderson

11-17-14

 Leihdeih haih Faht!

Leihdeih - You all

Haih - Is/Am/Are

Faht - Buddha

We call each other fat all the time now. 

Things have been going swell here. Except for the food, of course. A few of us are starting "diets" today. We're going to focus on eating salads and wraps, which still aren't very good for you. If I enjoy eating the salad, it's most definitely not healthy.

A funny thing happened last night. I was struggling a bit, and I needed/wanted a reaffirmation that I'm doing the right thing. So, in my evening prayer, I asked God for such a thing. I didn't want to become a Korihor and say, "Show me a sign!" But at the same time, I wanted a definite answer. So, I said, "If I wake up before my alarm goes off, then I'll know." Seemed like a good thing to say at the time. Of course, I was sick and tired and almost asleep, but you know.

It was the most restless sleep I've had here at the MTC. I feel asleep at first, then woke up around two in the morning and just could not get any rest. Everyone kept snoring and flopping around in their beds and...AAAHHHHHH! I woke up pretty frustrated, not to mention tired, and asked God why He would do that to me? Of course, being Smoe, I had completely forgotten my previous prayer. When I realized that I had received my answer, and that the Lord had capitalized on the opportunity to put me in my place, I felt pretty retarded. But, it was a good experience, and the first time that I've received physical evidence in such a short time.

So, for lack of a good night's sleep, I know this church is true.

I love you all and am very grateful for the sacrifices you're making to allow me to be out here. I pray that God will bless you for it. 

Love, Da Smoe

P.S. sorry there are no more pictures this week. I didn't get much of an opportunity to take more, as it's been very cold here, and we all have so much extra free time to do things with ;)

P.P.S. I'm sending a few words with pronunciations in a letter. I'll continue to send more.

11-10-14

Okay, replying to the reply of the reply of the reply. My comp isn't finished, so I figured it would be fun to teach you some Canto.

Leih - You

Ngoh - I/Me

Ngohge/Leihge - Mine, Yours

Hou - Good

Gatihng - Family

Leih hou - Greeting meaning, "You Good."

Faehzerng - Very

So...Leih hou ngohge faehzernghou gatihng means, "Hello my very good family."

Ngoh hai Yehsou Geiduk kahpkeih sitough haih chuyngaausih - I am a missionary from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Yehsou - Jesus

Geiduk - Christ

Hai - This means yes as is, but with an ascending accent it means "from."

Kahpkeih - I can't remember if this is correct, but it should mean "current day."

Sitough - Saint/Apostle

Haih - Is/Am/Are

Chuyngaausih - Missionary

The language is epic. It's beautiful sounding enough to not be harsh, but it's also harsh enough to not sound like French.

11-10-14

 Leih hou ngohge faehzernghou gatihng!

PICTURES!!!!!!

I'd send you a bazillion, but I don't think the email would ever make it. Needless to say, I'm excited, and now that I can send them, I will start taking plenty more.

This last week was pretty epic. We did a lot of fun things, got a lot of work done, and made a lot of progress. We had TRC for the second time on Saturday. TRC is where you go teach random members who volunteer. You get about twenty minutes with each of them to teach a specific thing. I wrote down about five sentences in my language book, but only used one. The rest of the time I just went off of memory. I'm still amazed that after only four weeks I can teach a full lesson, teach an investigator how to pray, how to receive answers to their prayers, and invite/commit them to prayer.

Today we went to the temple, as usual, but this time we decided to do Sealings, rather than Endowments. It was an amazing experience. As I was being proxy for a son, and the officiator was reciting the ordinance, I could not but help remember when we went through the temple as a family. I was full of emotion and love for this gospel and for you all, and was immensely grateful for the fact that we have been sealed in the temple. It is a blessing second to none.

Perhaps the funniest thing that happened this week was while we were sitting at lunch on Friday. My comp, Elder Beresford, does this amazing magic trick with his ring. He puts it on his middle finger, and then makes it change fingers but slapping it against his wrist. The first time he showed it to us, we were dumbfounded, because it looked realistic. But then he did it again and we realized what was happening. He puts his middle finger and index finger against his arm, then says "WHABBAM!" and takes his index finger off and puts his ring finger on. But his fingers look enough alike that it seems realistic. Once you figure it out, though, it's hysterical. So, at lunch, he did it for this new guy who is speaking Lao, and the guy believed it at first, which made us all laugh. Then he figured it out and went into some fit of obnoxious laughter which is most definitely not human. It sounded like Sister Daily being attacked by a chipmunk. We laughed for ten minutes solid, and everyone in the cafeteria was just staring at us.

Life is good.

Except the food, which tried to kill me. 

And thank you all for supporting me. I like to play the tough guy, but already this experience has been very difficult. I'm very grateful to know that I have family back home who are proud of me, and are there for me. I will make you proud.

11-3-14
As you can probably tell, we like to quote Nacho Libre. That and Napolean Dynamite. The movies seem so much more funny when we quote them. Never thought I'd want to watch a movie so bad. Well, we did watch one, that is, The Testaments. Everybody cat-called when they kissed, of course. Such a good film. The Sunday Devo was pretty good as well. Sister Nelson-aka Russel M. Nelson's wife-came and spoke to us. I can't remember much about it because I don't have my notes, but we did get to sing a new hymn that she and a friend wrote. O Lord Make Us A Holy People. Maybe the church will produce a modern hymn book sometime soon that has more hymns in it.

In any case, things are still going along just fine. The language is very, very, very, very, very, very, very difficult to learn, but I'm enjoying it, and amazed at how much we have learned. The only time I get frustrated is when we go to teach a lesson. It's very difficult because our "investigators," who are our teachers, ask really difficult questions, which have really difficult answers, and we don't have the vocab for it. Plus, my comp, Elder Beresford, is struggling a little with Cantonese, so I usually end up doing the listening and talking by myself. He finds it hard to focus a lot of the time, but, he'll come around soon.

Funny story. I got the package, which I am very grateful for. The cookies are great, if a little dry. And thank you so much for sending something to Elder Beresford. He really appreciated it. I was excited to have my other shoes for gym and such, but when I wore them to play soccer, they exploded. Literally. I kicked the ball, and the metal strip which keeps the bottom rigid tore through the material, cut my ankle, and flew off into the grass. The shoes are pretty much done for. Everyone tried to convince me  d sadmksiw3io3o3p3o3pjiq

Well then...ahem...nothing happened there.

It's all Elder Gonzalez's fault. He's one of the Thai Elders in my zone and is sitting close by. He started typing all crazy, so I looked at his comp and we both shrugged. Then I went all Nacho on the keyboard and...yah....

Anyways, back to the story, everyone tried to convince me that I could just wrap it up with duct tape and it would be fine. Because everyone is running around with a bunch of duct tape in this place. They don't have any at the bookstore either. Speaking about the bookstore. Everything is so cheap. There's a lot of things I could have just bought here and saved a lot of money. The small quad scriptures are like thirty dollars. And, of course, I've capitalized on the fact that they even do the missionary discount on their junk food. Paying for it at the moment, though, because I've got a bit of a cold. I whipped out the garlic immune last night to take some, and everybody in my room freaked out because of the smell. I'm going to use it to wake them up tomorrow morning.

We talked to some Elders who are going Stateside, but come from Hong Kong. It was pretty dang sweet. They helped us out with the language a little, told us about some good places to eat, and then told us that we all should have waited to buy our mission clothes when we got there. They said they bought two full suits plus all their shirts and shoes and such, for like five hundred dollars. What!? I think I'll just get a job in the states when I get back, work for a year, then go live for five years in Hong Kong. I may live in a tiny cage, but I'll have a sorts of cheap stuff to bring back.

Well, we finally found out how to send pictures, but we can't until next week because we have to go buy the "expensive" SD Card Reader and we don't have time. The guy in the bookstore assured us that the cheaper one worked fine. Guess he never tried. 

Ngoh jidou ligaan gaauwui haih jansahtge. Ngoh jidou ligaan gaauwui haih Sahnge gaauwui. Ngoh jidou Moyihmuhnging haih jansahtge. Ngoh gwaanyu Yehsou Geiduk yauh seunsam, tuhngmaaih ngoh gwaanyu Keuihge Suhkjeuih yauh seunsam. Ngoh sihsih wuih yauh seunsam. Fuhng Yehsou Geidukge mihng, a-muhn.

I have only one request. Send me a fifty pound box of chex-mix around Thanksgiving time. Don't worry, I'll share ;D

Hope you all are doing good, and just know that I know that I'm in the right place, and this gospel is true.

Da Smoe