MAY 17, 2013: HYRUM'S FIRST LETTER HOME

HYRUM'S FIRST LETTER

MAY 17, 2013

Photo taken by Melissa's friend who teaches at the MTC! :)

Mom and Family:                                                            (Thursday, May 16, 2013)

Wow, I've only been here 24 hours but it feels much, much longer than that!

We've done so much in that short period of time that it feels like I've been here two or three days.

It was a pretty slick system after I left from the drop-off point.  They made sure I was the right person, and that I was endowed and all that stuff.  The I got a key, an ID card, ad my name badge!  I've got a picture which I will e-mail on P-Day, Monday.

Then I got thrown into a classroom with a teacher who didn't speak a single word of English for an hour.  Melissa, it was a lot like they taught Startalk, but more intense.  Chinese is hard!  I remember some of it, but not a lot of words.  The biggest help has been knowing some of the pin-yin pronunciations.  That has gotten me jump started on the language and has helped quite a bit.  Doesn't make it easy though.

The gift of tongues is so real!  If you don't get anything else out of my hastily written letters the next 8 weeks, know that.

I got a little inkling of the Spirit me blessing me with speaking Chinese today.  I'll need even more for tomorrow afternoon (Friday) when we teach our first investigator -- entirely in Mandarin.

So all the missionaries here are broken down into branches with branch presidencies.  Our branch contains all of the Mandarin speaking  missionaries at the MTC.  There are about 60 of us, and there will be about 100 in two weeks.

Right now, there are just two generations -- missionaries who came in at the same time -- and there'll be another one soon.

Our sacrament meeting will be entirely in Mandarin -- every prayer, talk and hymn, including the Sacrament prayers.  Each

missionary prepares a 5 minutes talk and two are randomly called on each Sunday to speak, all in Mandarin!

Our district is a smaller subset of our generation who we have classes with.  Both Sister Bag from my freshman ward and Sister Porter, Matt Porter's sister, are in my district.

I've also seen a lot of people I know who are here at the MTC.  Like, at least 7 or 8.  I've also seen Aaron and Celia from band who work here in the cafeteria.

Other tidbits:

• 660 missionaries reported with me on Wednesday (May 15th 2013)
• 4000 people are on staff here (at the MTC-- Missionary Training Center)
• We (Hyrum's group) leave July 16 -- 9 1/2 weeks
• The blue bag of books really did weigh 12 lbs (picture pending)
• My companion is pretty good.  Elder Bake is quiet, but he's got a good sense of humor and we get along well.  He doesn't have any (Chinese) background, so I'm helping him out.

We learned so much Chinese today. It's now Thursday night -- I ran out of time earlier today -- and I can now bear my testimony in Chinese!  It's pretty amazing how much the Spirit can help!

I won't normally be able to write letters during the week, only on Mondays.  This is a special condition because it's the first few days.

It'd be easier if you sent all your letters to me through "dearelder.com".  Then I can read throughout the week and I'll have more time to reply on Monday.

Hopefully, I'll be able to mail this tomorrow morning.

Thanks for your prayers!

Elder Hyrum Richardson