Week Three

Sorry in advance for the long email. This week was crazy!

It was all going pretty normal until Thursday when Elder O’Bryant passed out during study due to a medication he is on. That threw us into a round of meetings and by Friday the doctors decided to send Elder O’Bryant home. So, Saturday morning I had to say goodbye to my first companion. It’s been hard to see him go. He taught me so much about faith, humility and trusting in the Lord’s plan. I have been truly blessed to have had him as a companion for the first 15 days of my mission. 

So after that quite a few more notable events occurred 

First of all, I'm now part of a tri-panionship with the two other elders in my room, Elder Brady and Elder Burton. It’s been a pretty smooth transition so far thanks to the fact that all four of us in that room became close friends really quickly the first two weeks. 

Second, Elder Uchtdorf and his wife visited our classroom on Saturday to visit a member of our district who is something of an adopted grandchild of the Uchtdorf’s. It was a huge surprise to everyone and the whole district had a hard time focusing on mandarin after that. 

Third, all the Taipei bound missionaries got to meet our new Mission President, President Peterson. There are a ton of missionaries going to Taipei and so I only got to talk to him personally for a tiny bit but he did know where Westchester, New York which was pretty cool! He seems like a really great guy and got us all super excited to get to Taiwan. He served in the Taichung mission but actually spent most of his mission in areas that are now in the Taipei mission. He also has some old mission friends who have dropped everything to go back to Taiwan with him as senior missionaries, along with his parents (who are both in there 80's and never got to serve missions) who are learning Chinese to come out as well!

Fourth, on Sunday we had a devotional for all the mission presidents where the whole Quorum of the Twelve attended. My zone’s service job is to convert the gym to the auditorium for the Sunday devotional and the reverse after the Tuesday night devotional. But since this Sunday’s devotional was so big we had to set up a lot more chairs than normal. Also the gym was being used for a dinner right before hand and so we had to take all that stuff down first. All In all it took about 3 hours to set everything up. Just in time to have the one hour MTC choir practice where around 800 missionaries learned “Jesus Once of Humble Birth,” to sing that night for the whole quorum of the twelve. The choir director commented how only at the MTC could a choir that big learn a song in such a short amout of time. Truly the Lord helps his missionaries! Elder Quentin L. Cook was the speaker that night and gave an awesome message about the 4 loves of missionary work. Love for ones companion, love for the people you serve, love for your mission president, and love for the Lord. He shared a lot of awesome stories about his own mission (where he was companions with Elder Holland for a time) and really inspired us all to be the best missionaries possible. 

Finally on Sunday my new companions and I got called as the new Zone Leaders as the old ones left today, they were awesome examples of loving leaders and we always knew they cared about us younger guys even though they got here 6 weeks before us. All three of us are aspiring to be equally as good for the 14 new Elders coming in this Wednesday. 

It certainly has been a week of change. A lot of great people left the Zone these last couple days and they will be sorely missed. But they are all off to bigger and better things. I’ve also been blessed to have a lot of experiences with Apostles this week and I can testify of the powerful spirit that surrounds them. Everything from the non stop smiles from my district after Elder Uchtdorf visited, to the powerful moment when the whole Quorum of the Twelve and their wives walked into the devotional meeting as we were all singing the prelude song “Choose the Right.” I think everyone’s testimony of the Apostle’s special witness of Christ was strengthened in that moment.

It’s been a bit of an emotional roller coaster this week but it has been one to remember that’s for sure.

Love,

Elder Neilson 

倪長老

My new companions and I at the temple this morning.

District picture we took with Elder O’Bryant on his last night

Elder Uchtdorf, his wife, and my district.

One of the final pictures of my zone before the older generations left.

Week Two

Hey Everyone,

Time is really starting to fly here at the MTC. Doing the same thing everyday really squashes everything together. All I know is the 8 hours of sleep they allow us never feels like enough, and the food stays consistently just below satisfying! Joking aside, it’s been a good week and it’s nice to have gotten more into the groove of normal MTC life after all of last week’s new missionary stuff...

...Other than that the week wasn’t super exciting. All the Taiwan missionaries had to get blood drawn and chest x-rays for visas, and I had to give a talk on Sunday but that was about it. Devotional yesterday was interesting though since the keynote couple gave their whole address together and basically just had us sing primary songs every few minutes as they taught us about the plan of salvation. Some of them I knew but then there was others I had never heard before such as “Gethsemane” which was actually a really good song, but is kind of creepy when the little girl sings it in the recording. 

Love,

Elder Neilson 

倪長老

This is my district with our main mandarin teacher on the far left

 District again- but the sister on the far right is one of our other teachers and everyone is making mini hearts with our fingers which is apparently something they do in Taiwan

You have probably seen this picture already but I honestly don’t have much so show from this week

Week 1

It has been one heck of a week! In some ways I don’t even know how to describe my time here so far as it’s just been too much information to properly sort through. It’s been a lot of fun though. As I said before, my companions name is Elder O’Bryant but in Chinese our names are Oū (pronounced just “O”) Zhǎnglǎo and Ní (Neee) Zhǎnglǎo.

It’s true what they say about the language immersion- it starts day one and doesn’t let up! Although our main teacher tends to switch to English when explaining hard grammar. We have all been learning quickly and already say our prayers in mostly Mandarin! Not to mention we have already given two lessons in Chinese to an “investigator.” The second of which had a scheduling issue which resulted in the whole district only having around 30 minutes to prepare a surprise early lesson, completely in mandarin, our fourth day on the job. Everyone was a little freaked out but I think our second lesson was actually better than our first where we had about 5 hours of prep. 

My district has four other elders in it and one triple companionship of sisters, all learning Mandarin. Although we do have sisters learning Cantonese in our Zone (our district and the new Cantonese sisters came in on Wednesday), everyone else in the Zone is about 7 weeks in. It’s scary to hear how well they speak the language but they all assure us we will be at their level before we know it.

On Sunday we are all expected to write 3-5 minute talks for both sacrament meeting and zone conference and then two of us are called up at each meeting to share our thoughts. It’s kind of an unfortunate system because I get stuck in a sort of limbo where part of me is relieved when I don’t have to speak, while the other half of me really wants to give the talk because I already put the effort into organizing a message. It’s a weird feeling. Sunday is jam packed with meetings, and I don’t think I have ever been so busy on the Sabbath. But there is a special spirit to it and somehow I still found myself spiritually empowered and ready to take on the week. 

I really enjoyed the old MTC devotional given by Elder Bednar titled “Character of Christ” which the MTC showed as one of the Sunday films at the end of the day. In it Elder Bednar shared a really powerful message about how the character of Christ is to turn outward in love and charity when the natural man would turn inward and care about themselves, and he urged us to follow suit. I have heard the film is an MTC exclusive but perhaps dad can find it on “hard to find church videos” or something. It’s long but worth the time. 

To answer a few of mom’s questions:

Yes I am allowed to read emails all week so tell Laura to send to her hearts content. I also have basically all day to write emails on p-day so I can answer a lot of stuff. (Or if you respond quick we could have a bit of a conversation)

In terms of any other things I might want in a package, I could use some shoe shine since I forgot to get that before flying out, and honestly I might need you to send me some more of my tee shirts and an extra pair of athletic shorts or two. We end up wearing at least one shirt a day and I only have four😅. 

Food wise is basically Cannon Center but maybe a little worse. It’s like they literally put no effort into food. For example I just ate lunch and the “sweet and sour” chicken was basically some chicken
nuggets with some sauce drizzled over them. Just sad 😂

Sounds like New York is doing pretty good. Laura just sent basically the funniest email ever giving me a play by play of her day. It cracked me up. I do wish I could have seen her play though. She said
someone got kicked out of the cast and might get suspended!

Anyways, I’ve been loving my time here and can’t wait to keep learning the language and about the gospel. 

With Love,

Elder Neilson

Finding Tiepei on the big map. Old MTC building is killing it with the lighting 😂

Roommates and I testing out the iPad selfie camera. Turns out it’s pretty bad (at least in this lighting). Starting on the left we have me, Bù (boo) Zhanglao going to Canada, Baì (bye) Zhanglao going to Taipei and Ou Zhanglao also going to Taipei

Ou Zhanglao and I at our desks in class. 

First Day

Tustin entered the MTC today. We said our goodbyes in New York at JFK on Tuesday the 5th. Then his Uncle Tyler and Aunt Lauren picked him up from the SLC airport, hosted him for a night, and drove him to Provo to check in. He was able to email us a quick note once he settled in...

Hey Mom,

I just arrived at the MTC, or as Oliver thought, the "Empty Sea!" My companion is Elder O'Bryant from Seattle and he seems like a chill guy. Everything is going good! They are throwing us right into it with the Chinese but I can tell we will learn quick. We already know our new names, Ni and O!. 

P-Day is Monday (at least that is what Elder O says) so I’ll email then. Also we got ipads for our time in the MTC so there is probably no need to send a camera. 

Looking forwards to hearing from you all. Excited to get started!

Love,

Elder Ni

Missionaries past, present and future!
Tustin, Tyler, Ollie and Henry

Called to Serve

Tustin will enter the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, UT on June 6th, 2018. He will spend 8 weeks in training before departing for Taipei.


Some pictures and video to get this blog going!