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.