Lots of Lessons

Hey everyone,

Ive had a pretty good week here at the MTC. Not much happened but its been busy because we have had to teach a few extra lessons on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday to a supposedly non-member sister, Lai Jiemei, who has allegedly been taught by missionaries at one point and agreed to meet with us. We are not sure if she was a role play or not but I thought our three lessons with her were some of our best lessons at the MTC. We had a really good first lesson where we were able to identify her needs and so our lessons were pretty easy to plan because we knew exactly what she needed to learn. Unfortunately, we only got to teach her three times instead of the planned six times because the TRC (Teaching Resource Center) changed their computer systems and we got assigned to a new person for next week. 

We also had a really great Skype lesson on Monday with a sister in Australia. She was just about the nicest person ever and just kept telling us how awesome we are and how awesome our Chinese was and how awesome it is that we are missionaries. She really did say “awesome” like every third sentence it felt like. Unsurprisingly, we came out of that lesson feeling pretty awesome.

All the Chinese missionaries heading out with my group got their flight plans this week except those of us going to Taiwan. Some Missionaries in the other mandarin zone went and talked to the travel office today to see if they could figure out what’s up. Apparently none of us have gotten our Visas yet but the Travel Office wants to wait until Thursday or Friday to give us any new plans in case we do get our visas. Hopefully we will know sooner rather than later!

Quick funny story, We ran into our mission president’s parents who are also going to go serve in Taiwan at lunch this week. They are pretty awesome, but they haven’t gotten their visas either. However, they got reassigned to their home stake in Salt Lake! They didn’t seem very excited about it. Hahah. Hopefully we can all get to Taiwan soon!

我愛你們,

Elder Tustin Neilson

倪長老

Taiwan, Taipei

台灣，台北

Sister Morgan (the sister in the middle) had her birthday on Wednesday. Her mom found out Elder Burton’s (our district leader) mailing address and ended up sending him a big box of party stuff so we could surprise Sister Morgan. Elder Burton was kind of stressed about it. It was pretty funny.

Second half of the district party

Super random candid photo someone took of a zone prayer we had one night. Usually we are in the lobby but the Polynesia bound Elders stole it from us this night and we had to meet in the zone leaders’ dorm.

Another Week at the MTC

你好 (Hello),

We had our first Skype TRC lesson with a sister in Taiwan last Monday night. It was quite the experience to try and teach a native speaker. I felt like I understood about 5% of what she said, but it was also the first time I remember feeling the spirit while teaching in Chinese. Teaching a real person, sharing their real problems is so much more powerful than role-playing and I left that lesson with a much greater understanding of the importance of loving the people I serve. It’s funny because I felt like that became a theme of the week for me. We spent a lot of time in class just discussing Taiwanese culture to give everyone a greater appreciation and understanding of life there. One of my teachers went to Taiwan and we spent about an hour just looking at pictures and talking. (I kind of felt bad for everyone going to California and Canada when we talk about food) We also had a lot of great discussions about Chinese which was really fun because every time I get to look at the big picture of Chinese and not just focus on learning words, my love for the language and the people who speak it grows exponentially. It was so awesome to just sit down and discuss but every time we do I just want to get to Taiwan faster!

On Tuesday our devotional speaker was acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve, President M. Russel Ballard. It was a really powerful meeting. He didn’t really share a message but instead spent his whole time teaching us about Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith. Their life, but mostly the context surrounding their martyrdom. It was one of those talks where nothing in particular seems to stand out but the spirit in the room and the spirit surrounding the topic is undeniable. For the closing hymn we sang “Praise to the Man” and I don’t know if my testimony of Joseph and Hyrum has ever been stronger than in that moment.

That’s pretty much it for the week. The only other interesting thing was choir practice last night where the director, Brother Eggat, talked about the wedding traditions and ceremonies for people in Jesus’ day. The whole process was literally just a metaphor for Christ. Basically the bride and groom’s fathers would arrange the marriage, then the groom would leave the house of his father to come make engagement covenants with the bride at her house. Then the groom would leave a gift with the bride to remember him by because we would then leave for usually around a year, to build a house for himself and the bride. The new house would be on or connected to the house of the groom’s father and had to be better than the house the bride grew up in. Once the house was done, the groom would come get his bride who would hopefully have stayed faithful and used all this time to prepare for their life together by making clothes and stuff. That’s a pretty sparse overview, and there are a lot of extra parts that make the metaphor even stronger, but that’s the basics. I'm sure you could look this all up online but I wouldn’t really know, haha! Brother Eggat is going to finish the whole discussion about this on Tuesday’s choir practice but I don’t know if we are going to make it because the gym is being resurfaced so Choir is in T3 in a room that cant fit everyone, so it’s first come first serve. They also changed the time choir starts so now it conflicts with my district’s dinner time. Hopefully we can still make it because choir is one of the highlights of the week.

Everything at the MTC is going well although all the days are starting to blur together. Every day I sit down and have to discuss with my companions about what to write in my journal because all my memories from the day are a little jumbled.

Side note, Elder Burton has never had Takis before coming on the mission, but you (mom and dad) sent me Takis and Aunt Kim sent me one of those 24 packs of the single serving mini Takis. So I had a ton of Takis! I gave some to Elder Burton for him to try and he more or less got addicted. Every night he would come home and eat a thing of mini Takis. He would come home with a headache from learning Chinese and for the few minutes or so when he was eating Takis his headache would be gone and he would just kind of sit in a chair and stumble around. Anyways, we opened the big bag you all sent today and he kind of went into shock. 

Here are just a few of his Taki quotes for today:

“How can something so good be of this earth!”

“Just looking at them makes me . . . Aaaaaaaaa . . . (Possibly passes out for a second)” 

“These make my mission worth it”

I don’t know if I should be letting him eat Takis at this point.

Thats all for now! Love,

Elder Tustin Neilson

倪長老

Taiwan, Taipei

台灣，台北

I don’t have any good pictures for the mass email but my companions and I have been taking random pictures of everything we do today to have something to send:

This is our breakfast this morning. We got sack breakfast because we didn’t want to change into Sunday clothes in order to go get food in the cafeteria. We have to do this pretty often when we have exercise in the morning and the lines get progressively longer every time we go because the MTC just keeps shipping in new missionaries. It’s not really worth the line anymore just to get some hard boiled eggs and some bread or cereal but what can you do?

This is us studying this morning preparing for our Skype TRC tonight (lesson with a member in Taiwan). It was a really nice morning and so it was nice to study outside.

Here we are writing emails while waiting for laundry to be done. 

Fire Alarm Week 6

Hey Everyone,

First of all, my companions and I got released from our assignment as Zone Leaders yesterday. It was fun to be in the leadership but I’m also really excited to be a normal missionary again. Elder Burton got assigned to be our District Leader so Elder Brady and I will still get dragged around for leadership training and getting the mail.

We had a crazy experience with the fire alarm on Thursday. We came back from exercise and a bunch of police men and women were outside our dorm and wouldn’t let us in because they were about to start a fire drill. We all waited outside while the alarm went off and were finally let in. So everyone is getting into the showers but then the fire alarm starts going off again! The first time we heard the alarm we were all outside and couldn’t really tell how loud this alarm was but when were were all inside it was very apparent that these alarms are intended to wake up the deepest of sleepers in the middle of the night. One of the police men’s ears was bleeding! We all run outside, with some people in just a towel, to wait it out. Not sure how the alarm got turned on again. It was probably just the Police trying to reset the alarm or something and accidentally pulling it. So yeah, that was fun.

Last nights devotional was one of my favorites so far. The speaker was really engaging and energetic and had some really good thoughts. Basically he talked about loving the Lord more than anyone and how to be a good missionary. Long story short, if we are obedient, work hard, and love those around us, then Christ will make everything work out, even if there are challenges. It was really motivating and got me really excited to get to the field. Also, we got to sit right next to the organ at Sunday’s devotional. There is this one organ player who plays the organ with such power that Elder Burton and I sometimes can’t even sing, and luckily he was playing last night. It was pretty awesome. 

One Sunday I also had to be part of the Match His Message panel with one other Elder in my district. They had four of us “experienced” missionaries stand up on the stand with the MTC presidency to help tell all the new Elders about the dress code and code of conduct. It was a little awkward but I made sure to avoid saying “tight suits are immodest” like one of the guys on our panel 6 weeks ago said.

Elder Tustin Neilson

倪長老

Taiwan, Taipei

台灣，台北

 On Wednesday my companions and I coordinated our outfits to be the four elements: Water (Elder Brady), Earth (Me), Fire (Elder Burton), and Air (The Holy Ghost?). It might be one of the most Mormon things I have ever done. Here are some pictures:

Week 5: Watching Fireworks Through a Window

Hey Everyone!

You know how missionaries always talk about only having “One Christmas” or something left in their mission? Well guess who only has one Fourth of July left?! This whole thing is just going too fast! I’m basically half way through the mission!

Speaking of half way points, I actually AM half way through my time here at the MTC. Pretty soon I'll be emailing at something like 4am USA time from Taiwan. Or more likely at a normal time from whereever I get reassigned for visa delays (it happens to a lot of Taiwan missionaries). Whatever happens I’m excited to head out soon-ish. 

So the Fourth of July happened. We got to stay up late to have a quick devotional on religious freedom as a Zone and then watched the first part of Stadium of Fire. By 10:45 we were all too tired to stay up and went back to the dorms. That’s when I realized I was an adult. Just kidding! But in all seriousness, staying up at the MTC is just not worth it. I need that precious sleep. We couldn’t even hear the fireworks through the MTC’s Satan proof windows and that’s half the experience. 

On Tuesday the Devotional speaker was Elder Dickson (a former member of the 70) who is the neighbor of one of my companions (Elder Brady) and a close family friend. After the devotional, we approached the stand to say hi (which is technically against the rules) but we got taken into the backstage area to meet for a second. It was a little awkward because the whole MTC presidency was watching us the whole time.

This morning my district and I went to help clean the Provo Temple which is closed for the month. We all got split up but Elder Brady and I helped this one Brother clean the boiler room for a few hours. It was pretty easy work but it was hot in that room. It was kind of cool however, after watching a movie on church history the night before and thinking about how early saints built their temples by hand. I felt a little bit of a connection to our history. 

 I’m still in a trio with Elder Brady and Elder Burton. They are both from Utah but Elder Brady’s dad is in the FBI so he’s lived all over the world. Elder Burton is going to Canada, Vancouver. 

I laughed that Laura sang “Peace in Christ” in Sacrament Meeting. As Missionaries pretty much the only non hymns music we have available are the songs in the mutual theme album on LDS Music. “Peace in Christ” is definitly one of the better ones. Although our favorite is “Choose to Stay” because it was my old companion’s favorite, but if you want to listen to some really painful songs I suggest “Priceless” or “Say Yes.”

As the MTC saying goes, “The days are like weeks and the weeks are like days.” Everyday feels like an eternity, but then a week is over and you question where it went. I find myself a little suprised every time its Sunday or P-Day again.

TL;DR: I’m half way through the mission. The Fourth of July was fun although we all went home before the fireworks really started and were crazy tired the day after. My companion knew the Tuesday Devotional speaker personally and I helped clean the temple boiler room for a few hours this morning. 

All in all, a really good week. 

  I love you all so much, 

Elder Tustin Neilson

倪長老

Taiwan, Taipei

臺灣，台北

Elder Brady and I taking advantage of the Taiwan Flag being flown. (He’s going to Taipei too)

My companions and I trying to capture our patriotic tie choices on the 4th of July. (We are standing in front of one of the MTC’s many awesome murals. This one is of Nephi looking at Jerusalem

My companions and I, backstage with Elder Dickson, his wife, and one of their granddaughters and her fiancé

Week Four

Here I am back with another P-Day email! Just a quick note before we get into things: I’m going to start putting a TL;DR at the bottom of these for those who don’t want to read long emails but still want a taste of what’s going on. 

Here we go:

The temple is closed for cleaning this next month so we all suddenly have a lot more time for emailing which is nice. Hopefully it will open up early enough in August for us to go one more time before heading out. 

This week was one of those weeks where you are so busy it almost feels like you never did anything. The week started out pretty standard although there were still a lot of Apostles walking around Monday and Tuesday. On Tuesday, my companions and I walked passed T3 (one of the new teaching buildings) right as Elder Gong and his wife walked out. He waved to us and we waved back but right as we walked away we realized we should have said something in Chinese and they might have stopped to chat for a second. Especially seeing as two of us are going to Taiwan Taipei, the mission he was mission president over. (Also we are pretty sure both he and his wife served there as regular missionaries too) Anyways, That was a seriously missed opportunity! As we regretted our failure we walked right past Elder Rasband talking to a bunch of other missionaries which kind of rubbed salt in the wound!

On Wednesday my district was tasked with being hosts for the new missionaries coming in. It mostly consisted of making sure families dropped off their kids quickly and walking the new missionaries to check-in to their dorms. The main problem was that Wednesday was crazy hot. Or as we Chinese Missionaries would say “Feīcháng Rè!” I hosted this one elder who was limping on the way to the dorms and I asked him if he hurt his ankle or something while checking in. He said no, he just has a broken leg. This kid literally had surgery 4 weeks ago after a rope swing gave out on him and he sustained major leg damage. We are talking bone sticking out kind of damage! After that I felt I had to carry his bags to make sure his leg didn’t give out, but this kid lived on the top floor of his resident hall and there are no elevators. So I’m trying to carry these two giant bags while this new elder limps behind me. I know I don’t have the strongest arms in the world but I think those bags had to have been breaking the 50 lb limit!

The same Wednesday our 14 new elders and 5 new sisters arrived as well. It’s crazy because our Zone just tripled in size and none of us older missionaries feel like we have the experience necessary to be in charge. Every new missionary is stressing out and we just have to keep telling them, “Yes the first few days are really hard, but it gets better.” The older missionaries and I are also a little stressed  because a few of the new Elders have a lot of Chinese experience and the rest are catching up quick. We are hoping they don’t get better than us too quickly!

Yesterday was our first Fast Sunday at the MTC and let me tell you and I don’t think I have ever fasted to such a complete degree. It helps when they don’t actually make breakfast or lunch and keep you so busy there would be no time to eat, but it wasn’t too bad. As long as we were doing something relatively engaging and feeling the spirit it took my mind off of food. Everyone’s main complaint was dinner when they served Chicken Cordon Blue which is literally the worse possible thing they could have served. By some miracle there were ribs in the left overs line and honestly the line for the ribs was usually longer than the normal line. Why they didn’t do ribs as the normal dinner is beyond me. 

Beginning of summer sounds crazy as always. Hope it all goes well with Girls camp. Hopefully Kimball will also remember to take pictures in Thailand!

Being Zone Leader hasn't been too much so far. I am still in a trio which nicely spreads out the work load. My main job so far has been to be the designated carrier of the Zone leader cell phone which is not as exciting as it sounds. We can only call the information desk and so far we really haven’t had to use it much. Saturday night we had to interview the district leaders after they finished interviewing their districts. Everyone is doing more or less alright but we three had a quick brainstorming session with each other and then with the Sister
Training Leaders (who are, funny enough, also a trio) on how we can helpthe Zone and a few individuals. It’s kind of nice to feel like we can make a difference in the lives of those in the Zone.

The spirit has been strong as always this week. We watched a filmed talk by Elder Holland on Tuesday where he talked about making sure we give all of our time and effort on our mission to The Lord, and allow Him to change our life through our missions. Elder Holland shared a quick poem that I can’t remember word for word but it went something like this:

He told us to go to the edge

We said No we’ll fall

He told us to go to the edge

We said No we’ll fall

He told us to go to the edge

We said No we’ll fall

He said Go To The Edge!

We went 

He pushed us

And we flew

If we let Him, The Lord will help us fly.

Elder Neilson

TL:DR: My companions and I missed a golden opportunity to talk with Elder Gong. I had to host an Elder with a broken leg on one of the hottest days of my MTC life. The 19 new missionaries in our Zone came in on Wednesday and some of them are better than us 4 week old missionaries at Chinese. And on Sunday the MTC fed us the worst possible diner on Fast Sunday. 

 Unfortunately in all the commotion this week none of us took any pictures. I can however supply a photo of our Bob Ross bust that was handed down to us from the previous generation. It got us extra points on this week’s room check: