MTC Week 7: Messy Cakes

Kia ora 朋友和家庭！

The day I leave for Auckland is coming soon, but the Lord still has a lot to teach me here.  This week was an adjustment, but I've come home every night thinking it was just a really good day, so it hasn't been too crazy. 

Oh... :

• Sister Hoe and Sister Chou moved out last week, leaving Sister Cummings and I alone, and are subject to strangers moving in without notice. We miss them a lot, but we've been dealing pretty well with the change. (We leave our room to talk to people a lot more!)
• Gibson (Elder Campbell) left last week and now Jenna (Hermana Berg) is gone, so my only friends on campus are Chinese-speaking, which is great, but it was nice to see a friendly face around.
• Snow! - It is freezing here, and I'm pretty sure I jinxed it by saying "Hopefully it won't snow before we leave". It's my windbreaker and a bunch of layers against nature now.

Woo!:

1. I have my own half of the room now, so that's cool
2. Sister Hoe and Sister Chou moved out because a Taiwanese sister just got here, and will be leaving at the same time as us. She is the only sister in her 3 person native Chinese-speaker district so now Sister Hoe and Sister Chou are her companions. She's super nice and sweet, and I can actually understand her when she speaks Mandarin. I love Ling Jiemei！
3. At the devotional last night Brother and Sister Rahlf of the MTC presidency spoke. Earlier in the day they came to our Sacrament Meeting and they asked to talk to our district. They asked us to participate in the devotional, by answering questions and reading passages on the screen when they asked us. My district was so nervous! I'm really proud of us, though, because we handled it well, and I thought it was a pretty good bonding experience.
4. Temple session with the Elders this morning- it was freezing but we got breakfast at the temple cafeteria and it was such a good change of pace!
5. Snow! I thought I didn't like snow because earlier this year I remember wishing it was warm by the time March rolled. But, it snowed pretty much all day yesterday, and snow is just so pretty and delicate and fun when it's actively snowing, or when the stuff on the ground is fresh and untouched. It really brightened my morning!
6. I love choir, and playing volleyball with the newer Mandarin district, which rocks.
7. Hermana Webb is off serving and I am so proud of her!

中文 （Chinese) :

• qidai means either excited 期待, or umbilical cord 脐带 depending how you pronounce it. Risky business.
• zaogao 糟糕 means messy cakes or "Oh no!". So now sometimes in English I end up saying "messy cakes".

Spiritual:

We started non-member/native-speaker TRC's this last week and they went pretty well. These people have some hard, but really thoughtful questions, and I love helping them learn more. It's still a little nerve-wracking, and there are still a lot of words we don't know, but we are doing pretty well.

Simple Truth

I'm going to try and write some simple truths at the end of my emails as much as I have time.  To those who aren't too familiar with my beliefs, this might be interesting and informative -- otherwise it might be a good reminder of truths we believe in.

God is our loving Father in Heaven.  We are His children.  "Behold, the Lord hath created the earth that it should be inhabited; and He hath created His children that they should possess it." 3 Nephi 17:36. I know that we lived with God before we came here to Earth, and He loves us as a father would love his own children.  He wants us to be happy and to learn the grow here on Earth.

I love you all and I am so grateful for your love and support.

馬姐妹  (Ma JieMei)

Sister Martinez 

Temple this morning (7 am!) [UFO ?]

Snowy Sunday!

'Tis the season: Sister Martinez, Sister Hoe, Sister Chou, Sister Cummings