Week 4

This week went by really really fast! The time seems to go by faster, so it seems like I'm less productive. I don't know if I really am or not, but I think we've gotten a little too comfortable, maybe. I think our district doesn't work as hard as it did, but I'll try to keep it up.

Yesterday we had a devotional about Repentance by Brother Richard Heaton. He talked about how repentance is a wonderful, joyful process, and shouldn't be dreaded or avoided. If we have any conceptions of bad that come with repentance, then it's Satan's work. Repentance is a gift from the Atonement. In D&C 19:16-19 it shows that Christ did the suffering for us so we don't have to. So by repenting, we can actually avoid suffering.

A lot of people are leaving our branch -- about half of them. It was an international branch, so all of those who already spoke their language were in there. But this week we're going to move districts to the Chinese district. We're going to finally be joining those who will also be leaving July 26.

I don't have my study journal with me, so I'll explain some things that have been going on.

I have an elder in my district who is also going to Taipei, Taiwan. His name is Elder Slawson. He's the only white person in our district. The rest are ABC (American Born Chinese) or Taiwanese. Two other elders are going to Taichung, Taiwan. So we'll be in the same plane over. The other three are going to the LA California mission and the Seattle Washington Mission. It's awesome that we're all switching spots -- everyone from America is going to Taiwan, and vice versa.

My companion, Elder Hsieh, is a wonderful guy. He's a bit lazy at times, but I know he has a great testimony and wants to share the gospel. His family was converted when he was nine, so he was kinda raised in the Church. He's going to LA. He misses Taiwan a lot -- he always compares here to there. It's great to have my companion be from where I'm going. He teaches me some Taiwanese (a dialect of Chinese) that people use every day, and it's almost like slang. He also is patient in me asking him a bunch of Chinese questions. It's been hard recently because his English isn't the greatest, so it's harder for him to be able to teach his part of the lesson. He tends to recite things rather than pour them from his heart. He also isn't very willing to learn English, beacuse even though he was called to LA, he'll be speaking Chinese. I keep telling him that more English will only help him at LA. But we'll see how it goes.

I hope everything is going great. It was nice that today was actually cool. Our classrooms have been really stuffy because it's been hot, but it has all gotten better.

In class we've been going over things they call "Fundamentals" of teaching. These are points like "The Role of the Book of Mormon in Conversion" or "Teaching People, not Lessons". They've been really good. This is a pilot program that they're teaching a bunch of districts. I think it works really well. I don't know what they've been teaching others, but I feel that I'm learning a lot, and though I'm not perfect, I know what I need to work on and how to work on it.

My teachers are named Brother Da Silva and Brother Richards. Brother Da Silva is from Uruguay. He actually just left to get married in Brazil. Brother Richards actually hasn't taught us very much, because he's been having some family health problems. But both of them have been amazing teachers. They've really stressed in teaching with the Spirit. They always answer questions really clearly and well. They also become our "investigators". We teach them and try to get as far as we can in the lessons. They've been good, but hard, because we don't get direct feedback. We have to talk with our companion to self evaluate our work.

Anyway, time's about out. Best of luck, everybody. I love you all!

-Elder Liu.