Ding Jimuih

  Léihdeih hóu!  This week has been super busy and super emotional haha, but we finally made it! Week 9 of my 9 week missionary training is over and I will be departing this week into the field! First I need to address the info we have as of now. My visa is indeed approved, but they can't ship it from Hong Kong directly to me. It needs to go from Hong Kong to Salt Lake City and then from there to me. We called the travel department to clarify a few things and they honestly don't know when exactly they will get my visa. It could take a week or it could take four, but since we don't know, they can't make plans yet for me to go to Hong Kong. Instead, I've received flight plans to Denver and will be leaving this Tuesday and arriving at around 3pm. The good news is, however, Sister Johnson will be arriving just one minute after me so we will be able to meet in the airport and go to the mission home together. I have no idea who my companion will be or which ward I will be...

Hello everyone! I know today isn't Saturday, but I just had to tell everyone the news! I just received an email saying that my Hong Kong visa has been approved and they will be sending it to me asap! Travel plans are in the works! I am so incredibly grateful to everyone who has helped in fasting and praying for this! The power of fast and prayer is REAL! I know that Heavenly Father is truly watching over all of us and I will forever be thankful for this miracle! I will keep you all updated and send my normal email on saturday! THANK YOU!!! 丁姊妹

  Léihdeih hóu Just like that, we're done with week 8 out of 9!! I feel like the MTC has just flown by, don't you? It's been full of so much fun. Laughter and tears and lots of stories about bō lòh (pineapples) for some reason.  This week especially has been quite eventful. I'll start with the beginning of the week. On Monday, my district got the opportunity to meet the newest Cantonese district (who Sister Yau is teaching). This district is huge! It's full of 14 missionaries, 8 Elders and 6 Sisters and this was only their second week! We had told Sister Yau we wanted to meet them so she arranged for them to join us for a bit during our afternoon class. We did an activity where we worked on the get to know you phrases (where are you from, what's your name, what do you like to do, etc etc). Brother Ng put us into breakout rooms and had us just get to know each other and work on the phrases a bit. In the first breakout room, I was put with one Elder and one Sister...

  Greetings everyone! Since it's been seven weeks of this now, I'm sure you guys know the drill. We are in the last stretch now! As my MTC training lasts 9 weeks and we have now finished week 7, you should expect only two more emails until I'm sent into the field! This week in MTC, as well as the next two weeks to come, are much slower than the weeks before. These weeks are filled with mostly review and I've definitely felt that. In each class we'll usually have a Book of Mormon read/share, a Task Practice (familiarizing ourselves with a new portion of one of the preach my gospel lessons), and some grammar, whether it be new or review. I think the new grammar is probably what I'm the most shaky on right now because they are things like "according to" or "since" or "apart from" and I don't usually say those things in normal conversation.  If you've been keeping up with my mom's social media then you'll also know that ...

  Léihdeih hóu (hello everyone), I cannot believe week 6 is over already! Not because the week felt short, but because MTC as a whole is going so quickly. If anything, this week felt longer. Part of that is probably because I'm in Virginia now and with the time difference, I don't finish classes until 7pm, but nevertheless it felt long indeed.  This week felt like mostly grammar, although we of course still practiced teaching lesson 2. We went over grammar for "Although...nevertheless", as well as reviewing the rest of the grammar we've learned as a whole. We did lots of practices and activities to practice these principles as well as some fun games.  When we were going over giving directions, Sister Ko showed us a map of Hong Kong and had us direct her from point A to point B based off of wherever she wanted to go. We had a list of vocab to go off of and one of them was jyun, which means to turn, and one time when Sister Ko was going the wrong way, Sister Korth...

  Hello again to everyone from 丁姊妹! I can't believe this week is already over! MTC has been speeding by so fast. Only four weeks to go until I leave! This week we focused on what they call "intermediate core". This is essentially learning how to teach the Preach My Gospel (PMG) lessons in Cantonese (whereas basic core was just learning how to share a scripture, extend an invitation, etc). We were able to get all the way through lesson 1 and just started lesson 2 on Friday. It can be really exhausting learning the principles in these lessons. We usually learn four a day, two in morning class and two in afternoon. We have to learn how to say the phrases and how to expand on them with our own, as well as being able to apply those phrases in a mock lesson. On Thursday as we finished up Lesson 1, we were asked to teach it comprehensively in 5 minutes in Cantonese. Let me tell you it wasn't easy. There are a lot of vocab words that we went over once or twice that just comp...