Whats up all of my loyal followers and fans! It's Elder Baird here in my first email home! In all honesty I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to talk about here, but I guess we will figure it out as we go.
This has been crazy. I don't think there is a word that describes that as well as crazy does. So we will start at the beginning, Seems like a good place to start!
I got dropped off by parents, cried a few tears, and was immediately whisked away by my guide. We went and got my badge and a bunch of other stuff. Putting the badge on was a lot of fun! It was crazy that this was actually happening.
My companions name is Elder Broderick. He is reallly cool! He has a ton of energy and he wants to learn everything. He's never done Chinese before but it is coming along well. The gift of tongues is real! Who knew!
After meeting my companion we meet our teacher and then went to a big group thing. And we were immediately teaching. Literally I had just put my stuff in my room and now I was teaching with the 600 other new missionaries here. 600 new missionaries in one day. It was a lot of people.
Sleeping was pretty hard that night (one of the elders snores). And so I was tired the next day, but I have been tired every day so far so I think it will be a trend. We went to the doctors to get some blood drawn and get X-rays. Good times.
We got to know the district better and I love them. Literally every single person in our district is great. None of the elders are dumb teenagers and we all want to learn really badly. So that is a huge blessing! We talked a lot about our missionary purpose today and dove head first into the language. MANDARIN IS HARD! But I can pray pretty well in Chinese now and can do some missionary things pretty well.
We talked a lot about obedience and following the white handbook. One thing we talked about was Missionary Dress and Grooming. And in that chapter it says that socks should be conservative and dark in color. I, of course, was wearing by bright rainbow socks. And I was struck by the fact that if I want to follow with exact obedience, I need to change my socks. So I've committed to not wear my colored socks anymore.
I'm tired.
Saturday was something different. Chinese is really hard, and I keep praying for the gift of tongues, but that doesn't happen without a lot of work. We spend a lot of time in class learning about it, and today we were informed that we were going to be teaching an investigator in only Chinese! I'VE BEEN HERE FOR 4 DAYS AND WE WERE ALREADY TEACHING A LESSON! so yah, I was terrified. But as I started to humble myself and work with the spirit I started to lose my nerves.
On my way to the lesson though we decided to take the elevator. There were a lot of us in it. 19 to be specific. As the doors closed a different elder just yelled "LETS JUMP! 1-2-3 JUMP!"
No one had time to react and process, so of course almost everyone jumped.
That was when we dropped about half a floor and shut up real quick. All 19 of us had the same thought process "uh oh; what did we do; we're screwed" The elevator didn't keep moving and we very quickly decided to say a prayer (I love that we can say prayers whenever, it is great)
After that we called for help and 3 prayers, some language study, watching the restoration video, and 40 minutes later, we finally made it out of the elevator (it got so hot in there that we were able to play tic tac toe in the condensation on the metallic walls) Fun stuff!
CHOIR IS AMAZING! all to say about that.
As well if you haven't watched the face to face, watch it. I learned so much.
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Well my faithful few, I really have no way to convey how this experience has been. This isn't even a tenth of what I have done here or have felt here.
Spiritual thought of the day: As I was worrying about the language and being a missionary while studying outside, I started to read Mormon 9:25. In this it says that we can have all of these gifts if we have faith and don't doubt. I was worried that because I was struggling meant I didn't have enough faith or that I was doubting. Immediately as I was thinking this the bells at BYU started to play "Come Come Ye Saints"
The line "no toil nor labor fear" hit me like an elevator falling from the sky. I remembered the immediate goodness of God. And that it is possible for me to over come struggles because of the atonement.
I love you all! Thank you for the support.
Love,
Elder Baird
百长老
P.S.
all care packages are warmly welcomed :)
some ideas include: candy, mountain dew, snacks, cold hard cash, uncut diamonds, and no limit credit cards!
:))))))
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