Tale of Two Companions

Hey family,

So I'm going to keep these letters to talking about my time here in the MTC and I will respond to your letters that you've sent me personally. :) Hao ma? Wo hen ai zhege jihui chuanjiaoshi! I love this missionary opportunity. It is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I know that this is the place that I am supposed to be. Two days ago I really feel like I broke through a language barrier. I was preparing to teach a lesson, my companion can't quite speak yet, and while I was doing so I realized I didn't need to look at my notes. I remembered everything I needed. I took that as a sign that I need to, instead of focusing on my notes and lesson plan, focus on teaching by the Spirit and really trying to discover what my investigators needs are. It was a bummer though because the other elders in my district took to long to teach so I wasn't able to teach that investigator but I get to teach him on Thursday so it's all good. :)

Now, I will tell you about some of the silly things. ha I have two elders in my district (the asian with glasses, and the white guy with glasses) there names are Elder B------ and Elder B----... They are a handful to say the least. There is never a moment where Elder B---- isn't talking about some random fact the absolutely nobody cares about. He can't read social cues very well so he can't really tell but I love him just the same. He has a very pure heart and really works hard to learn the gospel and the language. He is obsessed with Jesus the Christ which is a good and bad thing. He is constantly telling us about random doctrinal things and such. Elder B------ is our district leader. He is the epitomy of awkward and uptight homeschooler. ;)

He is done with three years of college at the age of 18 and is very intelligent. He refuses to have fun and dominates the other two in lessons which has gotten to be a pretty big problem. The other asian, Elder N-- is in their companionship and he absolutely cannot stand the other two elders. My companion and I have kind of taken him under our wing so he is semi able to cope with the days now but he is having a pretty hard time with it. Oh the joys of missionary work. I keep telling Elder N--- that this will just prepare him for when he gets out in the mission field and can't stand his companions. haha He is such a good guy. He just finished his army training so we have a lot to talk about.

My companion is awesome. We have had quite a few spiritual experiences together already. He is very sarcastic but when he gets into the groove of the gospel there is no stopping him. I think he is such a good guy. :) We work really well together and he always tells me how grateful he is that I can semi speak Chinese. Speaking of Chinese, I have been able to remember basically everything I have studied up to this point in Chinese. Especially grammar, which is essential to being able to understand the language. During sacrament meeting on Sunday I was able to understand nearly all of the talks and this is mainly because I can understand the sentence structure. Who knew that being good at English would help me be better at Chinese. Thanks Mom!!! haha

We kind of have a competition going on in our district to see who receives the most packages while we are here... just saying... haha I'm 1 behind. ;)

Thank you for all of the dear elder letters. I received a letter from Jacob, Jessica, Mom and Dad from Dear Elder. I guess that means I'm just missing one person... Daniel write me or else I will hunt you down when you are over in Taiwan on your mission. ;) There are twin sisters in our zone going to Taiwan. It can happen, I'll pray for you! I'll be attaching a bunch of pictures with this email. All of the pictures of the guys are the elders in my district. The sisters in our district are solid. Because the language is so hard I believe it really is true that the Lord sends intelligent people mandarin speaking. The lowest ACT score in our district is 27 and the lowest GPA is 3.7 (all the sisters have over 30). The branch pres holds us to a much higher standard than the other missionaries here at the MTC. It is crazy to see how much disobedience happens here at the MTC. I am constantly amazed by it. I can promise you that if you disobey while here at the MTC you will not be able to have the constant companionship of the Spirit and you won't receive the blessing our Father in Heaven has in store for us. Our district learned this very early. We decided to stay up really late one night and the next day every single one of us were incredible sick. It's kinda terrible. Our district has been sick more of the time here then not sick. Everyday is a struggle but with the Lord's help we will be able to do anything that he needs us to do.

I want you all to know that God is our loving Heavenly Father and we are his Children. He has sent us here to earth that we may obtain a body and learn to become like Him. I have a testimony of Jesus Christ and his atonement. He was sent here by our Heavenly Father to fulfill His righteous purposes. Satan is very real and knows our weaknesses. He wants us to be miserable. We must repent everyday. Repentance is key to feeling the Spirit and if we want to feel peace, joy, comfort, and happiness we must pray and read our scriptures everyday. I ask my Father in Heaven everyday to help me with my trials and I know that he will do this because he has promised us that He will. I love you all. I think about you constantly. The days are long but the weeks are short. I am so excited to be able to serve my Father in Heaven. The Spirit bears witness of the truthfullness of the gospel, no matter what language you speak.

Wo hen ai nimen.

Mao Zhanglao or Elder Meeks