Hello from the MTC! It's been another awesome
week!! THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone who sent me letters and packages and
“dear elders” with your favorite scriptures. You guys are the best. Mail time
is seriously the most exciting part of the day! It's so fun to hear from all of
you! To those of you who wrote me letters and emails, if I don't send you
a reply email, I will be writing you a handwritten letter today! Keep 'em
coming! I feel the love so much from everyone in mail and prayers-Thank you!
Happy almost birthdays to my cousins Emma and Lauren! If you could, it would be
great if you could send a dear elder to one of the sisters in my district. Her
family is from New Zealand, so she hardly ever gets mail, which is a sad, sad
thing in the life of a missionary. Her address is the same as mine- just put
"Sister Ora Keung" in place of my name. It doesn't have to be long,
just tell her she's awesome.
This week's “Best Two Years” quote comes from
what I learned this week! This week I discovered why Heavenly Father wanted me
to go Chinese speaking. I am a perfectionist (surprise, surprise, right?). I am
here at the MTC not to learn how to be a perfect missionary, but to learn how
to be okay with being an imperfect missionary and person, and how to really
rely on the Lord. Generally speaking, I don't like to speak unless I know
exactly what I want to say and how I want to say it. But you can't learn a
language that way. You have to be okay with making a ton of mistakes. This week
I came across Jacob 4:7. (Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness
that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the
children of men, that we have power to do these things.)
God is going to show me his arm and his grace
BECAUSE I can't speak Chinese, not in spite of it. Another reason I think I've
been called to a Chinese-speaking mission is because it forces me to teach
simply. If I were teaching in English, I would make things way too complicated.
Since I have to look up about 70% of the words we want to use in a lesson, and
since our investigators have no knowledge of God, we have to teach very simply.
Okay, so lots of people have been asking about
my Chinese name, Mu Jiemei. My surname is Mu. The coordinator of the Mandarin
speaking missionaries picks out everyone's surnames by looking at their English
last names and finding a Chinese surname that is similar. So, Murri becomes Mu.
Mu means "trees", I think. Jiemei is the way to say
"Sister" (often abbreviated JM). Mu Jiemei= Sis Murri. We will get
Chinese first and middle names from our teachers right before we leave the MTC
and go to Taiwan.
I have come up with two mottos for my mission
this week. The first is "quiet dignity". I think that phrase is from
the Missionary Handbook. I want people to know who I represent before I even
speak. My other motto is "Wo shi kuaile" (I am happiness). Normally
in Chinese when you say a noun shi (is) an adjective, you must put
"de" at the end, or else you are saying that the noun literally
embodies the adjective. But that's exactly what I want! I am a missionary! I
have the greatest message in the world! I am
happiness!
The language is coming along pretty well. I am
trying really hard to learn and memorize. I still have a lot to learn, but
there are some things that are starting to become automatic. It's like snow- at
first it doesn't seem like it's sticking, but you look back and notice that it
really is accumulating.
I would give up pretty much everything to keep
doing this work forever. It is the greatest work, because it is the work of
God. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!! I (mostly) LOVE CHINESE!
Mu Jiemei/ Sis Murri
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