Good friends in my zone
My zone-Thailand, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Mohng, Lao, Vietnam
Unedited letter from Sister Dudley- I love every word she writes!
Hey there family!
I hope you had a great birthday, mom! I have a letter coming. I'm the worst for not getting it to you in time, so I'm really sorry. But I hope it was a great day :) You're the most amazing person, and I can't thank you enough for everything you've done for me. I wrote more in the letter, but I hope you know I love you :)
Well...21 more days till we get to leave! This was a good week. We really studied hard, and we saw huge improvements with the language. So thank you for you prayers!!! Our grammar is improving, and I'm remembering words better, and our lessons flowed better than usual. At TRC this week, we taught some more natives, and they gave us great compliments on our speaking (keep in mind how very generous they are toward us, though), but it gave me and Sister Adams good hope. We also had the opportunity to teach a non-member. It was tough, because she mainly spoke mandarin, and just a little Cantonese. So I'm not sure why she didn't go to the Mandarin missionaries...but it was still a really neat experience to share a message with an actual investigator. She was going to church for the first time the following day, which was cool because our TRC topic we had to prepare was how to receive personal revelation at church. But since we always teach members, our lessons are usually based on that, so we really just tried to follow the spirit and answer her questions. We talked to her about the Spirit she can feel at church, and she asked us what the Spirit was and what it felt like. It was a really neat experience and a good window to see what it will be like to teach people with such a different background. And our language ability still keeps us teaching really simply, but there are few times in my life where I have felt the spirit as strongly, or been so moved than when we have been simple and clear and let the spirit testify that it's true. I think the people of China dont need deep doctrinal convincing or complex explanations. Those I have met so far have been so in tune with the Spirit, that they just need the simple testimony, and they let the spirit teach them from there. And I've thought about this a lot this week. I was reading a talk by Elder Packer, and he said,"Make sure you learn the things that you are not taught overtly. If all you know is what you read or what you can hear, you will not know very much." I can read the scriptures and have neat ideas, or study certain patterns I see, or listen to amazing apostles bear testimony, but I think I'm missing alot when that's all I do. I think too often we underestimate the importance and precious nature of reverence and pondering. The Holy Ghost is the greatest teacher we have, and when we study things out in our minds, we invite further revelation by the Spirit. So I'm going to work on that. What an amazing gift to us.
Anyway, I just opened your email! Ya, I love looking at pictures! So send them all you want. You have great friends. I love the people of Carson haha. People are so good. And what a fun weekend it sounds like! I'm excited for Tommy. He deserves every ounce of good that comes his way. And I hope Camilla has some fun. I love that girl. And Danny.....shaving?! say what?! and drivers ed?! that's so weird. Thank you so much for the packages. So much! I wear those shorts every minute I can haha. And can you send me Tobi's address? She sent me an apple pie!! I loved it. And my entire district loved it - haha. b But we threw the box away before I wrote down her address. But it brightened my week, so thank you :) I think our mission president assigns our name based on what our last name is, and what's available, and I dont know. And we have a chinese name because a lot of people in China have both a chinese name and an English name. My shoes are great and comfortable, and no, I'm good. Camilla writes me, a few people from school have written me, I got a note from Tommy last week. I always look forward to those dear elders during the week, so thank you! Favorite part of the day?...probably laying down in bed at the end of it. Or sometimes we do our personal study outside in the sun...that's pretty nice. But then I just look at the mountains and wish I was on a hike, so it's sometimes hard. Favorite meal?: I always get their mashed potatoes because they sound good, but they never really do it for me. I'm big on their life cereal. and broccoli cheese soup ha. Ya, I think my closest friend will always be my companion. I think I'm good at morphing to people's personalities, if that makes sense. I love Sister Adam's though. I definitely lucked out with her. No, there are plenty of piano players here. and we did once at the beginning, but now we have a lot of zone meeting things on Sunday, so Sister Adams and I dont get as much time to have some personal study, so we spend that hour reading scriptures and stuff. which is nice. Sorry, scattered letter. Edit it however you want haha. I love you mom :) Happy Birthday :) Tell everyone else I love them! Oh and last week I put some more pictures up. I'll send some more this week.
Love Hannah
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