WEEK #7......

Dear all,

I have a bunch of funny things to say and then I will end with a spiritual thought.

So we had a skype lesson this week and have another one later tonight but it is with a member in Taiwan and I thought I was good at Mandarin but no. I couldn't understand anything that he was saying hardly. It was pretty bad. The real world Mandarin is a lot faster than the MTC mandarin. That's for sure.

Yesterday, I got assigned district leader which should be interesting. I get to hold the position for the rest of the time we are at the MTC.

Oh there was this buddy of mine who forgot his tennis shoes and so he made his own out of duct tape and wears them to play basketball with us. They look exactly like Sawyer's football cleats with the nike sign and everything. I thought it was hilarious but he wears them relentlessly every day. The traction is so bad though it's ridiculous. I have a picture of them I will send. I really want sawyer to see them.

The MTC is getting kind of old to be honest. Like I am super excited to get out into the field. But on the other hand I know that my Mandarin is really not at all ready to go out into the new world. We don't hardly speak any English the entire day. At first it was hard not to speak any english but now it is getting easier.

So on Wednesday we got to host again and I got to host Austin. I kind of worked the hosting system to be able to do it but I was able to. It is our third week hosting so we kind of had the system down pact. I was also able to sit with him at last night's devotional and afterward was able to play our duets with him in a side chapel. Super awesome to see him.

Funny story about our investigator. So Elder Lundahl-Wolford and I are late to everything which is something that we are working on. Anyways when we went to teach our investigator who is our teacher (10 minutes late) she kicked us out. First rejection ever. Many more to come.

Our teacher got sick this week with a bad sore throat and cold and then every person in our district got sick including me. All sore throats. I gave two of the elders some of Mom's echinea (natural herb) and they said it was the worst thing they had ever tasted. I thought it was hilarious. But they did get better. We are all good now.

So there are a lot of funny language things that happen at the MTC and there were a couple this week. As me and my companion were leaving a particular lesson we were walking away and he yelled Xienzhi which is prophet instead of zaigian which is goodbye. Our investigator who is also our teacher thought it was hilarious. It was.

Another one is we were in class this week and one of our elders was talking about how much he liked the MTC teachers life. And instead of saying Wo xihuan ni de shenghuo, he said Wo xihaun ni de shenti. Instead of saying I like your lifestyle, He said I like your body. Our district just about died laughing.

Also in the cafeteria this week I couldn't find my companion and so I decided to give it a Heeeeeeeh. He does this all the time and when I did everyone looked at me like I was crazy but of course my companion right away found me. The Heeeeeh is really hard to explain without showing you in person but maybe you can imagine a southern farmer Heeeeeeeh.

So instead of getting sisters phone numbers here you get their LDS emails. My companion is to say the least quite good at this.

So I wanted to share one spiritual thing that I learned this week. I finished reading the Book of Mormon last week but I didn't really get my answer until this week. It was when I turned myself towards others that I received my answer. We started teaching our first gold tag (the other two bailed) in English. SO great to teach in English by the way. Anyways she asked a really good question that sent me on a hunt.

She asked well how do I know which church is true if my father felt the spirit in the Buddhist temple? Yet I feel the spirit in lots of different churches? And why do all these churches have such faithful members that know that their church is true? Like they can't all be right?

Well they kind of all are right and wrong. They all have such faithful members because they feel the spirit telling them that a specific part of their religion is true and it is. If we read Moroni 10: 5 it says that by the power of the holy ghost ye may know the truth of all things. The spirit has no choice but to testify of truth. And many many churches have truth. And many many churches do good in this world. And the same goes for our church. The spirit testifies of the truthfulness of this church as it does other churches. So what makes it different? Well, the claims it makes does.

Joseph Smith claims to have seen God the father and the son. He claims to have had many many more visions. He claims to have written the Book of Mormon. He claims to have restored Christ's original church by command from him. If we read Moroni 7 we know that all good things come from God. Also it tells us that only good fruit can come from good roots. Therefore if we look at the Mormon church the fruit is good. But other churches also have good fruit. The difference is the roots are different. No other church claims to have visions like Joseph and his prodecessors did. The fruit is wonderful and thus the roots also cannot be evil but must be good. There is no way that from one of the biggest lies of mankind has a emerged a church that has changed so many millions of lives and brought forth such great fruit. This goes against the principle.

If you want more evidence of this true. Read the Book of Mormon. And pray about it sincerely. This takes humility.

This same principle of the good fruit and good roots can be applied to Jesus Christ. He claimed to be the son of God. He worked mighty miracles. He raised the dead and healed the sick. Either he was the Son of God or something much much worse. There is no way that it could of been a lie. The biggest lie of all mankind. Look at his fruit. Look at how many people he helped and his words continue to help. No man could of claimed he was the Son of God and yet down so much good and many miracles and been one of the worst liars/hypocrites of all time. This again goes against the principle.

I hope some of that made some sense.

I love you all.

-Ping Zhang Lao

"If you haven't chosen the Kingdom of God, it won't matter what you have chosen." - C.S. Lewis