Elder (Snow) Flake, Olaf, Elder (Ice) Sickle
Time goes by pretty quickly here at the MTC. It seems like our last p-day was just a couple days ago…
Last Tuesday, we had a devotional by the Young Women’s General President. She spoke a lot about being on a mission, as well as about being humble and accepting correction, since Heavenly Father knows what’s best for us and He wants to help us. My companions and I sang in the choir at the Tuesday Evening Devotional, as we usually try to do. One of my companions, Elder Cajilig, was still sick, but he was feeling better that morning. After the devotional, though, he started to feel a lot worse. The MTC Bookstore was closed, so we couldn’t buy the OTC medication the doctor suggested he take, plus one of them (Sudafed – Pseudoephedrine) isn’t sold at the bookstore since it’s somewhat controlled – you have to show ID to purchase it. The front desk contacted security who drove us in a van to CVS Pharmacy, which is about 5 minutes from the MTC, to purchase the medication. We were mainly just excited because we got to leave the MTC and see the “real world” for a brief moment. 😂
Welcome to the “hood”…brother and sister, that is!
On Wednesday, our district was selected to host the new missionaries. (Shout out to the awesome Ali DeGraff, Austin’s 1st grade teacher, who found the photo posted below on Instagram and shared it with me – Mother Terresa.) This means that we would go out to the curb to wait for the Elders and Sisters to be dropped off and then we would take their bags and direct them to the places they needed to go to get their name badges and keys. After that, we’d go get their learning material from the bookstore (if you’re learning a language like Chinese you get about 10 pounds of books, whereas with English you get a couple of small notebooks that weigh less than a pound), guide them to their residence hall to drop their bags off, and then take them to their classroom. It’s pretty fun to do actually. Our district was selected again to do it this week, so we’ll be working again on Wednesday.
One of the three sisters in our district got sick and the doctor finally determined that it’s an intestinal infection. He told her to try not to eat dairy or protein…at least for the time being. She was prescribed Hydrocodone – a strong painkiller – for the pain; she’s going in to the doctor again today to see what else can be done. She seems to vary throughout the day…sometimes she looks miserable, other times she seems pretty good.
Last night, we had a devotional by the BYU Men’s Chorus, which was really nice. One of our teachers sings in the chorus, so we got there super early so we’d have front row seats…so we could make faces at him. They sounded really nice! During the choir practice before the devotional, many of the members of the chorus were there watching us sing as well and taking pictures. Our teacher zoomed in on his iPhone camera and took a picture of the three of us, so we’ll see today during class how the photo turned out.
Photo lineup with the “perp” in the middle.
My mom sent an inflatable Olaf (from the movie Frozen) so we could decorate with him. We put him up in the hallway of our classroom building…everyone liked him – they kept taking photos of him. Then one day we came out of class to see that he had been unplugged with a note on top of him that read: “This is what I think of your Olaf. 🙂 Love, …”. We plugged him back in and left him for the night. Sometime during the next day, Olaf was kidnapped, and they left another note. We knew who did it – it was one of the Sisters in a different Chinese speaking zone in our classroom building. She wouldn’t admit it, but she helped us find where Olaf was hidden.
On Sunday, I was released from my calling of Sacrament Coordinator and put in as one of the Zone Leaders. One of my companions is the other Zone Leader, and the other is now our District Leader. Being Zone Leader, I get to carry the cell phone, which is somewhat exciting despite it being an old flip phone. In addition, I get the fun responsibility of making sure all the lights are turned off in the residence hallways at 10:30pm.
Anyway, it snowed last night and is currently snowing now which is awesome! It’s actually warmer when it snows because of the clouds. We’ll see what exciting new things this next week brings!
Elder Simonson
Where in the world’s Waldo?
Picking out my new “parents”
“Stand close together and lift where you stand!”