Temporal Struggles

8/19/09

Hello everybody,

So again I am having struggles temporally. All my clothes have rips and tears still. I don't remember my pin number for my credit card from the credit union. I think that I lost my camera, I have missed many awesome photo opportunities.

I still have no idea what is going on in Mandarin. My companion makes me do phone calls, but all I can really understand is "could you give the cell phone to Elder Lee?"

I seriously have heard way more Cantonese than Mandarin since I have been here. I am upset that I cannot order food, make purchases or get places. When I don’t have Elder Lee any more as a crutch I will surely perish.

I am way more uncomfortable than I have ever been in my whole life.

My companion is the only native Mandarin speaker in the mission. Therefore he teaches way more in depth than anybody else. He says that he "slams". He is pretty good at shutting people down and confounding them with the word of God.

There is a language program where you have to pass of lessons and then pass of characters. You attain levels of expertise depending on which lessons and characters you pass off. I have not passed anything off. My companion "the Malaysian tiger" is intimidating. He has quite an aura. He has made several people cry during pass offs (including the mission president's daughter most recently).

I want to be the very best . I am too scared to open my mouth though. When we do finding about 5% are Mandarin. The rest of the time I am being mocked, I bet they are all wondering what a big fat white guy is doing going around saying "ni hao" to everybody. It certainly stops people though, it seriously confuses them and they stop and shake my hand. My Mandarin and their mandarin cannot accomplish the task of spreading the gospel though.

I taught a crazy man who was singing to himself. I basically asked if he took requests. The guy turned out to be a mainlander who seemed to be pro communist. I only understood Mao Zedong and felt a very positive feeling coming from him. Actually at this point I am in a companionship exchange with a Cantonese elder. We both had no idea about this crazy man's ramblings. I taught and he understood, then I gave him a pamphlet.

We actually have legitimate investigators, and we have two who are really close to baptism.

I love you,

I hope this letter suffices.

8/12/09
Dear Family,

The Life of a Mandarin Missionary: We get cell phones, extra money
for traveling and eating out because our area is the entire zone and
its okay if we come back late, if we're dealing with mainland
visitors. We're the highest baptizing group in the world, in fact
last Friday (on my 3rd day here) I performed my first baptism. We
just teach people who come from the mainland who are almost perfect
with the gospel and once we teach them every lesson we baptize them at
the end of the day. The groups range from about four to about thirty.
This is a really good opportunity because they won’t go anywhere but
just listen to my broken Chinese until its time for them to get
baptized. My trainer has me talk and then he fills everything in.

At our baptisms a brother pulls out his cell phone to accompany our
hymns. No talks were planned out, no special musical numbers, no
white underwear - last minute. I realized that the greatest baptisms
ever were "thrown together". Everybody save me needed to repeat their
baptisms.

I will end up with over a hundred baptisms when I'm done. Actually
there are local investigators that are getting baptized as well. My
companion and I have several that just need concerns resolved before
baptism. After I baptized my mainland visitor, these twin boys who
are about ten years old got baptized (my companion did a lot of work
with them).

Also, our branch is from all over, so are our investigators, so I
can't understand some of their accents. It's probably a good thing
that I have this so that I can understand everyone and not just Taiwan
accents when I am older.

I wear a bright red badge that says that I speak Mandarin. I have
found out that I really don't speak mandarin, but it sure is a nice
excuse for me when I look stupid around everyone speaking Cantonese.
I have had some experiences where people were speaking Cantonese at
me, then they saw my badge and then switched into Mandarin. I am
having my pride chiseled at.

It is fulfilling. My companion is so rad. He knows so much slang in
English but adds his own twists. He says "basically" a lot.
"Basically there are a lot of stud that are Mandarin." I think it is
great that I have the companion who is most proficient in any
language. I hope I learn things from him.

Going out finding is ridiculous in Mandarin. "Basically you get a lot
more people when you speak Cantonese". I do a lot of standing in, in
an awkward creepy way, while my companion does all the speaking
(especially when he is speaking Cantonese).


Of course the weather is nasty. I don't know how it can be so hot
when there isn't a sun visible anywhere. It rains a lot and the rain
is warm too.

I love it. You won’t believe me, but it is everything I expected
before hand. I am surprised that I love it all the same. Everybody
tells me that I am fat but I will get skinny. They also tell me that
Mandarin will "man man lai" slowly come (Cantonese people tell me this
too).

I love you,

I hope I included everything

Hua Zhanglao , Wah Junglou