Best Kind Of Studying (Week 4)

What kind of companion study? It was the best kind of companion study! the chocolate milk in the photo is from the BYU creamery, and it is like liquid crack.

Oh I’m no longer the district leader as DL’s only serve for 3 weeks now its elder Gonzalez and he is the man! We call him ni fei (Nephi).

Scary thoughts, this Wednesday marks the beginning of week 5 and next Sunday means I’m halfway done at the MTC this scared me into intense language study. My goal is over 40 new words a day.

I get to be an investigator for another companionship which will be fun, but it means that my companionship is now teaching four investigators. Also when we go to the TRC (teaching resource center) all these volunteers come in, and it’s like Monsters Inc. when they’re are on the scare floor and they just go in all these doors.  Some of the investigators are members and some are not, but it’s really fun.

From my last email an English fast, to help clarify, is just a thing that was invented at the MTC and our district likes it - No English all day.

When I'm the companion doing the teaching I probably understand 90% of what the investigators say, and throughout the day about 65% of what I say is Mandarin.

Chinese is STPVO (subject, time, place, verb, object) so it’s "I today at grocery store bought food", not "I bought food at the grocery store". The worst part is my mandarin grammar still isn’t too hot, but now my English grammar is suffering!!! Tried to teach a new concept to the District in English this past week and it was near impossible.

In about a week and a half, my “generation” will be the oldest Mandarin speakers here, so that’s super crazy! It’s also weird to think about the outside world or "the mission field" as the folks from Utah refer to it, as time here doesn’t feel like it is passing. Also as more groups leave, the more I want to go as well.  I’m not completely conversational in the language yet, but if they gave me the choice to leave tomorrow for Taiwan, I wouldn’t even hesitate.

I met a returned Missionary that just came back from my mission less than a month ago, and he actually recognized me! Apparently the mission office has a wall in the mission home with all the incoming missionaries pictures posted - no pressure.

Small request, apparently there is no beef jerky in Taiwan, so if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, maybe you could send me some to get it out of my system now?

We’re all on a very rigid schedule so not a whole lot new happens here but life is still good!

Wo Ai Ni Men!!
Ding Zhang Lao

Oh also my district says thank you for the cookies you sent!

evan.dickson@myldsmail.net

My mail address until August 28th is:

Elder Evan Dickson

AUG28 TAIW-TAI

2007 N 900 E Unit 84

Provo UT 84602

You can always use http://www.dearelder.com/  select Provo MTC --Free

You send them an email and they print it out and I get it the same day instead of waiting for me to get email time which is only on Mondays.