Last day at the MTC!

Good Morning family!!!

I know it seems weird for me, but I have definitely been up since 6:20 trying to get everything ready to leave, but no worries this early morning 6:30 thing is really not that bad.  Doing it everyday makes the mornings pretty easy though the nights are still hard to fall asleep most days.  Anyways I don't know if I will be able to email tomorrow, so here is my update for now.  We don't leave the salt lake airport until 8:30.  We will probably start boarding around 8 so I will try and call you in between 7 and 7:30am too.  How does that sound?  I hope I can catch some of the kids before school :(  If not -we have Christmas!  I will ask about the Chinese New Year thing too.

Well, the fortune cookies were a hit with my entire district.  We all ate them together and read each other our fortunes.  The back also has Chinese words, so that was fun!  Elder Riff has never actually had a fortune cookie before so he was really excited.  I gave him the extra one.  He is from France and I guess they don't really have them in his town of Straussberg.  Ha ha anyways the decorations are also great!  I am saving them for Taiwan though and I'm bringing the paper and stuff too just in case.  The quotes you have been sending me are on a quote wall in our classroom.  Everyone loves them!  I am leaving them in the MTC for future generations to enjoy.  The CD's came at the perfect time!!! We have been listening to them in our classroom and it has really helped us have the Christmas cheer!  Sooo great :)  Everyone loves your packages because they know not only will I get great stuff, but they will probably get to enjoy some as well.  I have a lot of room in my bags currently so I'm planning on bringing the heat blanket, but I'm sending a lot of stuff home!  I hope that's ok!

Mom you are so great - thank you for all the advice.  Cool story of the week.  So I also have a testimony of these specific prayers.  I know as we have prayed for specific things it has really helped us receive revelation and obtain blessings.  I guess we hadn't communicated this to our investigators well yet though.  One of them told us he didn't know how he could see God blessing his life.  Immediately your words popped into my head.  I encouraged him to pray for more specific things.  That allowed him to more be able to see the blessings and the Lord to bless his family with more specific things like peace, or patience....  It was a cool experience.  I'm not positive yet, but I think he will have seen a lot more specific blessings in his life.  Kneeling, audible prayers are also so much more powerful, so thank you for the advice!

Dad I love you as always and I hope all is well at home.  Let me know how everything at work is going!!! I love you and I appreciate all your letters and words of wisdom.  I can't wait for the day we can all share mission stories.  It makes me realize I wish I would have asked you and grandpa more about your missions!  You should try and share that more with Daniel and Bryanna.  It is kind of funny what we find interesting and funny, but I can't wait to hear more about them!

Woot woot on my way to Taiwan tomorrow.  Can't wait to hear your voices. I will try and speak some Chinese to you.  I actually had to give a talk in sacrament meeting yesterday about "chishou daodi"(Enduring to the End)  It was only 5 min.  It was pretty great though I enjoyed it... though my grammar went out the window!  ha ha anyways the BYU men's chorus also sang to us and I saw Aaron Bush and Tyler Marlar, so you can give a shout out to them for me!  I wished I could have said hi, but the choir was soo great!  I also saw Jackie Dizon and Marc Malari and Jory Hanes- Lane, John, Keala and Hawaii friends from freshman year would appreciate that.  Shez Hanneman is also here which steph and liz would appreciate that.  Thanks for the updates on friends too btw!  I loved it so so much!!! Oh and Steve Wade is also a Korean teacher here and I see him like everyday.  Sooo crazy and cool!  Anyways gotta go, but I love you all!

  Wen Jie Mei (Sara)