Fourth Week in the MTC!

Still doing fine. Sounds like you guys are having a good time. I saw my old roommate Tanner. He just got in on Wednesday. Thats cool that Ashley and Justin are getting a dog!  Looks like Davids happy to be graduated and move off. Not sure what the visa situation is. But most of the people in my district are going to Australia so everyones freaking out a little bit. Most of the people going to Sydney (english, spanish, korean speaking) that we've heard of have gotten out on time. So we're just hoping that we get ours in time! If not, hopefully I'll get reassigned to somewhere Chinese speaking.

Nothing new is happening lately. Just going through the same routine week by week. Chinese is definitely getting better. I try to memorize around a 100 new vocab a day. I go through so many flashcards. I also try to get down a couple grammar principles each day. The more you study the more you learn, and I'm studying Chinese maybe 10 hours a day. So eventually hopefully I'll get it. I think listening to the Chinese is the hardest for me. Natives speak so fast and its so hard to keep up with whats being said. Needless to say we are all counting down the days until we leave. Just want to get into the field and teach real people. This week week at TRC we taught a father and son, they were in a Chinese immersion program somewhere in Utah. The son was like 6 years old and could speak Chinese really well, so crazy. My companion and I got called as the Online Coordinators for our branch. Still not exactly sure what it means, but I know im just supposed to talk to new missionaries and talk to them about how to get to the missionary online resources. One month in and one month to go. We're starting the downhill. We should get our travel plans and new name tags in the next two weeks. The time really is flying by here. If you really work hard the time goes by really fast, and when youre slacking off it goes by slow. So you just gotta work hard!

Love,

He Zhang Lao

Third Week in the MTC!

Hey,

The MTC is still going well. I think that we host new missionaries our last two weeks. Glad to hear that dad was able to make it. Sounds like you guys are having a lot of fun with each other. I heard Grandma Hall is having a big Pioneer Day party. Maybe we'll have a big Pioneer Day devotional but I haven't heard anything. In the next package if you could send one or two more t-shirts that'd be great. We have gym like 5 times a week and i have 3 shirts. But before i leave i need you to send me some sweaters and a shoulder bag. Backpacks arent allowed in the field anymore. With all the new changes you can wear so much more stuff, its crazy how much is changing. I have some pictures that I'll send a little later today.

This week was pretty crazy. One of the Elders in my district went to the doctor and found out that he had a problem in his back, and that it would require surgery to fix. So he had to go home, but he'll be back in 12 weeks and he will still be going to Sydney, so I'll see him again. Another Elder in our zone had to go home as well, so now we have a new Elder in our district, Elder Lecates. So there's been a lot of change in our district. Right now we're teaching 3 investigators. Our Chinese is getting better and better so we dont even need a script or plan to go off of. We try to make all of our lessons more of a conversation. I feel like the first 2 weeks I learned so much and now i feel like im hitting a plateau, so Ive been working a lot on grammar. We've committed 1 of our investigators to baptism and are working on the other two. We have so many learning resources. Anytime you want 1 on 1 help theres a RM from Taiwan that'll come and meet with you. The days go by slowly but the weeks just fly by. Crazy that as of this week I'll have been here a month. Its really great that I have such a good district and zone. We've all become really good friends. Elder Sheffield just got put in as our new district leader yesterday. Im so happy to be out here, its so great to be surrounded by so many other missionaries and have tons of great speakers speak to us twice a week. The MTC is a great place to be, but Sydney will be a better place to be. I see so many friends from BYU around and i recognize so many people. At the pace that I'm going at right now the rest of the MTC will just fly by and I'll be in Australia (If i ever get my visa)

A lot of people in my zone are going to Hong Kong Chinese speaking, so I'll have you look out for some of them once you get back to China.

Love,
Elder Hall