Week 4!!!!??

So. We're all kinda freaking out that Wednesday will be our 4 week mark and Saturday is our halfway point!! It's so crazy!

 We're all sick of the MTC food. And we're getting bored of our routines. Here's a quick rundown. Wake up @ 6, get sack breakfast, get ready, study for 3 hours, lunch, class for 3 hours, dinner, class for 3 more hours, additional study, planning, and bedtime! It's getting pretty monotonous. But it's okay because almost everyday there is something different to look forward to. Obviously PDay is great because I get to hear from all you lovely people! And we get to go to the temple! 

Then Tuesdays are sweet because we have choir practice and we get to sing in the Tuesday night devotional. We don't get to listen to any music in our apartments and when we sing before classes it's in chinese! So Sista K and I love going to choir where 1. We get to finally hear music! 2. Sing our hearts out in English! I've gained a huge testimony of the power of music since being here. It brings the spirit so strongly and there's so much we can learn from the lyrics! WELL. Sorry about that tangent! 

Anyways. Wednesdays are good because 1. NEW MISSIONARIES! 2. BYU Creamery Ice Cream for lunch and dinner! Fun fact Sista K and I had ice cream for dinner our first night and that was it! :D #fattiesforlife  3. We get $8 on our cards! We can use that money at the bookstore which is super helpful!! Ah Wednesdays are fun! 

Thursdays we have yoga in the morning so that's super awesome!! But the rest of the day is the same... Fridays we get Papa John's for dinner! LOVE IT...mostly because it's outside food and it doesn't make our stomachs sick like the rest of the food! :)  Saturdays are weird because we have TRC in the morning, so our studying gets pushed back til after dinner. Which sista K and I don't like because we LOVE personal and comp study! Best part of the day! 

Then Sundays. They are the best day of the week. so first we get to go see Music & the Spoken word with all the other sisters in the auditorium. Again, LOVE music & the spirit it brings! Then we have relief society, which is like another devotional! Then we have just a little bit of study time, then lunch, then district discussion. That's basically where one companionship leads a discussion on a gospel topic and we all give our input for like an hour. Sista K and I were in charge yesterday and we talked about faith in Christ. It was pretty cool! 

Then we have sacrament. Best hour of the week. We sing in chinese and then right after the sacrament they announce which 2 missionaries will be giving a talk in chinese that day! We're all supposed to prepare a 5 min. talk in chinese every week, just in case we get called on! Scary thing is after next Sunday we'll only have 6 sisters in our branch/zone for them to choose from! :/ So we have to prepare good talks now! haha I haven't spoken yet, but suprise surprise the first thing I get asked to do in sacrament is say the closing prayer!! :) hahah It was so scary and it was all in chinese! Sista K said the opening. A lot of people said we did a good job though! so that's a good sign I hope! 

Then after sacrament meeting we get to go on a temple walk as a zone! We basically just walk to the temple, chill for like 15 minutes, take pictures, sing, and what not. Sister Kirkham and I like to go up on the hill behind the temple and have a Sunday power nap on the temple grounds! Best kind of nap if you ask me. After that is dinner, then choir, which I already ranted about. And then Sunday night devotional! Which is always good! so there's a "quick" summary of how a week is for me out here at the MTC.

Now for a few specifics about this week. Sad start to the week. Elder Spencer got called down to the front desk Monday before dinner. We saw him come late to dinner and tried to ask him what was going on, but he claimed nothing was happening. Fast forward to the next day at lunch. We saw his companion come into the lunch room without him. We were like, where's your comp?? And he said, "he went home. like 15 minutes ago." It was so shocking! He said he left a letter to be read to the district. It was really sad. The letter said he went home because of worthiness issues, but he was going home to make restitution with his past and would be back out here as soon as possible. We were heart broken all day, but we're so proud of him for wanting to change and be better. He is such a great guy and we all know he wants to do what's right. He will come back stronger than ever! The saddest part was the Elders knew he was leaving the night before, so he got to say bye to them, but he didn't say bye to the sisters! :( We miss him so much already, and class hasn't been the same without him. So now we have 4 sisters and 3 elders in our district. It's so small!!

 It's kind of crazy though, because that same day our favorite teacher came back! He had appendicitis! He has such a great perspective on the MTC. He wants us to be converted to the Lord by the time we're done at the MTC. He knows we won't speak and understand perfect Chinese, and we won't be master teachers. We need to have strong testimonies of the Savior and his gospel. If we learn to rely on the Lord while we're here, he will help us with everything else he has commanded us to do. We love Liu Laoshi!! Such a tender mercy for him to come back to teach us right when Elder Spencer went home. 

So we had an awesome realization. Sister Kirkham and I were talking about how we kind of missed being called by our first name. We gave up everything to be on a mission, even our names! We realized that on our nametags, the three most important things in life are on there. Our family's name, Christ's name, and the church! We're so grateful to have those names on our shirts and represent all 3 of them everyday! On our name tag Christ's name is right und ours as if he is lifting us up and carrying us through out our missions! So awesome! :)

So last week I forgot to write about a really funny story that happened last saturday! We were supposed to wake up at 6, but Sista K said Ou Jie Mei, can we sleep in 30 minutes! I didn't sleep very well last night. so I didn't care and we "slept in" until 6:30. Later in the breakfast line she says, "so i had a weird dream last night. We went to the doctor and found out that I broke my arm and had to go home to have surgery on it. And you got diagnosed with Lupus. But you got to stay on your mission! I woke up and was so mad, I couldn't fall asleep!" hahah We've been laughing about it ever since! She will complain sometimes that she had to go home but I remind her that she can recover from hers, but I have to live with mine my whole life! so who's the real winner here??!! hahaha Love that girl so much. I swear we're either best friends, or fighting like sisters about the dumbest stuff. We're so similar in most things, but in other things definitely not! :) It's so hard to be with some one all the time! Even if you do like them! haha 

One more funny story. So one night I had a super real feeling dream and I was explaining something to Sista K in it. Then in the dream I heard her say, "Who are you even talking to??!" then still in the dream, I said, "Uh you! Duh."then I immediately realized she was talking to me in real life! I said, "Oh nobody. Never mind!" Apparently I had been sleep talking really loudly!! Neither of us can remember what  I was saying though. :( And she claims that wasn't the first time! haha We have some crazy dreams here! Maybe it's the food! :) 

Alright. My hour is almost up. CRAZY!
Well I want you all to know I love the Dear Elders and sweet cards I get! :) You guys keep me going through all the hard days here! I appreciate the support soooo much. But if anyone wants to send me Dr. Pepper or like Vitamin Water... or cool stuff like that I'd love them FOREVER. I miss Dr. Pepper SO MUCH. so much. 

I just want you guys to know that I know this gospel is true. I know that God is our loving Heavenly Father and he wants to hear from us. He does hear our prayers and wants to help us with our problems. The Book of Mormon is true and has so much good in it. We can receive so many answers to our questions through it. Most of all I know that Christ lives. He died for us and atoned for our sins because he loves us. He wants to help us return to live with our Heavenly Father again. I am so grateful for him and his atonement. I need his help everyday or else I couldn't do anything!

I wish I had time to tell you about my personal study this week but I don't. Basically I studied 1 Nephi Chapter 17 and found so many great parallels! My favorite verses that I'll share with you are verses 3 and 13. 

 3 And thus we see that the commandments of God must be fulfilled. And if it so be that the children of men keep the commandments of God he doth nourish them, and strengthen them, and provide means whereby they can accomplish the thing which he has commanded them; wherefore, he did provide means for us while we did sojourn in the wilderness.  

13 And I will also be your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you, if it so be that ye shall keep my commandments; wherefore, inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall be led towards the promised land; and ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led. 

Love that so much!!! I know he has a plan for all of us and he will be the light to help us see it. God is good!!! Love you all!

-Sister Oviatt

-Ou Jie Mei

Pictures - Week 3

Pictures! - Week 3

I forgot to put this one up last week.  

This is the famous MTC picture all missionaries seem to take.

 They are pointing to Taiwan where they are going after the MTC. 

These are the pics Annie sent this week. 

 Kinda weird, kinda Annie :)

"So we missed dinner last pday... and ate frozen food from the vending machine... :P"

"OUR CUTE ZONE BEFORE THEY ALL LEAVE. we're all struggling. hard core."

"look! It's the windmills! out my window! kinda...."

Note from MOM: This is looking out of Annie's window at the MTC. Before we moved to Texas we lived in Spanish Fork, Utah which is at the base of the moutain you can see in the distance. There are large windmills at the mouth of Spanish Fork canyon that we watched being constructed from our front porch.  If you look very closely at the center of the picture you can see some white sticks at the base of the mountain. Those are the windmills.

 "uhhhh we're cute at the temple i guess......"

Week 3!

Hello everyone!

Once again thanks for all the letters, packages, and dear elders! It's so nice to come back from lunch and dinner and see the letters on my desk! :) I seriously love it!!

Another eventful week here! So I've been here for 2.5 weeks now. On Wednesday my District was chosen to help host the brand new missionaries! It was crazy because none of us feel very experienced yet! But we found out how much we actually know! I hosted 2 cute sisters. Sister Jackson from Layton, Utah and Sister Summers from Tremonton, Utah. They're both going to Mexico somewhere... It brought back a lot of memories from just 2ish weeks ago when I was dropped off and took that first huge step into the MTC and the mission life!! I tried to give them some good advice, even thought I still need advice! :) haha It was great to see the excitement in their eyes for missionary work. I see them all the time and it seems like they're still loving it! I know I am! This Wednesday we're directing traffic when all the new ones come in! So we'll see how that goes!

On Saturday Sister Kirkham and I had our FIRST TRC, which is when volunteers come to the MTC and we teach them in Chinese! Soooo no one told us that they weren't pretending to be investigators. They were just being themselves!! So we taught our 2 volunteers about how to pray, why it is important, and that God loves them and stuff like that. AWKWARD. Crazy coincidence though! Our first volunteer was Sister Wesli Peay!! I knew her from Maple Mountain High School and she just got back from Taipei a few months ago! That was way awesome! So if you're reading this Wesli, I'm sorry we were so awkward and couldn't speak very well! :) It was still a good experience, and we both improved from our previous teaching opportunities! 

Our Sunday night devotional last night was by Chad Lewis!! He played for BYU in the 90's and then went on to play in the NFL for 9 years. He served a mission to Taichung, which is the other Taiwan mission. It was so sweet to hear him talk about his love for the Taiwanese people. He also told some cool stories about how he shared his testimony and the gospel while he was in the NFL. He was a great speaker and it was so special. All of us Taiwan missionaries left a little more inspired and excited! It's pretty awesome though because 2/5 districts in our zone are leaving today for the field! So they got a pretty sweet last devotional! 

Today is kind of a sad day though. Some of the missionaries are going to Hong Kong, but most were assigned to Taipei. We've gotten so close to them the last 2 weeks and they have so much experience. The crazy thing is that Taiwan changed their Visa requirements a few months ago! The districts before them all got reassigned to temporary stateside missions while they got their paperwork all sorted out. They're all in Taiwan now. They were only in their temp missions for 6 weeks so that's good! So now the whole system is backed up and these districts got reassigned too! It was fun to have like a second call opening party for all of them! They're mostly going east coast, but there is 1 sister going to Mesa! We're going to miss them all so much!! There's a Singapore district leaving next week so we'll be the oldest "mandos" (mandarin speakers) in the MTC then!!! AAAAH!! We aren't ready for that!! We don't know if our district will also be reassigned, but I don't care either way. I'll go where the Lord wants me to go! My district is kinda freaking out because they REALLY want to go to Taiwan. I know the Lord has a plan for us that we might not always be able to see. Things will always work out! I'll keep you guys posted though!! 

I wanna leave you guys with a quick scripture I read Saturday night. It's Helaman 10:4. "Blessed art thou, Nephi, for those things which thou hast done;for I have beheld how thou hast with unwearyingness declared the word, which I have given unto thee, unto this people. And thou hast not feared them, and hast not sought thine own life, but hast sought my will, and to keep my commandments" LOVE that whole chapter though! Nephi's a great example!! I love what the Lord says about Nephi there. I've made it my goal to be a missionary like that, so one day Heavenly Father will say that about me too. I'm just here to do his will & his work! 

I know this church is true. I know that when we pray with a sincere heart when we have a question, Heavenly Father DOES listen to our prayers and will answer them! I know that Joseph Smith restored the the gospel to the earth in it's fulness. I know the Book of Mormon is truly another testament of Jesus Christ. I know that through Jesus Christ we can be spiritually healed and forgiven of our sins. The Atonement is real!! Anyways..

I love you all! Thanks for the support! Keep praying & keep the faith!!

Note from MOM: Annie has been a huge fan of Chad Lewis for a long time!  She read his book and followed his football career long before she was called to serve in Taiwan.  This was a BIG deal for her!  She's doing great and we are so proud of her but we miss her like crazy! 

Week 2! Growth and Awkwardness

Hello Everyone!

I wanna start by saying thank you to everyone who has sent me Dear Elders, Packages, and Emails! I appreciate every single one of them! We only have an hour to write to people on Mondays though so if I don't respond that's why! :( It's really great to see how many people are supporting me from all over the place. I especially love the letters from my brothers and sisters! They're so cute and I do miss them sometimes(; haha jk!! Anyways! Thanks again!

Sister Kirkham is the best companion I could've ever asked for. The Lord is mindful of us and knows all of his children! We've gotten even closer this week and we have such great personal and companion studies! We feel the spirit so strong and it helps us get through the busy days! OH and she has a brother that just turned 12 in July and a sister that turned 17 last week! Weird!! We're both super sarcastic and people think we hate each other, but we don't. A couple people have asked if we were friends before our missions! One time I said yeah! We just didn't have bodies back then! :D Missionary Humor!! lolll We also both have strong testimonies of this gospel. We love Heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ. We both have desires to serve the Lord with all our hearts, might, mind, and strength. I'm just so grateful for her. We have some fun times. If I had time I'd tell them all! But I don't. So just 2 will have to be okay. 

This is the most embarrassing story of my life. so be ready... One day I was waiting outside the restroom for her with Sister Good and Sister Hendricks. I realized my skirt was riding up and my knees were showing! haha sooo bad right? anyways. I went to pull it down a little, but instead of a little it went down to my knees!!!! They both looked at me and we all collapsed to the ground. We died laughing! Sista K came out and was super confused. We finally calmed down and told her what happened. I was showing her what I had done and accidentally did it again!!! :/ More laughter for like 10 minutes. No elders around luckily!! :)  But they did enjoy the story when we told them later!! Yep I'm awkward.

Next story. At the end of our lesson Friday night I wanted to ask the investigator, "Are we teaching you tomorrow?" but instead of saying mingtian which means tomorrow, I said meitian which means everyday!! He looked a little confused and said, "I don't think that will work." Then sista K corrected me and said uhhh mingtian. We died laughing again after we left. So it turns out that the next day we found out that our investigaor, Luo Yan, was a teacher!!! It was all fake! So now he's our teacher and it's super awkward because  he's seen us at our worst! Struggling through the language! haha 

The language is coming... I definitely learn better when I have the spirit with me, which is something I'm striving to have all the time! We need it! We can't do this amazing work without His help. Story time. On Friday Sista K and I slept in until 6:45. We didn't have anything to do, except eat breakfast, until 7:30 so we thought why not sleep in an extra 15 minutes? NEVER AGAIN. Saturday turned out to be the weirdest day. It just didn't click. We definitely didn't feel the spirit as strong, and were even more tired during the day! We missed out on the blessings of following what seemed to be a small rule. In class that day, we were going down the line reading a verse each from D&C 88 and guess what verse I got to read? Verse 124 which says, "cease to sleep longer than is needful; retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated." YEAH. Slap in the face much? So yeah. We're following all the rules now, because we know they're there to help us! We feel the spirit so much stronger when we do. Yep lesson of the week. Have faith in the rules. They're there to help you come closer to God, which is the most important thing we can do in this life!

Welllll I'm gonna try to send pics this week because miraculously they all showed back up on my camera after I thought they got deleted last week!! :) YAY! So I'm gonna go do that now!

Keep up the good work! Thanks for the support!

Talk to you all in a week!

-Sister Oviatt

-Ou Jie Mei

Pictures!

Our Cute Zone!!!
We did a temple walk yesterday and It was great! Look how cute they all are! SO BLESSED :)

First day pic! :)

Me and Sista K in class! :) Awkwardness at it's finest.

MY ROOMMATES!

BUCEES BUDDIES!!! (Sista Good is from Houston!)

wo de tongban shi hen hao xiao. (My companion is very funny)

The whole District together one last time!

Starting the Journey: Hello from Utah!

Hello Everyone!
Can I just say I love it here. The spirit is so strong and everyone is super welcoming! It has definitely been challenging and BUSY! And the food is definitely not as good as Corner Bakery! ;) 

I've already learned so much and my relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ has been strengthened a lot! I am trying really hard to learn Chinese but man, it's a hard language!! 

My Companion (tong ban) is Sister Kirkham from Lehi, Utah. She is so GREAT! We really get along so well but she makes me homesick because she reminds me of all the awesome people and friends I've met. She's such an example to me and her testimony and conviction to the gospel is so strong! She's the first missionary from her family too! :) We're both super sarcastic. haha 

In our apartment we also have Sister Good from Houston and Sister Hendricks from Draper, Utah. They are awesome! That's all the sisters (jie mei) in our district! As for the Elders we have, Elder Spencer from Mesa with Elder Bayn from Layton. Then we have a trio. Elder Davidson from Layton, Elder Mertz from Milwaukee/S'ville (he moved to Milwaukee 2 years ago too!!), and Elder Tan from Fort Worth! 3 Texans in our District! 

I don't know our zone well yet but so far they're awesome!! Especially our Sister Training Leaders. Our district is the best. We're learning the language and we taught our first lessons on Friday! yeah.. 3rd day and we taught a lesson in CHINESE! It was really fun. and humbling! Sis. K has 3 years of HS Chinese so she's a lil better than me haha She's amazing. I'm probably gonna say that a lot. Cuz she is. 

We work HARD ALL DAY! 6 am to 10:30pm. So busy. Class time, language study, personal study, comp study, lunch, dinner, district activities, and lots of planning. It's a lot to adjust to. But the Lord is good and I can feel him strengthening me to get through this experience! 

Conference weekend was really sweet! It's great to be able to hear the words of the prophets and apostles here in the MTC. We were all really disappointed when the first native language speaker was the cantonese guy, and not mandarin! haha Some of my favorite talks were Lynn G. Robbins talking about which way we face, D. Todd Christofferson talking about Christ and trusting in him, Dallin H. Oaks talking about loving one another, Sister Marriott from the Women's meeting was amazing! loved her southern accent! <3 also President Eyring's talk about revelation! So hard to pick favorites! We all noticed how many times they said missionaries so much more this time! 88,000+ missionaries!! :D 

So Sister Kirkham and I have had SO MANY funny moments it will be impossible to tell just one. but I have to because I have 10 minutes left! So we fasted for our first lesson on Friday. BUT we talk so much practicing for the lesson and the language that our mouths got dry! so we would get a drink of water to rinse out our mouths, then spit it out! One time when we did this another elder was trying to talk to us so I casually spit out the water right in front of him so I could talk to him! ....He said "Sister that was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen!" sooo yeah... EMBARASSING! We tried to explain ourselves but he still thought we were crazy. probably still does!!! :) 

Other funny moment was when Sis. K. wanted to try sour patch kids dipped in Nutella!! So i HAD to take a pic. Nope.. I accidentally deleted ALL MY PICTURES!! SO SAD... and kinda funny :) Sister Kirkham and I have so much fun here:) hahaha We're awkward together so that's all that matters. haha 

Well it's time to go so I'll leave you with this. Mosiah 4:11&12! Go read it! It's so good! We read it in comp study and it is so powerful! 

Talk to you guys later! Thanks for all the prayers and support! I know this gospel is true!! :)
-Ou Jie Mei-Sister Oviatt