Week 7

Hey Everybody!

A huge shout out to the Round Rock High School football team and my "little" brother Matthew for beating Westlake! Awesome! I wore the RRHS homecoming shirt Mom sent me as much as I could this weekend to represent! Good luck this week! I've been bragging to the other 2 Texans in my district that my team is top 20 in the state of Texas! haha! 

Also a shout out to Corner Bakery Cafe for hooking me up with those cookies and the sweet notes! Everyone loved them! Especially monster cookies of course! haha :) I've had crazy dreams about going back there the last 2 nights! In both dreams I didn't know how to do anything anymore! :) 

SNOW! 

Anyways, now to the funny and spiritual. I have 2 of each this week! It was a great week ....except for the snow on Thursday! I HATE SNOW. So much. 

First the funny. One morning we were at breakfast and the MTC president and his wife were sitting at a table near us. President Nally looked over at us and asked where we were going. So we said Taiwan Taipei. Then I thought I heard him say, "say hello to the Taiwanese!" so I responded, "Oh we will!" then Sister Kirkham looked at me like I was crazy! Then she said, "Ni hao!' to him, looked at me and said, "He said say hello IN Taiwanese, what were you thinking??" so I explained it to her and we could not stop laughing! Apparently, I don't understand when people speak English to me, let alone Chinese!

This is the mouse we scared our roommates with! :)

The second one is even better, because I wasn't the one getting embarrassed this time! Wednesday night Sister Good and Sister Hendricks were in the new district's room right before bedtime. Sister Kirkham and I found this fake mouse with a motion detector on it so whenever it got moved or anything it would start making mouse noises! So we got this genius idea to put it in Sister Good's bed while they weren't here! Sister Kirkham placed it perfectly on the bed just enough under her covers that she couldn't see it at first glance, only if she looked hard. SO CREEPY. So they came back in and about 20 minutes later we start hearing it squeak. It was the funniest thing ever! Both of them freaked out sooo bad! They had no idea where the noise was coming from and it sounded so real! Sister Kirkham and I were on Sis K's bed trying so hard to be good actors and act like we didn't do anything. We're awful! hahaha We were just laughing our heads off but they were so scared they weren't even paying attention to us! It was all so perfect I can't even describe it! We told Sister Good to look under her pillows and blankets, then she found the mouse! She screamed SO LOUD! Then Sister Hendricks freaked out and was on my bed on the other side of the room in about .3 seconds! But the best part was when Sister Good jumped off the top bunk onto the cement floor and went spread eagle and continued to freak out! :D haha We then told them it was fake and we had put it there. They were sooo mad for a few minutes, but now they're laughing about it so it's all good! haha Later when we were laughing, Sister Kirkham decided to do an impression of Sister Good jumping off the top bunk, except when she did it she got a super bad rug burn on her wrist! It sounded painful and she couldn't write in her journal because of it! I kinda saved the day and bought her ice cream from the vending machine to cool it down. haha We have so much fun in our sushe!! (residence) :)

These are the sisters in our zone now!
 The 3 girls on the right are new from this wednesday!
 They're adorable! :)

Now for the 2 spiritual stories. On Tuesday night for the devotional Bishop Dean M. Davies, the 2nd counselor in the Presiding Bishopric, came and spoke to us with his cute wife Darla. At the end of his talk he asked if they could sing a duet for us instead of singing the normal closing hymn. They sang "As I Have Loved You" once as a duet then we all joined in as they sang again. It was the cutest thing ever! When they were singing he would look down at her with the sweetest smile. I'm pretty sure there was not a dry eye in the room when they finished. The spirit was so so strong! Seeing their love and adoration for each other helped me feel the Savior's love for me.

This is my chinese nametag!
 These are the only characters I know how to write
so don't be too impressed! haha

The next story is pretty cool too. It's kind of a long story about how it all ended up, but you can go read Sister Kirkham's update on Facebook if you want to read the whole story! I'll spare you. It is kinda her story, but I was there for all of it sooo anyways. Sister Kirkham has been kinda sick with a sore throat/cold thing for about 3 weeks. So we were talking to these other Mandarin Elders who were also sick, and they told her, "Don't hesitate to ask your Elders for a priesthood blessing". We'd thought of that but didn't think to actually do it. So that night she asked Elder Tan to give her a blessing. That was one of the coolest experiences of my mission so far. It was super amazing to hear these 18 year old Elders give her one of their first ever priesthood blessings. Right when they started, the spirit immediately filled the room and I started tearing up even though I wasn't the one getting the blessing! It was a sweet and simple blessing of health and strength, but so beautiful! The next day she improved a lot and she's pretty much better now! We were all so grateful for the priesthood that night!

This week I learned a lot about healing and strength, both physically and spiritually. I didn't feel very good on Thursday either, but not bad enough to get a blessing. So that night and the next morning, I prayed really hard for us to know what we could do to feel better. We kept up on our medicines on Friday and took some time to rest. We felt so much better on Friday and Saturday! 

Now the healing on the spiritual/emotional side of things. Satan has pushed on me so hard here. I start feeling like I'm not good enough compared to my perfect companion. He tempts me to feel extra guilty and not worthy to have such a good comp. It is so dumb!! Some days are so hard because of his temptations. Sister Kirkham knows me pretty well now and she can tell when i'm thinking like that. She always helps me sooo much! She encourages me and helps me know that Satan's lying to me. She helps me remember to not compare myself to her and that she's actually not perfect either. I'm so dang grateful that Heavenly Father let me be comps with my long lost best friend. :) 

Also, through lots of prayer and scripture reading, I am able to regain confidence and be strengthened. My heart becomes healed from Satan's traps and temptations. I know this is only through the atonement of Christ that we can be spiritually healed and strengthened. I am so so grateful for everything I've learned about the atonement the last 7 weeks! I've gained a personal relationship with Heavenly Father and Christ. I am so grateful for the gospel and the knowledge I have that I can continually improve through Christ's grace. My favorite talk ever is still "His grace is sufficient" by Brad Wilcox. It has helped me a ton through the past couple weeks remember that I don't have to be perfect the first time. I'm always going to make mistakes, but when I humble myself to Christ he will ALWAYS help my weaknesses become strengths. So grateful for the atonement. I've also gained testimonies of the Book of Mormon, prayer, and Joseph Smith. Those tangents will have to wait for another time!

Love you all and I appreciate the prayers and support!

-Sister Oviatt

Week 6!!! Ni hao jia ting he pengyou men! :)

Ni hao jia ting he pengyou men! :)

Hello family and friends!

In order to not bore you to death, I'm gonna start telling one spiritual thing from the week and one funny thing. I never know what to write anymore because everyday is the same! 3 weeks from today we leave for Taiwan! Hopefully our visas come in so we don't have to get reassigned stateside! Pray for us all in District 39A! :)

Getting ready to go to the Marriott Center

Okay so I think I'll start with the funny. Well It's kinda just the best thing that happened this week that wasn't spiritual. idk. Well. Tuesday was a wonderful day. We got to go to the BYU Tuesday Morning Devotional at the Marriott center! Plus we had our normal Tuesday Night Devotional so that was a great day! As we were leaving to the Marriott center I saw Whitney Sanders! :D AWESOME! I missed her so so much. She's been a great example to me ever since I met her when my Mom taught her in Young Womens. So good to see her! 

Then we walked down to the Marriott center and it was SO NICE to be out of the MTC!  We were just chillin waiting for it to start, when I saw Ashley Oldroyd and Emily Hancock coming down the stairs! 2 of my favorite Mormon sistas from Austin! <3 I gave them hugs, only teared up a little.., talked for a second, took a picture, then had to say bye again. :( so basically Tuesday was super good because I got to see 3 of my favorite people. And the devotionals were good too... ;) 

Me, Ashley Oldroyd and Emily Hancock

So when we were making our sad walk back to the MTC, Sister Kirkham said, "Goodbye real world! ...I never thought I'd call BYU the real world." I was laughing sooo hard! We are so isolated from the world here! It was weird to see normal people in normal clothes, using phones and laptops, and sitting alone. Like where's your companion?! haha I'm already turning into a weird missionary and I've only been gone 6 weeks! :O Tuesday was definitely the highlight of the week!!

Okay now for spiritual. I kind of have 2. Sorry. First I memorized the First Vision in Mandarin this week! ...with a lot of help from Sister Kirkham! It was soooo hard! But I mostly got it all down now. It's a little choppy, but I DID IT! Next, Sundays are the best days of the week. Everyday kinda feels like Sunday so they have to make Sundays even better than the rest of the week. It's a great spiritual recharge for the week! so I may have already said this in another email, but it's whatever. 

Every Sunday they announce right after the sacrament which 2 missionaries get to give a 4-5 min talk in Mandarin. And last week one of the districts in our branch left for Singapore! So it's just us and a district that came in 2 weeks after us. We currently have 6 sisters and 8 elders in our branch for them to choose from to speak. Sister Kirkham and I heard that they usually don't call on new people, or people in leadership, like STL's (Sister Training Leaders,) and ZL's (Zone Leaders). So that narrowed it down to me and Sister Kirkham for the sisters, and Elder Mertz for the elders. Basically we knew we had to prepare good talks this week! 

This is us after we gave our talks.
 The weather was so perfect!
 Yesterday was so good!
So proud of us(:

So Saturday night we wrote our talks out about the Holy Ghost and luckily we actually had our personal stories translated into Mandarin the night before, so that helped a lot! We went to sacrament meeting and after we took the sacrament, Brother Hardy got up to announce the speaker. I was freaking out, but I kinda wanted to speak, to get it over with for the next 3 Sundays. He said, "Our first missionary speaker today will be Sister Kirkham." Ah relief! I was excited for her, and a little jealous that she was getting it over with! Then he says, "We'll also be hearing from.. SISTER OVIATT." Okay he didn't say it like that, but that's how I felt. :) I let out a big gasp and was like, "WHAT??". Because it's usually a sister and an elder! I was shaking all the way through Sister Kirkham's talk, but she did super good! She talked about how the Holy Ghost comforted her when she got her mission call. She read D&C 31:3. Great scripture!! I felt the spirit really strong, even though I've heard that story like 35 times in the last 6 weeks. :) She's the best. I'm so glad we got to speak together. It was so perfect. So then I got up and gave my talk. My personal story was about how the Holy Ghost comforted me the first week of senior year in Texas. My story was in a different part of my notebook than the rest of my talk. so I told that story, and then I couldn't find the rest of my talk notes! I was up there giving my talk flipping through my notes. haha embarrassing! So I just opened up to the scripture I had prepared, John 24:16-18. I talked about it for a second then I just testified. haha I felt the spirit really strong though, and I started to tear up a bit! My church vocabulary is expanding and it's getting easier to share my testimony. In fact I think I'll end this email with my testimony in Mandarin. :) 

Wo zhidao Tianfu he Yesu Jidu cunzai. Wo zhidao tamen ai women. Wo zhidao tamen yao bangzhu women. Wo zhidao moermenjing shi zhenshi. Wo zhidao Yuese Simi shi yige zhenshi xian zhi. Wo zhidao tougou Shen de liliang to fayin moermenjing. Wo zhidao Yesu Jidu siwang wei women. Tade shuzui shi zhen de. Ta ai women hen duo de. Ta wei women meitian zuo daogao. Wo ai tade fuyin. Tade fuyin gei wo hen duo de kuaile he anwei. Wo hen ganxie wei wode fei chang hao tongban. Tai wei wo hen hao bangyang. Wo hen ganxie wei wode fei chang qinai de jiating. Wo AI tamen. Feng Yesu Jidu de ming, Amen.

Well if you didn't understand that then sorry! Maybe google translate can help you... except there's no tones sooo it might be completely wrong! Email me and I'll translate it for you :)

Anyways. Talk to you all soon! Thanks for all the support and love!

-Sister Oviatt

-Ou JieMei

More Pictures!

This is a humidifier our teacher brought one day and it's my best friend. I hate how dry it is here! I love just holding it up to my face and feeling the moisture. I MISS TEXAS. TAIWAN HERE I COME!

Look who I found at the MTC!!! :) Sister Knapp! She leaves Dec 1 too!
Note from Mom: These 2 were in Activity Days with me when they were 8 years old!  :)

So there's this parking lot on the way to the temple and theres tons of out of state cars all the time. I finally found a texas one and it made my day! Sis K thought this was a creeper pic. But it's fine. I <3 Texas!

LOOK HOW SMALL OUR ZONE IS! AAH! We get more Taibei sistas on Wednesday though! :D

Week 5! Wo ai yesu jidu he tade shuzui!

 Hello everyone! 

That subject line says, "I love Jesus Christ and his Atonement". I just felt like showing off my chinese skills for a second. Sorry. Another eventful week here!  I mean eventful, but also the days all feel the same. haha 

Package from my family in Texas!
I LOVE IT!!!

Highlight of the week was definitely the package!!! Everything in it was so perfect! I put up the decorations and such next to my bed and said guys look at my Texas shrine! and Sister Kirkham was like ummm I don't think that's allowed here. That's against our religion I'm pretty sure! Then I said I'm sorry Sister Kirkham, Texas is my religion. :) She was being sarcastic of course, but I wasn't! Okay. maybe a little. ;) I miss Texas a lot, mostly the people, but the food here is terrible so I really really miss my Austin food trucks and Monument Cafe and Hopdoddy. :'( I'm super excited because Sister Kirkham is totally coming down to Texas after the mish so I can show her the amazingness. I feel like she's sick of me and Sister Good talking about how great Texas is all the time, but she'll learn eventually. :) Oh man I miss Texas tons, but I'm so glad I'm here.

This is my beautiful Texas shrine! :D
 #texasforever

 My testimony has grown a lot and I'm actually learning Mandarin! One of our biggest improvements from last week was in TRC. We hardly had time to plan this week! We just went in, got to know the people for a while, talked about my family, and then we shared our favorite scriptures and how they strengthened our testimonies of the Book of Mormon. Oh yeah ALL IN CHINESE. It's cool. Sis K shared D&C 31:3 and why she came on her mission. (Super grateful that she did!!!) And I shared 1 Ne. 3:7 and how the Lord gives us hard things to do, but he always has a plan for us! We were so much more confident this time and the spirit was so strong. We got some good feedback from the volunteers! One of the cute old ladies gave us candy because we missed halloween! and she said our chinese was easy to understand :) yay for confidence boosts! I was so proud of us after that! No script, all spirit for the first time! We're gonna try to do it again today for our lesson! Ah! Pray for us! haha 

We hate this food.
But we're cute. kinda. except me. haha

This week we had some great devotionals! They were given by Rosemary Wixom, Primary General President, and Wendy Nelson, who is Elder Russell M. Nelson's wife! They had great words of encouragement and cool stories! I was spiritually recharged after those! We might go to a devotional at BYU on Tuesday afternoon and we definitely have one that night, possibly with an apostle, so we're all pretty excited! 

Friday was Halloween, but it didn't really feel like it! Until Sis. K. got a package from her family with tons of cookies! We knew we couldn't eat them all, so we went to all the apartments in our zone and did reverse trick or treat! So fun! 

Yesterday was fast sunday! Loved it! Testimony meeting in chinese was awesome!! So much spirit there! There's a district leaving for singapore today so they all got up and it was amazing! They also sang at the end! Now we're the oldest district in our zone! 4 weeks from today we leave!! CRAZY! 

We're pretty done with this place. haha. I'm excited to leave the MTC, but then Sister Kirkham and I will have to be split up! :(( So sad! I really hope we get to be comps again in the field! That will be great! But hopefully not til later in the mish, so our chinese is better! :) I love my companion sooo much! She helps me so much everyday. She's so understanding and patient! She listens to me vent and complain about how bad of a companion I am. haha She deserves someone so much better than me! We have so many good times and I know the Lord was looking out for me when he put us together! 

Me and Sister Kirkham on the Temple Walk yesterday!
This girl is super great. 

Anyways. The hour of emailing goes so fast here! So I've gotta go! Thank you family for the packages this week! I love them! And I love the Dear Elders and Letters of support! I really want to respond to them all, but we only have a few hours on Mondays to respond :( But thank you! I really do appreciate them all! 

Just wanna leave you with a quick message. Someone in the MTC presidency told us this on the first day, "Not much growth happens in a comfort zone, and not much comfort happens in a growth zone." Well the MTC is definitley a HUGE growth zone. I'll have just a moment, like literally 30 mins. where I feel comfortable w/ the MTC then something comes along and makes me uncomfortable and able to grow again!  I've already learned and seen how much I have to rely on Christ and Heavenly Father to do everything! I've learned so much about the atonement and prayer here. Through the Atonement of Christ I'm able to continuously become a better missionary and servant of the Lord. I use it everyday!

 I know that Heavenly Father and Christ care about us individually. They want to help you with your problems. Don't be afraid to ask, or feel like you're not worthy. They LOVE you! 

Anyways. Thanks again! <3

-Sister Oviatt