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