Week 6

Nimen da ja hao! (thanks for the email correcting my chinese mom... but really) 

This last week has been pretty good! I've started to SYL a lot (which is speak your language, it just means speak your language all the time) so now pretty much all of my conversations with my district and stuff are in Chinese. It's pretty awesome. 

Also I'm so excited for Christmas! I believe we get Christmas off, we still have devotionals and possibly a movie and stuff but no actual class time! Whoo! Christmas break is one day! And also I think a general authority comes to talk to us which will be awesome. I'm getting closer and closer to my departure date and I'm so excited! also Sean is coming soon and I'm super excited to see him too! We'll be in the same zone and building and have the same schedule and everything so I'll be able to see him a lot and show him the ropes of the MTC (and also all of the secret passages... ha no just kidding I wish). 

I've taught a lot of people I know during TRC! We have TRC on Saturday mornings, and it's just when we teach volunteers who know Chinese for about 20 minutes. I've taught Chad and his family and Bj's brother and mom. It's been cool to see them and be able to speak a little bit of Chinese to them. I've also been able to see Elder Crowley and Elder Sumner a good amount, at one point we were all here at the same time and got a few pictures together! It was awesome. Elder Crowley left to Florida yesterday morning and on Sunday night, I was able to say goodbye. He's going to be awesome. 

Man it just feels good to be out here! I think I've slowly come to really enjoy it, even the hard days. 2 Corinthians 12:10 and 1 Nephi 20:10 are kind of my attitude. I really like those scriptures. Oh and thank you all for your support, I feel so loved. Just yesterday I received 5 letters/packages! I truly am surrounded by some amazing people and I'm thankful to all of you for helping me along the way and inspiring me. 

I'm happy here and I'm so glad to have this opportunity. Whoever is reading this and thinking about going on a mission, you should go. It's only been 6 weeks and I feel I've grown and learned a lot already. I love you all, very much. Love, 

Elder Hagedorn



PIcture Time:

The brotherhood (almost) reunited!

Caroline made me an awesome Christmas tree and ornaments too! Loooooooovve heeeerr

On our temple walk we found a big snowball, like for snowmen. Elder Collard (in picture) picked it up and threw it on the ground. We were not, however, aware of a security guard just around the corner and so he chewed Elder Collard out (he was kind of mean but it's ok) and so this is Elder Collard's shame after. I think I captured it well.

The beautiful MTC!

Monday night December 17th! My district minus Elder Price and Elder Hopper. Love the snow!

A picture from Tess's little sister! Thanks Tennyson! You're the best 

Week 5

Week 5

Nimen hao mei ge ren! This last week has been a rollercoaster of ups and downs. Some days I've been kinda pooped and tired and other days I've felt like a total boss. The schedule is getting a bit dreary, its rote consistency I think could drive a man crazy. I've been doing the exact same thing everyday, during the same times and at the same place, in the same chair even. Kind of crazy. I feel I am learning a lot though. 


About the gospel and Chinese. A couple days ago, on Sunday, I listened to a talk by David Bednar entitled "The Character of Christ" and it was amazing. It is like an hour and a half long I think but it was really good. Basically the message is when faced with trials and heartache, Jesus turned outward and helped others, while the rest of us would turn inward and think of ourselves. It's only instinctual to turn inward when we have problems. But it made me realize how important it is to think of others and I really am going to work on that until I feel I've improved enough. The past few weeks I've been working on diligence and focus and I think it's really helped. My district has referred to me as Stonewall a few times, because when I start studying I'm in the zone and don't budge when they all start joking around and stuff. I didn't even realize until they pointed it out. It's actually kind of cool how when you focus and work towards something consciously, you really can improve substantially in it. So I'm going to try and work on charity this next while and just love and help other people and turn outward when I would normally want to turn inward. Haha oh geeze I sound like a sappy old missionary already! 


But yes that's what I'm going to work on. Oh I also received another amazing package from Caroline and her amazing mother Cindy! It was camping themed so in it were nuts, a multi tool knife, jerky and other awesome stuff. Thank you so much! Caroline, I'll reply to the next letter I get from you, the last one I have received at this point was the one inside the package. It was an amazing package! My district is so jealous of me. When I receive packages from Caroline, they all freak out and say "your girlfriend's mom even writes you? And her nephew and niece? That's messed up I am so jealous!" hahaha it's so funny. Anyway, those packages are amazing, so thank you. In order to keep my Chinese studies effective, I now have a 5 minute period of time when I learn fun words. So, I've learned pathological, hippie, mop, bladder, gentleman and mysterious. It's like my own special little gift to myself at the end of language study. I find it keeps me awake, sane and entertained. 


Well everybody I am so excited to get out of here and go to Taiwan already! I'm scheduled to leave January 22nd and they also said I can call family when I'm at the airport. So when I get my flight schedule in probably about a month, I'll let you all know when my flight is and around when I'll call. (Caroline you should go to the cafe or house on that day and we can talk for a quick minute) but don't worry about it right now, I'll let you all know when I find out the time for myself. I am doing very well and I'm "enjoying to the end", it's pretty fun here, long but definitely fun. Well I love you all and miss you and pray for you everyday. zai jian wo ci ai de jiating he pengyou men! (hope that Chinese is correct...) 

Picture Time:

My district, "trying to obtain swag" by crowding around me or something. We have fun. 
At the temple on Sunday! Love the snow! 

Week 4

Hello everybody! 

I think I've finally got used to the routine here. And what's more, I'm really enjoying myself. My district gets along very well and we humor each other all the time and make learning Chinese and The Gospel very fun. I think my Chinese has improved very much this past week and feel I can talk very well. 

The only other Elder who is better than me at Chinese is my companion, who spoke before he got here. I'd say I'm almost to the level of the older generation of Chinese missionaries, who have been here 6 weeks longer than I have and leave to their respective missions in less than a week. Not that I'm comparing myself to others, but I compare myself to myself. I know what I'm capable of and when I pray, I pray that the Lord will bless my studies and help me focus. During language instruction, my companion and I are allowed to study whatever Chinese we want while the rest of the class learns more basic principles. It's pretty awesome. 

It can't only be my Chinese background that helps me so much, I never really even spoke. The Spirit really helps me and pushes me along in my studies, I work hard and every minute of the day I'm semi translating in my head and I can really see improvement. I'm loving this and I'm SO excited to go to Taiwan. I've been teaching quite a few different people and it's a really great experience. Every Saturday we teach new people who are usually just volunteers from the church, and quite often native speakers of Taiwan. It's really cool to be able to understand them, for the most part, and be able to communicate back to them. Somehow memorizing words comes easily and in the lessons I teach, the words are easily retrieved. I feel really blessed right now for this amazing opportunity. 

Christmas is coming up and man I am so excited! I love Christmas so much. I won't be able to call home because there simply aren't enough phone lines here at the MTC for every missionary to call, but I think it'll be awesome still. I hope you are all doing well and I pray for you everyday. 

Love, Elder Hagedorn

Picture Time

Always staying sweet.

Christmas lights at the MTC. Yippee!

My district snagging a Christmas photograph!
During District Meeting... 

Elder Kunz. This picture captures the essence of his personality. 

 My companion Elder Cheung. Also him, in essence. We're playing Chinese vocabulary Go Fish by the way.

Elder Kunz was being chased by Elder Collard and jumped down the stairs, but tragically slipped on the landing and went facefirst into the wall. Elder Crowley happened to be strolling along and witnessed this accident. He tells me it was hilarious. We love Elder Kunz. 

My room!

Me and Elder Crowley at the temple on Sunday!

Chess tournaments on P-day. My district loves chess, Chinese missionaries are the smartest...

Week 3

Hey everybody!

MTC life is still not too shabby. Some days I feel at the end of the day, my Chinese skills have doubled and other days I feel like they've gotten worse but I am improving. I think by the time Sean gets here in January, I'll be able to talk with him comfortably in Chinese which is pretty awesome. And Ben gets here tomorrow! Hopefully I can see him, though are schedules will be very different. Actually, I met a cool elder, Elder Mcfierson, who has the same gym schedule as me who I always play basketball with and he's going to Florida so maybe Ben's gym schedule will be the same, that would be far out. Schedules are according to zones here. By either area or langauge. Me and Sean will be in the same Chinese Mandarin zone!

So maybe a little over a week ago we had something really funny happen. The zone leaders come visit us every night just to ask how we are doing and stuff. At the end of their visit they would always ask "is there anything I can do for you elders?" to which we would always reply "tiaowu" which means dance. And they would always say I can't, because I'm a missionary and then leave. It was really funny for some reason. So one night, after saying this to them every night when they would come, we decided to hide our whole district (9 guys) in our room, under the bed, in the closet, behind the door, etc. When the visiting zone leaders asked what they could do for us everyone slowly came out of their hiding spots chanting "tiaowu, tiaowu..." and the zone leaders had no idea what to do and actually looked a little scared for a second. It was so funny! Coincidentally our branch president was right outside in the hall and heard so he came in and lectured us about "social gatherings" which is mentioned specifically in our handbook. Luckily I wasn't any part of this because while everyone was chanting I went into the bathroom to get ready for bed and stuff. So the branch president probably thinks I'm an angel in my district or something because I was the only Elder in my district who wasn't there. Also my district is probably the worst in our zone haha. Also the chessboard we made is apparently against the rules as well. I haven't played myself because to watch them play is really fun. My companion and another elder in my district play each other all the time, in all their free time really. Their records are Elder Cheung 16 and Elder Collard 17, they only play each other. Word got out that our district had a chessboard and the branch president once again lectured us on games and "competitions and such" which he also gave a specific page reference in our handbook. Luckily, I was once again absent because I was at the doctor getting my ingrown toenail taken care of. Somehow, I've maintained a clean slate despite my district's notoriety. It's kind of funny actually.

Anyway, about the chessboard, my companion and the other elder hide the chessboard in their sock drawer and play whenever they can, they are becoming very passionate about their chess. We write in our journals, write letters and stuff and they play chess in the corner insisting we create a secret knock to avoid another surprise visit by our branch president (he's very good at those somehow). Anyway, my district is very entertaining and we have good times. There was another night where my room of 4 elders were having story time, we do that every night, and we had just finished the last story and were all in very comical moods. As we knelt to say our prayer, Elder Weech could not seem to say the right words in Chinese and was switching around bless, heavenly father, love, thankful, etc. I could not for the life of me stop laughing. I was trying so hard to stifle my laughter but it just made it worse. For a few seconds, everyone would settle down and we would be quiet for a second. But then someone would make a tiny little squeak trying to stop their laughter and it would break out again. It was so stinking funny! Me and my companion Elder Cheung were cracking up! His prayer did not make any sense hahaha. It was so funny. It was also on kind of a down day of mine, I think the 23rd, so it was it made me feel a lot happier and cheerful. It had been a long day and that night made everything better. So stinking funny. Anyway family and friends, I love you all and I am doing so well out here. I'm so excited to go out in Taiwan and help some people out who need it. Man I am so thankful for this opportunity! Thank you all for the support you've given me. I love you all very very much. Hopefully I can help some people out in Taiwan and they can have awesome families like we do. Oh and also I do NOT need anymore packages! Thank you all so much for the many packages but I am overflowing with food. So if you're sending me a Christmas package, maybe make it small. Also, Heather, the watch you gave me like broke or something again and I'm not sure what to do with it. The warranty isn't covered anymore because a month ago I took it to a store to get the battery replaced and once the back is taken off, the warranty goes away. Lame I know. So maybe if any of you send me a Christmas present, an awesome watch would be most appreciated. Also ties are always awesome :) oh ya Caroline, did you get my letter about possibly sending me a tie? A tie from you would be awesome and it would become my go-to/lucky/Caroline tie.

Anyway again, family and friends I love you all so so much. You're all great. I would write more but I haven't much time and there are a line of elders who need to use this computer while we still can. Love you all! I'm doing well, I pray for all of you everyday.

Love,

Elder Hagedorn

Week 2

Hello again family and friends! 

I've acclimatized to MTC life quite smoothly I would say. Some days yes, I'm kind of tired and would rather sleep than study or do service or whatever we happen to be doing. We're busy basically from 6:30am to 9:30pm, but I feel good at the end of each day. And I feel my Chinese is coming along. I guess though that the first 3 weeks are mainly just focused on learning doctrine better and teaching skills with not as much a stress on language skills, the last 9 weeks will be the opposite and my Chinese will progress faster. 

Despite my best efforts, I have gained 10 pounds and have a small gullet. It's terrible but whatever. Hahahaha just kidding. I'm the same and looking the same, haven't gained or lost anything. I go to gym everyday and ball up the other Elders who think they're players. I've heard from other missionaries that the days seem like weeks and the weeks seem like days. That really is true. The laws of time don't apply here, everything is just kind of mushed together. I do enjoy it here though. Though it's only been 2 weeks, I feel I've learned a lot about myself, yes from the lessons and stuff and Chinese too, but mainly just during my own reflection times and journal writing I feel I've gained insight into myself and have become a better person, hopefully.

Tonight we're having a little devotional fireside thing, as we do every Tuesday and we're hearing from one of the general authorities! It's going to be pretty awesome. Also we have a choir that sings every Tuesday night as part of the program so I've been singing in the choir and it's been really nice. 

On Sundays I go on temple walks at about 3 and then on Tuesdays I go to the temple at about 1:45 and finish around 3:45 I'd say. So if any of you feel inclined, a "chance" encounter would be pretty awesome. Oh and here's a shout-out to Caroline's mom. She has sent me three packages consisting of cookies, letters from various family members, a book light, power bars, a glasses cleaner set, bookmarks, gummy vitamins (my favorite), and many more things. She's awesome and I just want to tell everyone that. So thank you Cindy :) 

I'm sorry I don't have much to write about because I feel this week has been very similar to last week, because it has. The exact same actually. Haha. I'm pretty excited for Ben to come here, and then Cannon and Sean. Hopefully I can be one of their hosts when they come and greet them and show them to their room and stuff, like Rickey did for me. That was pretty cool. I've taken a few pictures and will see if I can upload right after this, complete with commentary of course. I love you all and I wish I could hug all of you and tell you I love you. But I guess your imaginations will do. I'll write next week and try to make it a better letter. Love you all!! 

Elder Hagedorn

Week 1

Hey family and friends!
The MTC is actually pretty chill. The food isn't too bad for the most part and I get a salad everyday in my efforts to remain trim. Arriving to the MTC I was greeted by Elder Shumway and it was pretty awesome, we've been able to chat and hangout a bit and got a picture together. He left for Chile yesterday! Crazy. I also found out that Chinese language isn't being shortened until the next generation of missionaries, so I'm staying for the full 12 weeks! I think it's a good thing though, I don't know if I would be ready otherwise, with my terrible Chinese skills. And I also found out that I can't call home on Christmas due to the limited number of phones here at the MTC. But I can call the day I go to the airport on January 22nd. Ok so life here isn't too bad. We're super busy the whole day and there isn't much extra time to do other stuff like writing letters, for example, the letters I have written have all kind of been under duress, scribbling furiously to finish before bedtime or even over a meal. My schedule is something like this for a regular day.

 

6:30- wake up and get ready, exercise

7:20- breakfast

8:00- language study

9:00- classroom language study

12:00 - lunch

12:45- language study

2:00- classroom language study

5:00- dinner

5:45- personal study, scriptures and stuff

6:45- gym, preparation and shower and stuff afterwards too

8:00- more study of whatever I want, usually language

9:00- plan next day

9:30- head back to room, journal write, scripture reading

10:00- get ready for bed, brush teeth and stuff

 

 

So I keep pretty busy here, but it's not all that bad. At the end of each day I feel I've accomplished a lot and feel fulfilled. Sean is going to LONDON, ENGLAND!!!!! Rickey told me and that is so awesome! Mandarin speaking too!! That is so stinkin cool. Actually, in my district of 9 guys, three of them are going to England, one of them London as well. Elder Collard. He was in the marines and is a really funny guy, you'll get to see him Sean. That is so cool though! I'm very happy for you. Oh I guess I'll tell you all about my district and stuff. My companion is Elder Cheung. He's really cool and enthusiastic about everything. A really funny guy. He already speaks Chinese though and might end up leaving early and I'll go into a tri-companioniship. There's Elder Price, Hopper, Peterson, Sloop, Collard, Kunz and Weech. That's my districk and we all get along very well. We've had some good times. My P-days are on Tuesdays and on Sundays I'm able to go on a little temple walk a bit after 3. I've seen a few familiar faces here and it's kind of crazy! I miss you all a lot and think of you all the time. In my prayers I always say I'm thankful for you all and to protect and bless you all. I've actually learned a good amount of Chinese here and can pray, bear testimony, say simple day to day phrases and even teach a bit. I think by the time Sean gets here I'll actually be able to talk to him a bit and have a conversation in Chinese. I feel I'm progressing pretty fast due to all the time we study and because of my focus. I'm really focused on my purpose. I'm motivated by the fact that if I can speak and teach well, I can really bless families in Taiwan and make people happy. It's so awesome to think of that. Bless someone and in turn, bless their family and generations on. It makes me really happy. At first, 12 weeks seemed like a really long time but now, it seems like it could actually be longer. To think I'm going to be out in the field talking to actual Chinese people when I've only learned for a couple months is crazy. But awesome. I miss you guys and love you all so much. I'm so so so so excited for Sean and I think he'll love it here. As for Cannon and Ben, who are coming here sooner. Don't worry about MTC life. It's actually kinda fun and you make a lot of good friends and have good times. I'll write you all next week and I love you all! Take care.

Bobby H.