Elder Hagedorn: 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.