This week was very busy but very great!
This week I started learning characters. I can read about 200 and write about 150 now, so only 20,000 to go! I really love the way that the writing is involved with the culture. There are some very specific rules about the way that it's written, and every single part of the character has meaning. I wrote some characters in one of our lessons, and the investigator just freaked out. He thought it was so cool! It's certainly a way to get to know the people and culture and learn to think the way they think.
So Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I sang as part of the small choir for the Mission Presidents Seminar choir. That was a really neat experience, and I don't think I've ever sung in a choir that rehearsed so well and acted so professionally! We also got to sing yesterday for the Sunday devotional. We all love our director; he's just an amazing person and director. Anyone that comes to the MTC and sings in the choir will know what I mean! Brother Eggett is just awesome!
On Thursday and Friday, we had a few culture lessons about Taiwan, to sort of get us started on learning how to function there. Here's a couple of the highlights:
-You never give somebody a pear or a clock as a gift, but pineapples are very good gifts.
-Never write somebody's name down in red pen.
-When you give something to another person, you always give with two hands.
-It's acceptable to slurp your soup.
-There's are usually no fourth floors. The word for four sounds similar to the word for death, so they don't have fourth floors kinda like american doesn't have thirteenth floors.
I'm sure I'll be able to verify this stuff when I get to Taiwan which is in two weeks from tomorrow!! Our whole district is so excited to leave! We got our Chinese nametags on Friday! We hope all of our visas go through! At the same time we're all terrified because we know a lot of Chinese, but not that much..
Yesterday, for our Sunday night movie, we went to go see an MTC devotional that Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave on Thanksgiving of 2012. We didn't know a whole lot about what to expect, but it was an extremely powerful talk. It was focused on the unique blessing we have of living in this day and age with the restored gospel on the earth. The amount of people that have lived in times or areas without the gospel of Christ is huge, and the fact that we get to live now is a huge blessing, but also a huge responsibility. He testified again and again of the impact and power of Joseph Smith's prophetic calling. It was an awesome experience, and I love the blessings of technology. The fact that we can relive the experience from 6 months ago, and still feel the Spirit just as powerfully is absolutely amazing to me!
I lost my toothbrush the other day. I really don't know how, because I only take it between two rooms. But I bought another one, so it's okay.
Recently, my district has started assigning each member of the district a Disney character that they are most similar to. I am apparently the assistant to the general from Mulan. I don't get it.
Well, I hope everyone is doing well. It's still a little weird to just write these letters to "everyone," but it'll probably get a bit easier when I get to Taiwan and there's more going on each day!
I miss all of my friends and family, and I appreciate your support and prayers!
Elder Richardson
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