First Letter!

My dearest family!
Leih hou! (Lay ho!) This is hello in Cantonese. (so we were wrong, mom...oh well! ) and plus, i can't write the tones on here. the tones are crazy! i feel like i'm singing :) haha it's great. anyway...
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!! I am sitting here in the laundry room at the mtc still not believing that i am actually here doing missionary work. this is the happiest place on earth, i'm convinced. happier even than disneyland ;) I LOVE IT HERE!!! i wish i could put into words how incredible it is here. and i wish that i could tell you everything about what i'm learning and doing. i'll try my best...! and by the way i'm not going to caps anything anymore because this shift key is jammed. boo.
the first day was great! they got my RIGHT into class, where my teacher (sister chang - i love her) was only speaking cantonese. intimidating!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but i met my companion there, sister morgan. LOVE LOVE LOVE HER. so much! she is so great. we get along like 2 peas in a pod. she is from highland utah. oh, and melina her first name is mandy so you can facebook stalk ;) our roommates are all going to hong kong with us! we are becoming best friends with two of our roommates, sister johnson (i'm facebook friends with her, remember?!) and sister palmer, SUCH cute and wonderfully spiritual people. sister palmer (loren so you can facebook stalk, mina may hahaha) is a convert of only 2 years! she is the only member in her family and she is one of the strongest people i've ever met. i love rooming with these sisters and feeling of their spirits and their testimonies. we have so much fun together. we laugh all day long :) i love it! our other two roommates, sister probst and sister tidwell, are always off on their own. i have found myself becoming closer and closer to everyone else and not as close to these two, so i know i need to make a better effort to be friendlier and warmer to them. they are great, though. and OH MY GOODNESS our district! there are 3 districts here at the mtc going to hong kong and learning cantonese. only 3. and there is only one companionship of sisters in every district! so our district is pretty small, sister morgan and i and then 3 sets of elders: elder barker, elder nestman, elder black, elder howell, elder martinez, and elder smith. i love them all so much already. i feel like we are a family :) elder barker is our district leader and he has STEPPED IT UP since being called as DL. he is very good to keep us on track and lead us in prayer and giving our testimonies. it's wonderful! i'll try to send pictures so you can see all of these amazing people that i already love so much.
SO... thursday we had our full day of learning the language. sister chang is our main teacher, but there's also a brother that comes in to teach us sometimes too. sister morgan and i can never remember his name so we call him "brotha teacha" haha. anyway, they talk to us ONLY in cantonese. thursday it was hard to try to figure out what they were saying. they would say something and then look at us as if we knew what it meant. HA yeah right! but we played "charades" so to speak, and figured out some words. with a lot of study, at the end of the day i felt pretty good about cantonese! i was very positive about it and have enjoyed studying it a lot. but then they told us that friday we'd be teaching our first "investigator" (mom, they're all actors so you know) on FRIDAY in CANTONESE. okay, terrifying much?! brotha teacha kept saying "daam sam" which is "don't worry". he told us the Lord would be with us. i have never prayed so hard in my life that i would know what to say to pauline (our investigator) and be able to touch her heart.
well, friday rolled around. sister morgan and i were so nervous for our lesson, but both felt that it would be okay. we went into the room where pauline was waiting for us, said "leih hou!" and asked her how she was, and then she went off. and i had NO IDEA WHAT SHE WAS SAYING. honestly, it was terrifying and embarrassing. but i had a prayer in my heart, and we went forward with our lesson. basically sis morgan and i just read from our notes what we were going to say. and i don't think we did a very good job, because pauline kept looking at us and saying, "huh?!!!" she literally did that 5 times. finally, i gave up on my notes. i felt the spirit very strongly and looked pauline in the eyes and said, "ngoh jidou YeSou GeiDuk haih weutjeuhk." which is "i know Jesus Christ lives." she looked at me and nodded, "ohhh." it was very spiritual. then i said, "ngoh jidou leih ho yih jidou." which is "I know you can know." she smiled a little bit, and nodded. but then i didn't know what to say. we asked her to pray, and she said No, so sis morgan said the closing prayer and then we left. when we got out, we both felt extremely discouraged. i had felt the spirit and felt good that i'd testified of what i DID know, but sister morgan and i agreed that we'd let fear overtake our faith and not strayed enough from our written notes. we were both extremely down. i finally felt the weight of this calling and of the language. up to that point, i'd felt great about it! but after our lesson i felt awful. our district had a district meeting after that, and we agreed to fast on Sunday to be able to learn the language and be positive about the great work that we're doing.
saturday was a very up and down day for me. in the morning before conference we did language study and both sister morgan and i were so discouraged! cantonese is difficult. then we went to general conference, where i was boosted so much. GENERAL CONFERENCE AS A MISSIONARY WAS THE BEST! i wish i could put into words how much it touched me and made me want to be better. anyway, the first session of conference was great, then language study was difficult again after that. the second session of conference was wonderful, but then language study was difficult again. at one point, i went into the bathroom stall (the only place i can really be alone) and prayed so hard to our Father in Heaven. i had been humbled on friday, and i could really see that there is absolutely NO way i can do this mission without the help of my Heavenly Father. there is no way! it can't be done. in that little bathroom stall, i prayed harder than i have in my life. i pleaded with my Father in Heaven to simply help me get through the rest of the day. i knew i wasn't going to make it without Him. well, a miracle ensued. the elders went to priesthood and the sisters went and watched a re-broadcast of the YW general meeting. WHIT, you have to watch it. it's the most amazing meeting! the spirit was so strong. i felt like that was my saving grace that day. Heavenly Father told me that He loved me and cared for me and was helping me and supporting me. the young women choir sang "more holiness give me" and i was so touched by some of the verses:
more faith in my Savior
more sense of his care
MORE JOY IN HIS SERVICE
more purpose in prayer
and then especially:
More, Savior, like Thee.
i just sat there and cried. oh, and they also sang "In that Holy Place" which i played on the piano back in the Heber 1st ward and i LOVE that song. i felt like that song alone was a tender mercy for me! oh, i wish i could describe these things to you all. these feelings that i have. this spirit that i feel. i love this place.
Moving on to sunday... the BEST day of the week. Sunday was amazing. Sister morgan and i started our fast on saturday night and fasted 24 hours. embarrassing to admit... but i'm not sure that i've ever done that before. and it was incredible. Sunday morning before conference we spent working on the language. we were able to memorize a lot of vocabulary and we felt great about it! i know that wasn't us, either. that was a direct blessing of fasting and diligently studying and praying to God for His help. it was wonderful. and general conference was so great! i'm not sure if it's because i'm a missionary or if it's because a lot of their messages related to missionary work, but i took SO MUCH from it about being a missionary, walking in faith, trusting in the Lord, carrying His word to every corner of the world. it was a magnificent conference, wasn't it?
my favorite tidbits from conference...
i don't remember who said it and don't have time to look it up in my notes, but one of them said that those who serve the Lord will find that the Lord watches over their families. i thought of our family, and how dad puts in so many hours as the stake president. mom, who spends many hours being the relief society president. me, serving a full time mission. our family is being watched over because of our service. that struck me. and also, matt and misti. when the general authority said those words, my mind immediately jumped to matt and misti. M&M, i know the Lord is watching over you because Ben and I are serving. His hand is guiding your lives. i pray for you guys every morning and night and put your names in the temple this morning. i love you and am thinking of you!
another favorite. elder bruce d. porter of the seventy said, "I DO NOT FEAR THE FUTURE." i am going to adopt that as my motto. i loved that! before my mission, i think i feared the future a little too much. i don't like change. but i am going to have to get over that because i am a missionary now. i KNOW with all my heart the Lord is guiding me. He is with me at all times, i feel that so strongly here in the mtc. it's an incredible feeling. i know he will lead me into a bright, bright future. all i need to do is put my trust in Him.
okay, so the rest of Sunday. aghhh i wish you could all be here so i could tell you everything. or better yet, that you could all have been here for Sunday night! our devotional was by BYU's Vocal Point. it was nothing short of spectacular. they sang beautiful music, and some of the members of vocal point bore their testimonies and it was POWERFUL. i felt filled to the brim with the Spirit, and love, and light. it was awesome. THEN (yes, it keeps getting better and better!!) we went to a talk by Jeffrey R. Holland. Sunday night movie night at the mtc is as everyone says -- THE BEST! anyway, i wish you guys could somehow access this talk. it's the most powerful, spiritual, magnificent, amazing talks i've ever heard. it changed my life. it's called "Missions Are Forever" and Elder Holland is just a powerhouse, as usual. he doesn't even use notes or anything, he just talks for an hour and fifteen minutes about missionary work. i wish you could listen to it! but it was given at the mtc, so ya can't. dang it :(
he talked about how great our potential is as missionaries. he talked about how we need to understand how BIG and great this work is! this is GOD'S work. He is in charge. He shared a poem:
"Come to the edge, He said
No, we said. We'll fall.
Come to the edge! He said
No! we said. We'll fall!
COME TO THE EDGE, He said
So, we came to the edge.
He pushed us...
... and we FLEW."
isn't that powerful!? i loved it. it gave me such an empowering feeling. i can do this. the Lord told me to go on a mission, i said no i don't want to, i'm scared. he ordered me, and so i came, and now he has pushed me, and i'm not flying yet, but with His help, i'll be able to. i KNOW this to be true.
something else that i loved from his talk was when he asked us, "why is this so hard? why don't we have people knocking on our doors, dressed in white, ready to be baptized?" i was thinking, "yeah! why don't we?!" haha. but he said something that i will never, ever forget. i took really good notes so that i could share it with you, because i loved it so much.
he said: "Why is this so hard? Because salvation is not a cheap experience. Why should it be easy for us when it was not easy for Him? The road to salvation goes through Gethsemane."
Read that in an Elder Holland-filled-with-power voice. I sat there and just wept. How true it is! Why should i think that my mission to Hong Kong, or even my mission in life, should be easy? It was not easy for Jesus Christ. It was not easy for Him to suffer in Gethsemane, to bleed at every pore, to be whipped and bruised and beaten for our sakes. IT WAS NOT EASY. and so, with that, i have given up my complaints. i have given up my longing for an easier mission. i have given up my grumblings when the alarm rings at 6:15 (or, in today's case, 5:00... i know right, who woulda thought). i have given up my life for my God. that touched me in such a way that i will never be the same person. That's another thing Elder Holland said, "You MUST not come home the same person. You BETTER come home having at least one convert, and that MUST BE YOU." ah, it gives me chills just to remember it. it was absolutely incredible.
aw, fam, my time is running out. i love you so, so much. i appreciated your letters and dearelders so much! and mom, Marcene sent me a care package!! how thoughtful is that! i'm writing her a thank you letter today. I've seen so many people i know. it's so awesome. I see Jessica Harmon every day! I see Ben all the time. I've seen Nellie Kacher, Jake Segura, Cale Strong, Kayden Hicken, a bunch of people from my freshman ward at BYU - Marisa Barth, Liz Hilton, Venice Jardine, gahh i forget who all i've seen. i've seen so many people i know! it's so fun to see everyone. and DID YOU GUYS SEE THE KATZENBACHS IN BETWEEN CONFERENCE???! that made me cry haha. we're sitting there, and i had totally forgotten that would be on! and all of a sudden i was like "sister morgan! that's my family!" and i started crying. haha. little nicholas! josh, and zach, and marci and ben and sam. ahhhhh seeing them was so great, even if it was just on TV ;) i cried. and i saw Deonn in the choir at conference! did you see her? that was fun. and i saw brother heywood at the temple this morning!! SO GREAT.
i love you guys with ALL my heart. i don't think anyone could love their family more. it's impossible. haley, melina, morgan, i'm sorry i don't have time to write you an individual email today! but know that i love you and i pray for you guys every night and morning! and i'm so glad i have the scarf!
miss you so much, but this is SO RIGHT. i love it so much here. i have never been happier.
with all the love i possess,
shay
aka...
Gwok Ji Muih (Sister Wilcox)

xoxo