Week 7 Okay. I really can't think of a title, but this was such a cool week. 10/28/2019

One word. 4 letters. WILD. This week was wild. 

1. Explanation of pictures

2. The wild events of this week 

3. Spiritual thought

But first, for kicks and giggles:

But first, a cute quote from my dear cousin, Ella (I love you Ella, be good). My aunt told me that she asked her, "Mom, what does companion mean on a mission?" And my aunt replied, "it's someone you have to be with all the time." And my cousin went all "it's like your BFF." 😂😂 Sis. Hoe, I know you're reading this, so in answer to that, yes. Yes it is. Sis. Hoe, you rock, you stone, you pebble (phrase as a courtousy of Sis. Hoe and Sis. Cummings).

1. Pictures

-Elder Williams' birthday so the sisters in the district piled our snacks together for him

-Elder Williams (the one in the middle holding the pumpkin) wanted us to dress as pumpkins for his birthday so we all wore orange and green

-Sis. Leng in the middle

-we blame Elder Marion and his what he calls "seminary candy" for our blue tongues

-for the ni haos that never end (hope you all are having fun in Taiwan!) 

-it snowed. We found a snowman. Sis. Johnson whoever you are, if you're looking for your nametag, frosty the snowman took it. 

-Me and Sis. Leng at the temple!

2. The wild events of this week

This week me and Sis. Hoe welcomed a new Sister into our companionship!!! Sis. Leng!! Sis. Leng is from Taiwan and she is going to be serving in Taipei. She's a solo sister (basically she is the only sister in her district) and is in a different branch than me and Sis. Hoe. We're not with her 100% of the time because we have different schedules, but we love her so much and me and Sis. Hoe really feel like God sent her just for us.

This week me and Sis. Hoe also hosted all the early arrival international sisters. That was way fun but crazy! They came in on Tuesday and we took them to dinner (we met Sis. Leng Tuesday too!) Then we took their luggage to their temporary rooms and also devotional and devotional review. It was so fun to have so many sisters at our devotional review! In the morning we took them all with their luggage to breakfast. But then we found a sister's luggage, but we couldn't find her, BUT NO WORRIES turns out she was just at the front desk and there was just some miscommunication. We found her and took her to breakfast with the rest of us and not going to lie, a little stressful, but good times. She is this cute sister from Thailand! She's been serving in Thailand for 3 months and has been visa waiting, but she finally made it to the MTC! She was really tired from her travels, and she pulled up Google translate to communicate with us, but it turned out good and we got her where she needed to go! 

Also this week we did video call TRCs. So me and Sis. Hoe called this cute lady and guess what?? She lives in Los Angeles and can pretty much walk to the temple!! She helps out with family history and she said when I get to LA we'll have to met in person!

3. Spiritual

Spiritual thought time. Let's go.

This week I want to talk about the power of praying for your companion when they're speaking. A friend shared with me that when you pray for your companion in your heart while they're speaking, you can both feel the Spirit burning in both of your hearts. I thought this was pretty cool (so shout out to you cool friend, you know who you are), and so what did I do? I tried it out. Word of advice, if you want to know something works, try it out. During a "teaching visit" this week (we just teach our teacher and she pretends to be an interested person) we were teaching about the Plan of Salvation, and I started praying for Sis. Hoe in my heart at the end when she was bearing her testimony. Our teacher started tearing up and so did I because Sis. Hoe's testimony was so strong. So if you're on a mission, pray for your companion while they're speaking. It's pretty awesome. 

Love you all! God loves you, go fight win.

Week 6 When an apostle comes to the MTC, do what they say 10/21/2019

What's good!! Hello hello hello. Exciting times.

1. Spiritual 

2. About this week

Spiritual

An apostle came to the MTC for devotional!! This week Elder Quentin L. Cook came to speak at the MTC. HOW COOL?! As soon as him and his wife walked in, I could just feel the spirit so strongly. An apostle of the Lord! Someone who preaches the word of God! And he came to the MTC. I have no words except for wow. He brought some of the original manuscript from the Book or Mormon and talked sooo much about the history of the Book of Mormon. Here are some other insights from that devotional.

-(from his wife) enduring leads to endowment

-missionaries are in that unique position that apostles are, they get to testify of Jesus Christ. This is one of the most sacred things. Missionaries testify of the one who atoned for our sins

-Christ's Atonement also covers everything that we feel is not fair in life

-missions calls are from God. He told us that when assigning mission calls, if they do it wrong, the Spirit stops them almost immediately

Read the Book of Mormon. Learn of its history. And use the words to help other people understand Christ's Atonement in their life. 

About This Week

This week me and Sis. Hoe got called as STLs (sister training leaders). Basically we just have the opportunity to serve all the other sisters in our zone! Woot woot! But I mean we are all called to serve everyone on missions, so basically we're just one big happy family and nothing's really different from before. Go team. 

We're also about to say goodbye to a lot of the older districts these next couple of days. Sad tears. We're almost the "oldest" in terms of how long we've been at the MTC. 

Week 5 Read this email like you would watch a TV show 10/14/2019

It's that time of week. Presenting, Weekly Adventures with Sis. Chou!! This week featuring, still at the MTC yipeeee *cue TV show intro music*

So this week on Life with Sis. Chou was crazy. So crazy that she has completely forgotten all the crazy things that have happened. Okay truth, *holds hands up in surrender* this week was a pretty standard week and maybe this might be a boring email to read, BUT every week, standard or not, at the MTC is still packed with lovely experience. And we'll be back right after this commercial break.

Potato Chip Trail

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/video/homefronts/2009-04-040-potato-chip-trail

(I'm not kidding if you have time please watch this it was so cute)

Now, back to Life with Sis. Chou. This week my district hosted again. This was our 3rd time and we've been here for 5 weeks. It's pretty great. The fire alarm went off this week so we had class outside which was pretty great, and then I went out of the MTC twice, once for when my companion needed to go to the health clinic and another time was with splits when another sister had to go to the hospital. Fun times.

Just wanted to share a quick thought. During one of the devotionals this week, we were watching several videos of President Nelson traveling around the world and visiting the Saints. He has devoted his whole entire life to the Lord. The prophet, the apostles, and their wives have dedicated their whole entire life to the Lord! And that's because they love the Lord SO MUCH! They are joyful because of their trust in the Lord, and they're happy about their service because of they have been converted to the Lord. I hope each one of us will find the joy they do in serving the Lord.

Also, I had a friend this week write me "...you're on a quest to change the world for the better...don't forget to be happy." Each one of you has your own talents, your own abilities, your own strengths, and each one of you will change the world for the better, I know it. 加油!!!

Week 4 I watched Conference AND The Lion King at the MTC 10/7/2019

Now now now, I know what you're thinking, "Sis. Chou??? You watched The Lion King???? Isn't that against the rules???" For those who don't know  during a mission, it depends on your mission president, but most of the time you aren't allowed to watch any media unless your mission president approves it, and most mission presidents only approve church related media. Soooooooo if you want to hear this story, here's how this email is going to go.

1. Church terms

2. General Conference

3. About this week (the Lion King story will be here) 

4. A closing spiritual thought

CHURCH TERMS

This week introduces 3 terms. Sister training leaders, devotionals, and general conference.

Sister training leaders: also known as STLs. You can think of them as your "older sisters on the mission. 

Devotional: usually in church settings, you start with a song, and prayer, have a speaker, end with song and prayer.

General conference: twice a year, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints all get an opportunity to hear from a living prophet of God and His apostles.

GENERAL CONFERENCE 

If you missed a session or didn't watch it, I HIGHLY encourage you to! It is such a blessing and special opportunity to listen to God's prophet and apostles. I'm sure all of you who watched it have your own thoughts and impressions, so I will just share one. If you want to hear more of my thoughts email me and I'd love to share! One thing that stuck out to me is covenants. I think the more you spend learning about God and the church, the more you realize how important these covenants are! Covenants are promises, but more than that, they help you develop your relationship with God. Basically God promises you blessings when you promise to do certain things. And these are guaranteed blessings!! This was definitely something I feel like God was trying to tell me during conference. Commit to your covenants, and commit 100%.

ABOUT THIS WEEK!

Ready for the Lion king story? Well you came to the right place.

So first of all, I got to play at a MTC presidency dinner and devotional this week! For the MTC presidency dinner, basically the MTC presidency and whoever will be speaking at the devotional that night (we have them every Tuesday and Sunday) have dinner together. Someone I met at a BYU music camp way back when found me and asked me to be her accompanist! That night, a member of the seventy came! Elder Choi!!! He gave the talk "Look up!" A couple years ago in conference. We got to met him and play If You Could Hie to Kolob for him!! Now here is the Lion King story:

During the devotional that night, he was talking about knowing that we are sons and daughters of God. And here's how it went.

 Elder Choi: I'm going to now show you a movie. If you don't like it, like it

*proceeds to show the Lion King movie*

Those were some of the best clips of movie I've seen. Another funny quote from his talk was

"PMG stands for Preach my Gospel now. After your mission, it means perfect marriage guide! First you have to "find". Then if you get rejected, you have to "ask for referrals". See??" Too good.

Then of course this week we got to watch conference. Good times. Sunday night we had a musical devotional where I was able to be the accompanist for If You Could Hie to Kolob again. If you have a chance, watch the church video "music of the gospel!"

FINAL THOUGHTS 

When you grow up your whole life in the church, and especially since I've been blessed with parents who have been truly converted to the Lord, you sometimes can think, there is no more I can possibly learn. You're content, you don't have any major trails, or if you do, you are turning to the Lord so your burdens are made light. And so you get comfortable. But oh, we all have so much to learn. We are missing out when we aren't constantly seeking from the Lord what more we can learn. So commit to the Lord. Ask Him what more you can do, because He will transform you into the most amazing human being you could ever be.

*I realize there's a lot of jargon in this email so if you have questions about terms please let me know!! 

I love you all dearly.