First Week In MTC

Qin' ai jia ting (Dear family),

I love the MTC! It was such a blessing to have Sister (Bryce) Capner as my host because having a familar face at the MTC right away helped me to quickly transition into focusing on my mission and leave behind all my troubles. I ran into a lot of Sisters (Hermans Haliday, Fisher, and Orr, and Sister Rosa) I know that got here the same day I did and I see them all almost every day. As I expected, my first time in class my lao shi (teacher) only spake to us in Chinese. I just smiled and nodded as I took my seat because one, he was speaking too fast, and two, I really don't know Chinese that well haha. I am not going to lie, the first few days were extremely exhausting because of how much Chinese they try to cram in our brains. The experienced missionaries here at the MTC kept on saying "the first three days are the hardest, but if you can make it to Sunday, the worst is pretty much over." It was annoying at first because Sunday felt so far away but they were right-- Make it to Sunday, and you will survive. I also found out on my first day that our zone has everyone prepare a 5 minute talk in Mandarin every week and then they pick two people to give those talks on Sunday. Knowing my luck, I will probably be giving one haha.
      My companion is from London! Well, her family has lived there for the last three years at least. I found out there her family has also lived in South Africa, China, and Jordan. Cool, huh? It tursn out we have a lot in common. She lived in Hinckley this past year in Helaman halls, she plays the violin (close enough to a viola), and we were basically matching our first day! She is really good at the language since she took two semesters of Chinese this last year at BYU. Thank goodness for that because we have already had to teach two lessions in Mandarin and I relied on her to say what I don't know how to yet. At first I was beating myself up for not taking Chinese classes but I being so limited in the language has kept me very humble and willing to learn. The hardest thing about learning Chinese is getting the tones right. My lao shi always corrects me and it can get frustrating but I know it will benefit me later on.
   Half of my district is going to Taiwan and the other half is going to eithe California, Austrialia (my companion), or England, but not in the same mission as me in Manchester. We liike to do a lot of things as a district and we have a lot of fun and share a lot of laughs together. One of the Elders is from London  and some times we cannont tell if he is speaking Chinese or English because of his thick accent. The other day he asked me if I knew who Kevin Hart was and I was like "Kevin Hart? Of course I know who Kevin Hart is!." haha. that should give you a good idea of how funny he is. Sister (Ashley) Parker has been here for almost three weeks now and since all of the Mandarin Chinese speakers are in the same Zone, I get to see her a lot so that has been nice.
  My P-day is on Monday so I will be able to email you all then. So far I can bear a simple testimony and give a simple prayer in Chinese. I think I am progressing well! I hope all is well in the Mid West and I can't wait to hear back from you all. I forget to mention that you can use DearElder to write me letters. DearElder is great because I get the letters written from that the same day they are "mailed." I love receiving letters so even if it is just a short thought, I would love to have it in a DearElder.
Thank you all for the love and support!
Wo ai ni men!
Sister Jordan