Last Week in America!

Not really sure where to start! We finally made it through the MTC! It's been an amazing but super long last 9 weeks. I'm definitely going to miss this place but at the same time I'm so pumped to finally get to Taiwan. 

This week the MTC opened for public tours of the campus and new buildings. Our District got assigned to help host the tours. It was super fun to get to talk to people from the 'outside world' for a few hours. Also, when a new missionary shows up at the MTC, they have a orange dot on their tag their first day so that everyone knows they are new, can help them around, and say "WELCOME TO THE MTC" every time they see them. Since it's my very last week at the MTC, I got an orange dot from a new Elder and wore it on my tag all week. I would walk around with tons of missionaries saying "WELCOME!" but little did they know I've been here since... May... It's always funny to hear the missionaries complain about how they have to be here for a whole 3 weeks because they're speaking English in their missions. When they hear that we've been here for 9 weeks they always freak out.

We had 'In-field Orientation' on Friday. It was all about adjusting to the mission field life, working with members, and finding investigators. It was super long but got us all excited to finally get out to the actual field after teaching fake investigators for the last 9 weeks. This whole last week all we've been doing is refining our lessons. It's a little scary because we've learned literally nothing in terms of every day vocabulary and typical conversational talk. All we know is how to talk about the Gospel, haha. But I guess that's all we need to know. Once we get there I'll hopefully be able to pick up conversational language super quick. I've never been more excited for anything before in my life. I've never been out of the country and I can't wait to get off the plane and not understand anything that is said by anyone. This is going to be the craziest, but most memorable week of my life. I'm terrified but at the same time I have nothing to fear. The Lord is on my side. One of my favorite scriptures is 2 Nephi 22:2, "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and be not afraid; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also has become my salvation". 

Next week I'll be emailing from Taiwan!

Elder Smith (施長老)