Disneyland

Michaela's letter from February 26, 2013

Nimen hao!

Nothing really big or exciting happened this week. Sister Anderson and I always joke and say that we are living at the REAL Disneyland. It's the happiest place on earth and the lines are ridiculously long!

For real though, it's getting insane. We have to get to choir super early because there are so many people, they stop letting people in when all the seats are taken. It's pretty over crowded here, but it's a good problem to have. The destroying angel passed over us once again aka we didn't end up getting two new roommates last week, but there is a chance that we will tomorrow so we'll just have to wait and see. I really don't know how 6 people will fit in that room but hopefully we won't have to find out haha. We will be leaving for Taiwan in exactly one month....crazy! I'm not nearly ready yet, but it's exciting.

You should tell Kristen that I was helping Sister Anderson make her bed, (the top bunk), and I came down and hit my butt on the chair really hard and got a big bruise haha. It reminded me of the time when she jumped off the counter and landed on the lazy susan. Tell her I'm sorry for laughing so hard, but not really.

 I still love being a missionary and I'm trying my hardest to prepare as much as I can. If you could pray that I will be able to sleep well through the night that would be great. There are some heavy snorers in my room haha. I always pray that they will stop and they always do, but if I could just sleep through the night that would be awesome. Missionary work is so tiring.

I love you!

He did it because He loves me!

Nimen hao!

Thank you so so much for sending the lotion! It's wonderful and my hands are doing much better :) Also, some of the elders like it better than the orange scented one that I brought, they like to borrow lotion

So tomorrow we are getting 11 new mandarin sisters!! What!? Crazy huh? There are only 10 sisters right now, so we are doubling our size in just one day! We are getting 25 new missionaries total which is so crazy. I don't know where they are going to put everyone.  Sadly, this means we are getting new roommates tomorrow. They won't be Mandarin speaking though which is why I say sadly. We are just hoping that they aren't English speaking because there is a pattern of noisy stay up all night English speaking missionaries. Probably because their brains aren't getting stuffed with new language so they just aren't as exhausted. Just kidding i don't know what it is. But we hope it's not them. It's going to be very crowded in our room, and the MTC just keeps getting more and more packed. It's insane. 

Speaking of Sunday, let me just tell you. Sunday's are the absolute best days here at the MTC. They are just so great. I don't know what it is about it, but they are just wonderful. This Sunday was especially great. The second councilor in the General Relief Society came and talked in relief society. I can't remember what she talked about, but it lead me to a really cool thought that i had never thought about before. I'm just going to write something straight from my journal.

At one point we were talking about Christ's Atonement, and how much pain and suffering He went through for not only everyone who ever has and will live, but for me individually. And how hard it must have been, but He did it anyway because He loves me. And then for the first time ever, I thought about it from Heavenly Father's point of view. And how hard it must have been to see His Son in so much pain, pleading and crying for help but not being able to give it. Knowing that if He did, all would be ruined. And I think about my family, and my kids in China. Seeing them at the age of 5 and 6 cry and hurt but not knowing, not being able to communicate, but desperately wanting to take that pain, that hurt away. I can't even imagine how hard it was for Heavenly Father, but I am forever grateful that He didn't help. I know that He did that for me. He watched His Son suffer so that His daughter could live with him again. I know with all my heart and soul that my Father in Heaven knows and loves me. I know because I have seen His hand in this work, helping me every single day. I am nothing without Him. I am nothing without my Savior.  

I know that Heavenly Father loves all of us, and I am so thankful for that knowledge, and I am SO excited to go share it with the people in Taiwan! This gospel brings so much happiness and I just want everyone to have it! So if you know someone who needs a reminder, tell them! Share your testimony! Your testimony is one of the most powerful things that you have! Ah! I just love being a missionary! And I love you! 

Did I mention how much I love being a missionary?

Here are exerpts from Michaela's  from a couple of weeks ago.  I need to be diligent in keeping up on her blog:

I played the piano in church on Sunday, and Sister Anderson and I got called to be the music coordinators for our branch. So we organize the music and musical numbers for sacrament and priesthood meetings. So that will be fun. Sister Anderson and I love to sing together, our voices blend so great. It's so much fun! The other day, Sister Anderson started blowing bubbles off of her tongue and right then and there I knew we were destined to be companions hahahha. Lets just say we have a lot of fun together and make everyone jealous of our special talent haha.

I have seen a lot of people from Cedar and it makes me so happy! I have seen Trevor a couple times, he seems pretty happy every time I see him. I see Cameron LeFevre a lot and now that Heather Sahagun is here I see her all the time. We are on the same schedule so we have lunch and gym at the same time. I've seen Sarah Rollins several times and I see Chelsey at least every P-day in the laundry room which I absolutely love! I planned to get everyone together this Sunday at 5 so we can all take a picture by the map! :) Sorry I haven't sent any pictures, I haven't taken any though. Not one. So I will take some and try to send some home :)

So on Sunday we had a really great fireside. I can't remember who spoke but he was talking about his mission and how this is the most important thing we have ever done and how we will be changing lives into the eternities. People say that all the time and share all these stories, but then he actually brought someone from his mission to come to the fireside. It was amazing. It was so cool to actually see a real life person that was changed because that man decided to serve a mission. And right then it became even more real. I am SO excited to go to Taiwan and help people change their life. I love this gospel SO much. It brings so much happiness and joy and direction and I just want to share it with the whole world! Can I be a missionary forever!? Yes! That is the great part! We can be missionaries forever! But I know I was called to Taiwan for a reason and that the Lord will qualify me for the work if I continue to have that desire and work my very hardest. Did I mention how much I love being a missionary? :) 

Nimen hao!!

Nimen hao!

Hi mom and dad!

Ok,I have 28 min. haha. First, thank you SO much for sending the electric blanket! I was freezing every night and now I sleep so much better :) and mom thank you for sending my debit card. Dad and Melissa, thank you for the dear elders :) It's so fun getting mail. Melissa, I wrote you a letter today and as soon as I get a second I'll put it in the mail box :) I love you guys so much! Thank you!

So last week I felt way scatter brained when I wrote my email so this week I wrote some things down that I want to make sure I remember so maybe I can be a little bit more organized haha so I went through my journal to see what I could tell you and almost every single journal entry started out, "today was the longest day of my life...but it was so great!" haha that made me laugh. It's so true though. Every single day is so long, but every day is so great in different ways.

Last night we all had kind of a little bit of a break down. It was the first time I cried since I have been here, which is weird because I'm a really big cry baby (thanks to you, mom. haha) so I thought i would be crying all the time. Anyway, we taught a new investigator last night and it just went horrible. I have been working so hard on my chinese and I felt like because I have been working so hard and memorizing words and phrases and just practicing all the time that I would be able to see some improvement. I didn't. My companions and I went in and none of us knew what he was saying and we couldn't get to our lesson plan and it was just so like, awkward. I'm not sure if he will want to meet with us again. it was really bad. I was expecting my mission to be hard, but I never could have imagined it was going to be this hard. It is so frustrating and discouraging to know something that will bless someone elses life, and not being able to tell them. I want to help my investigators so bad but I just can't understand them and they can't understand me. so I'm working harder and having the spirit and hoping they will be able to feel that through me. That being said, my chinese really has improved a lot. I just need to be patient with myself and remember that I have only been here for 2 weeks. On Sunday it was fast sunday and we had a missiion conference. All day it seemed like they were talking about testimonies and how to streangthen them. Well, when sacrament came around, I had a feeling I needed to bare my testimony. So I sat there til the very end, naturally, until I finally got the courage to go up. And I bore my testimony in Chinese!! It was amazing! Everyone said they understood it and that my tones were really good! So that really gave me a boost of confidence. I'm still working really hard though. Especially after the lesson with the investigator last night, a fire has been lit and I am determined to work harder and faster.

I am so happy to be here, I seriously feel so blessed every single day to be here. I get to see miracles happen on a daily basis. For example, baring my testimony in chinese-miracle. Being able to (somewhat) pray in chinese-miracle. The fact that I can sit still, quitely, and focused in a classroom literally all day long-miracle. haha. Also, I get to see Heavenly Father answer my prayers. My teacher said something like, if you pray very specifically, it is easier to recognize when your prayers are answered. I think it was on Friday, I was getting really down on myself. I was really frustrated because one on my companions would whine and complain every time we went to the bathroom because apparently the other two of us took too long...idk. haha. But I just really wanted to be alone just for a minute. Which most definitely is not allowed. So I prayed that morning that I would be able to see Chelsey. She had come in on Wednesday but I hadn't seen her yet. Sure enough at lunch I was able to see Chelsey! It was a miracle. It was so good to see someone from home and someone I love. We have seen each other a lot since then and I love it! I love that we get to be here at thesame time.

Speaking of new missionaries coming in, last wednesday we got about 800 new missionaries! And we are expecting over 800 more tomorrow! How crazy is that! the lines at meals are getting soooo long (even from when I came in two weeks ago), and Monday morning they came in and put another bunk bed in our room. So tomorrow we are probably getting new roommates, which means there will be 6 girls in a room that was made for only 4 girls......yeah. It is going to be interesting to see how this will work out. haha. It is really great though. The Lord asked for more missionaries and that is exactly what He is getting! I LOVE being a misisonary so so much!

I don't have a lot of time left, but I wanted to mention how much I love my district. We spend all day every day together and we have become like family. We probably like each other too much, we get distracted VERY easily. For the most part we are able to focus and work hard though. There was an instence on Saturday after gym where we didn't really have anything to do (we had about an hour til we got to go to bed), but we had planned on planning a lesson for the next week. Everyone got talking and really distracted and I was trying to study and learn chinese but I felt that the spirit had left. It was the worst feeling ever. I never want that feeling agian. I tried several times to help everyone get back on task but apparently I'm not a very assertive person...haha who knew right? haha. That is something I want to work on though is to be more bold and assertive. Dad, you told me that in your letter before I left. Thank you for that letter by the way. I love it.

Anyway. I don't really have too much left to say. I did get my batteries and medicine though, thank you! It was funny, every night they have a bunch of missionaries names on a screen that need to go to the front desk and I guess my name was on there, but I didn't know. Several people came up to me and asked if I had gone to the desk and I had NO idea what they were talking about haha. It was funny.

Oh, one more thing I have learned. Well, I've learned a lot, but one more I want to mention in the next 4 min. So often I put all my trust and rely so much on other people. While it's good to trust other people, I have really learned that before anyone else, I need to put my trust and rely on the Lord. I could not have been able to do any of this or learn half as much Chinese without Him. He is the one person that FULLY understands us and what we need, so it's kind of obvious that He should be the first person we turn to, right? I think I have always known that, but I haven't really ever fully acted on that knowledge. I'm so happy that I get to be here and learn, grow and prepare so that I can go to Taiwan and hopefully share what I have learned and help change someones life. I'm SO EXCITED!!

Wo ai nimen!

Sister Fuller