The classes here are long but rewarding. Our classes are almost all in zhongwen (Chinese) and I can safely say that I have learned more in the last 5 days than I have in the last 5 years. I have been praying for yuyandeenci (The Gift of Tongues) and I feel that I have been receiving it so I am very happy about it. Though I know that I won't know everything before I embark to Taiwan I am putting a lot of effort into learning what I can.
My district is awesome, we have Elder Cribbs from Oregon, Elder Parker from Australia, Elder Griffin from Utah, Elder Watts from Australia, Sister Bennion from Utah, Sister Johnson from Utah, and my companion is from Pennsylvania. His name is Elder Engel and he is a rockstar! We are getting along really well and really connecting, feichanghao (Really good)! Only Elder Engel and I are going to Taiwan though. A lot of us have previous zhongwen experience and so we can help each other out a bunch which is rad.
Every day is classes, studying, and then food breaks. But lots of learning and not a lot of downtime. Needless to say, I am not having any trouble sleeping I am out like a light every day. The only downtime we have is when we are back in the residence halls at 9 PM until 10:30. But I am not here to relax I am out here to work every day to prepare to teach the fuyin (gospel)! I just need to get used to it.
We had an awesome devotional last night from some people in the District Presidency here at the MTC, the Pridays. They focused a lot on following promptings and heeding revelation and the Book of Mormon. Which leads me to one of my new goals while here at the MTC! I am going to read the
WHOLE mo'ermenjing (Book of Mormon) before I leave for Taiwan (August 8) and I would invite you all to join me on this adventure! I plan on starting today so please join!
For P-Day we went and got X-Rays with some other elders who are going to Taiwan and then we got to go to the temple! I have now done 4 sessions in the temple in 4 different temples! It was awesome being with our whole zone all together. Other than that we are just doing laundry and other things like that until 6 PM then we have class tonight. Which leads me to a PSA, we can read emails every day on our devices but we can only reply on Mondays. And I can email from the time I wake up until 6 PM.
I think that's about it for this week!! I hope you all are doing well! 我爱你们!
Elder Ciminski
PS here are some photos I was able to get off of my camera!
