One week left at the MTC!

Dear Friends and Family,

I now only have one week left at the MTC!  What a blessing.  Some fun things happened this week, so here they are.

My teacher had a birthday.  We found out about it because one of the sisters in my district is a total creeper and had her friend at home look up our teacher on facebook.  So we found out it was his birthday so we threw a surprise party.  We got him some silly gifts and wrote a message on the board.
  

We also had Christmas in July on July 25th.  I drew Elder Walter for my Secret Santa so I made him a gift.  We have this grammar book with some suggestive and interesting lines in it, so I compiled the weird lines into a dramatic play.  It is all in Cantonese so Elder Walter will be able to learn and be entertained at the same time.  Pretty sweet!  Since my parents are famous writers now, maybe I will send the manuscript to them and they can edit it and put it up on the blog so everyone can see.

Today I got to serve at the temple.  The temple is closed here for refurbishments and some redesigning.  But I got to go in and help clean.  Well I got the good job.  I and another elder in my district found out that they ask two people to be "security guards."  Which means you sit in a chair and make sure no hooligans come in.  So we got there and said that we could handle the burden of security, while the rest of our district got to go clean lockers!  There were a few exciting moments, though.  At one point, a man came in without a temple recommend and nobody told me he was coming.  He said there was a temporary recommend at the desk somewhere and luckily we found it and he got through.  The next thing was when an insect flew through the door.  My first thought was this:  In the House of the Lord?!  NO WAY!  Nobody is getting an insect blown into their mouth or eye when they're trying to peaceably worship.  So I go to squash it, and then I realize that I couldn't kill a life in what I consider the holiest place on Earth.  So I had this conflict within me.  I decided to just ignore it and now some poor temple worker probably swallowed it and choked to death.  So if that happened, would it be more morally correct for me to end one life with certainty than have the possibility of two lives ending in a such a tragic manner?  This is what was going through my head.  These are the hard choices.  But I couldn't kill it.  Some other stuff happened involving burglars, protesters, and a small riot outside the temple but that's not nearly as important as the previous two items mentioned so I'll move on.

I've just been studying my guts out for Hong Kong.  I've been meeting with an elder who speaks Cantonese and lives in my dorm.  I talk to him in Cantonese as much as I can, his name is  Elder Leo whose parents are Hong Kong natives!  He is a really funny guy. 

I met a new missionary who is going to Milwaukee Wisconsin!  His name is Elder Robinson so Mom, Dad and anyone else in WI. give Elder Robinson a warm welcome!   

  

That's pretty much all I have for now but I got some golden pictures this week, you are going to love them!
  

One of the pictures is with Elder Schmitz from my ward in Wisconsin.  He lives in my building and we talk all the time.  He is speaking Thai
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The picture of the group with that beautiful Asian man in the middle is the one we took when that Asian man went on vacation just yesterday and we won't seem him until he visits us in Hong Kong.  He was a great teacher.  His name is Fuhng Hingdaih.  I love him so much.  I was distraught when he left us.

Another picture is one of Hong Kong money.  One guy in our zone had his parents send him some so we all got to look at them.  Pretty neat.

The other picture is that party we threw for our other teacher Gu Hingdaih.  We love him too.  It was a wonderful moment.  I am about to forward an email with that picture on it.  We have three teachers by the way.  Fuhng Hingdaih, Gu Hingdaih, and Gwok Hingdaih.