Week Five

Dear friends and family,

This has probably been the hardest weeks here at the MTC. And I'll tell you why! I explained in my last email that my throat was feeling gross. It didn't get better. I decided to go on vocal rest for a day to see if that would help. Once I decided to talk again, I was really suffering. When your voice is dying and squeaks all over the place, it's pretty much impossible to speak chinese with all the tones. By Thursday night, my voice left me almost completely. It became almost impossible to teach. I had to depend a lot on Elder Plate to teach. The only thing I could do was help him with a word if he forgot how to say it. It was really hard. And I volunteered to give a prayer the following Sunday in Sacrament meeting. Once I hit Saturday and still didn't have a voice, I was really nervous that I wouldn't be able to say a prayer out loud. Sunday came around and I still didn't have much of a voice. I decided just to not talk until it was time. During the opening hymn, I sang a little bit to get my voice going. Then when it came time for the prayer, I could speak clearly! It was great. Within an hour, my voice was gone again. What a blessing that was to get my voice back, even for the smallest amount of time.

Since then, I've been to the clinic again and they've given me some kind of liquid that tastes 20 times worse than nyquil. It actually makes me cough like a mad man. But after about 5 minutes or so, my voice feels a lot better. We just got back from the temple. It was so great! I love being able to sit and pray and ponder at the temple. I also saw Mrs. Johnson (3rd grade teacher). I'm glad I'm good with remembering faces!

At the Sunday evening fireside, we had an amazing musical number by Elder Archuleta. He sang "The Spirit of God." It was absolutely amazing. He's now in Chile, I believe. The speaker was Elder M. Russell Ballard. He gave an amazing talk on perfection as a missionary and how it is impossible. Only one missionary was perfect and it was Christ. We just need to strive to be perfect by doing our best. I loved his talk. Following his talk, we were instructed on a different version of "Called to Serve." I think Sister Nally called it the "MTC Medley." It was so awesome! She said we're just short of 2000 missionaries at the MTC and we're going to sing it as though we are the 2000 stripling warriors marching off to battle. It was intense as it built up. And my voice came back for that as well! What are the odds?

On a less spiritual note, we've found mice on our floor in our residence hall. An Elder saw one bolt into his room right as he opened the door to walk out. So we have to keep our stuff closed and secure so they don't eat any of our stuff.

Now that my voice is coming back, Elder Terry and I are working on our song that we'll be singing on Sunday. I'm so excited. We'll have 6 new missionaries in our branch tomorrow. There was a mix up on the entry dates of all the new missionaries. The ones that will be coming in tomorrow have lived somewhere chinese speaking and already speak chinese fluently. Some of them don't speak much english. They'll be coming here to learn more of the gospel words and lessons. It'll be interesting welcoming new people that already can speak so well! We'll have to pick up the pace if we even want to talk to them. I'm so excited though. And I believe next week we'll have another 25 new missionaries coming in. It's so weird knowing I'm over halfway through the MTC. Actually, we fly out for Taiwan a month from today. That's so weird!

Well my time is just about up. I love you all! I pray for all of you daily. The church is true. I love that I'm out here serving the Lord. I can't wait to get out and serve everyone in Taiwan. Please remember to write me and keep in touch!

 

Love, Elder Anthony Buckwalter