Another week in the life of a great missionary!

Hey!! Love you!

Happy Birthday Dad and Grandpa!!!!! The pics are great! I wish I could print some out to have with me. And the work you did on my pictures are awesome!! I love the one with the red flower! 

Things have been pretty cool this week. Sister Sulz is on the same floor as me for our classes so I've seen her everyday. My friend Luke comes in like 2-3 weeks I think which is pretty exciting.

Today we went to the Temple to a 6:20 session... super early, then ate at the cafeteria there... best food I've had yet! Been taking it pretty easy for the rest of the day, already in Mosiah in personal study (I started again when I got to the MTC).

So today I accidentally washed my missionary handbook with my whites... so I'm going to go get a new one after E-mails. Pretty funny.

This last week has been pretty crazy. Our lessons were kinda rough the Wednesday to Friday and we were really struggling to help our investigators. We have been praying and studying a lot and on Saturday... everything clicked! Since then our lessons have been great! We are really helping our investigators learn and are teaching to there needs. I have a lot to improve on, but it's nice I have 5 more weeks here. Can't believe English Elders are only here for 3 weeks.

Our younger generation comes tomorrow and the international come tonight! I'm so excited but it's kinda strange. I hope I can be a good example. And i'll remind them to check all their pockets when they do laundry.

I don't know if I've mentioned this but I am studying the Gospel or Doctrine of Christ this time around the Book of Mormon and it is so eye opening, and really effective study to have a specific topic in mind. I think I need toimprove on understanding others needs.

Oh mom, could you send me some chopsticks? We all want to get some in our district to eat with at meals, just for fun.

I forgot! On Sunday we watched a broadcast of the Brigham City Temple dedication! I'm glad I got to see one even though I won't see Calgary's. Sunday night we watched "Joseph Smith Prophet of the Restoration" such a great movie? Have you seen it yet? If not you shoulf totally watch it! 

Lewis... thanks for the letters buddy! I have a challenge for you... MEMORIZE all the scripture masteries. Will you do it? I know if you do it will be a big help in your life, especially preparing you for a mission.

Jenna... I have a study question for you... What is the Doctrine of Christ and how does it apply to you?

Please send back how you are doing.

I know this is all in random order but it saves time. One of my teachers, Brother Visser, is in Josh's Bible class at BYU! Brother Visser told me last week "Josh says hi" It was pretty cool how everyone is connected.

Also can you get Shannon to send me how she felt when she was meeting with the misisonaries and how she feels now?

I love you!! God bless!

Elder Heinzlmeir

Taylor with his companion Elder Lewis

Week 5

Our older generation of missionaries left, so now its just our generation until next week on Wednesday when our younger generation comes... weird! I'm pretty excited though, I hope I can be a good example to them.

Well it's easier to go backward from today then to start at the day after my email and go till today. So yesterday was really good, service and what not, but then I hurt my thumb playing volleyball. Nothing too bad, just a little bruised, made sure I got ice on it right away. Sunday was fantastic! It was the older generations last Sunday and our Branch President, President Baker gave an amazing talk on enduring to the end. He likes to say that it's China's time to thrive and accept the gospel and that we are blessed to be a part of that. Pretty cool. Then of course we went to the Devotional! It was fantastic, Brother W. Tracy Watson spoke. He is the Director of Proselyting or something for the church. Great speaker! He spoke about the Book of Mormon and it was a fantastic faith building experience. Then we watched "Character of Christ" a talk Elder Bednar gave to the MTC. It was really inspiring. I wish everyone could watch it. Saturday was cool, we taught another real investigator at the TRC! 

Other than that just learning and teaching as usual. Both of our investigators came to Church on Sunday so that was cool, and we had a really great lesson with Apple yesterday. (That's the English name our investigator goes by)

Oh so starting this week we get to be investigators, and we teach other misisonaries in our district who are being investigators. I'm really looking forward to it.

Week 4 at the MTC

Well as usual my time has been great. My Chinese isn't that great yet, it's a work in progress but it sure is fun. It is weird sometimes to think that I am learning Mandarin, but it gets me excited! Yes Elder Lewis is still my companion and will be for the entire time at the MTC. He is a great guy, I'm sure you can tell by the pictures. He is from Danville California, in between San Fransisco and Oakland. We have similar interests, most importantly we get along great!

Cool story, there is a building called the TRC where people volunteer to be taught. Usually they are return missionaries, but last Saturday we taught a real investigator... in Mandarin! Pretty crazy.

On other big news... 17 Elders from our zone put together an acapella group singing "Come Thou Fount" and we had the opportun ity to sing, instead of the closing him, oat the Sunday night Fireside for the whole MTC! It was amazing! I really enjoyed it, and the arrangment was so good. I think we are going to meet sometime this week to record it on our cameras, then I could send it so you could see!

I got your package on Thursday! It was so exciting! (I sent him Ketchup chips, Canadian Smarties and Cherry Blasters)Then I made everyone in my district try the chips. They agreed that the chips aren't too bad, but glad they tried them. Oh and my calling as district leader is over as of Sunday, they rotate through every 3-4 weeks to give a lot of Elders the opporunity. Our new district leader is Elder Lackey. He is a great Elder. We have a pretty amazing district, and good teachers too.

I love going to the Temple! We always go in the morning to start the day off on the right foot. Then we do laundry and write letters. Then today Elder Lewis and I went to the gym, and now we are writing E-mails. We do service every Monday morning, and Elder Lewis and I are very lucky and get very easy tasks, like cleaning vaccums or disinfecting door knobs, which is a lot better than cleaning bathrooms! Then we clean the classroom Monday night and there is always a race for the vaccum because there are 2 vaccums on our floor and arounf 20 classrooms! Sundays are awesome! We have Priesthood in the morning then Sacrament meeting after lunch. Then Temple walk and Choir, followed by supper and Fireside. Then we get to watch a movie. We watched a talk from Elder Holland last Sunday called "Missions are Forever" It was sooo good! The week before that we watched Legacy in Mandarin, which was really fun, even though I really didn't understand much. Saturdays are TRC. Fridays we get pizza for dinner. Thursdays are pretty normal. Wednesdays the new missionaries arrive. It's fun trying to say "Welcome to the MTC Elder" to as many new missionaries as we can, especially after being here for so long. I think soon I can be a host missionary. Tuesdays are preperation day, so as I described before only after this I'm going to choir, then eat, then to the Tuesday Devotional.  Oh and on Wednesdays and Sundays we get BYU creamery ice cream! It's pretty good.

Thats pretty much a day in the life at the MTC, minus all the class time and studying, which is pretty much all the time, but it's great because this is the only time in my life that I will have this much time to study so I better make the most of it.

Well gotta run. Love you so much!!!

我爱你  (I love you)

汉长老 (Han Zhangloa) Elder Heinzlmeir

P.S. Those are the simplified characters. They use simplified in mainland China.

Mandarin, Mandarin and more Mandarin

We are pretty busy as usual. A lot of classes, a lot of study but I love it! Elder Nzojabwami left today but I got a picture with him yesterday! It's crazy that we reported the same day and he is already gone! I'll send some more pictures next week. I tried to take some artistic pictures of the temple. I hope you like them! I ran into my friend Elder Oliver the other day! We were in the same ward in Edmonton. And my Elders Quorum President's little brother is here. It's crazy finding connections to people! Today we went to the temple again. I love going every week! Othere highlights... Every night, on our way to our residence hall, we stop missionaries and bear our testimony to them in Mandarin! A few nights ago we stopped some French missionaries and I understood everything they said! It was pretty cool, I'm quite confident however they knew nothing of what I said. But that's alright the spirirt was there and was strong. Then some Italian speaking missionaries stopped us! I love hearing everyone's testimonies. There are so many languges here! It really is incredible!

We also went to the TRC (teaching resource centre) for the first time on Saturday. We teach volunteers and it was so cool cause they give us feedback on how to improve.

What else.. Oh we have workshops every Wednesday and the trainers are so good! Always an uplifting experience. We do service Monday morning, which is just cleaning the classroom buildings. I am also auditioning this Thursday with some Elders in my zone to sing at a fireside, we are doing an arrangement of "Come Thou Fount" I'm so excited! We sound pretty good (The Elder in charge is a piano major and a fantastic singer, really cool Elder). I play a lot of volleyball during gym time. They have a huge outdoor sand pit with 6 courts. Althought this week I've started working out. I'm at 180 so down a little from before I left actually. But don't worry we are being fed.

Love Elder Heinzlmeir