Training- finally!

10/12/14

So I’m a dad!!! Haha in the mission lingo when you train he is your kid and you are a dad. His name is Elder F. He just graduated from high school and then came out. He is pretty awesome, hard worker and he can speak Chinese pretty well. Its been suuuuppppeeerrrr tired lately cause even though he is a hard worker I still have to pretty much carry him on my back for the first little while. But it has been super fun, its still a little weird that he just has NO idea about how to do anything yet. I guess that is what I am here for…

Last Monday when I went to go pick him up we met all the new missionaries and apparently my blog is pretty famous because 2 of the new Elders came up to me and were like,”Whoa, you’re Elder Mansell? I saw your blog, and you are pretty much like a celebrity to me.” Boo yah. But how we figure out who our trainees are is a pretty cool process, President likes to make things fun. Tuesday morning there was a transfer meeting, and they all get up and introduce themselves, then they figure out who their trainers are. When Elder F was introducing himself, President was like,”And he will be going a long, long, long ways away” I just stood up to go get him before President even said my name. I am as far away as you get down here!!!

It is still a little weird to get used to, doing everything from Comp study to finding and planning. He can speak a good amount of Chinese. His tones are alright but can’t understand like ANYTHING. Haha reminds me a ton of myself like a year ago. Last night I had him lead in the finding and he did pretty good. I will probably be training for like 4 months cause of how the transfers work out. More time down here in paradise!!!

Conference was really good. No, dad I did not take you up on your invite to have me watch all of conference in Chinese. If my companion was Chinese  I would have totally done it. But I read them all in Chinese first so that counts:) Recently for language study I have been translating my Patriarchal blessing into Chinese. Sooo cool to see the new things you get out of it, and how the translation works, coolest thing ever. Takes forever though… I really liked the guy in conference Saturday afternoon that just called like everyone to repentance and telling us we need to get in shape. Haha i was laughing like the whole time. My baby is doing really well with the foods and chopsticks (which I could not master at first for the life of me!!)

As for the work, we have been finding a ton lately cause we are basically opening my area back up. So please keep praying for us to find good people. Not too Christian, not too Buddhist, just right:) Love you all!!!

Elder Mansell

 

oh and it was the funniest thing, when we had lunch with all the new missionaries they brought in like fast food taiwanese dumplings that are pretty average for here, but all the new missionaries were like, “Oh my gosh, this is the greatest thing I have ever eaten!!!” And everyone was like,”are you serious? this is taiwanese fast food!! Not even close to the best they got” So they have all been eating like kings in the past week. here is a picture of us ( dont worry, i took him to the good taiwanese places first….)