Women meiyou hen duo de shijian (We don't have much time)

Here's the photo from last week. I look at it and I get really happy. You better get happy looking at it too. It will cure.

We don't have much time now- we're Sister Training Leaders so we interviewed all 13 Sisters in our zone. Then we go around and say night night prayers with them all, and today we get 7 new Sisters so... LIFE IS BUSY THERE'S NO TIME!

Mandarin word of the day: Kaixin (pronounced "k-eye sheen") means fun!!!

Also fun this week was how much tones affect mandarin! 1 is high flat tone, 2 is low rising slow, 3 is low up-down-up like "v" and 4 is high falling fast. If you say a tone wrong, the word could have a completely different meaning.

Examples:

Shu1fu3 is comfortable

Shu4fu4 is captive/hostage

We may or may not have messed up with the above example. I'll let you decide.

Short version: all is well. It's fun. Mission is a blast.

Long version: um I'm actually not sure. Our district keeps drawing hand pictures on the chalk board. We call them the "lai" or come hand, because Chinese people beckon people toward them by waving hand downward with palm down. I'll include a picture of the 50 hands they drew on the board. 

Oh I know! We got to skype and talk to an actual person from Taiwan this week! She showed us her dog, then talked to us... a lot. And we got like 10.6% of what she said. Good news is that she understood us!!! I'll send a pic of our skype too.

Here's something spiritual for once: Elder Ballard spoke for Easter, so that was really great to hear him speak about his testimony of Jesus Christ!

We showed an Easter video to an "investigator" (who is actually just our teacher), and she started crying after- it was really touching. Here are the links: 

~English: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2016-02-2000-follow-him-an-easter-message-about-jesus-christ?category=topics/easter&lang=eng

~If you want you can try in mandarin (haha I got like 67% of it mainly because I already listened in English):https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2016-02-2000-follow-him-an-easter-message-about-jesus-christ?category=topics/easter&lang=zho 

Nimen shi zui hao de! (you guys are the best!)

Zai jian! Bye-bye!

~Mao Jie Mei

Sister Hickman

"Women dou fan cuo" (we all make mistakes)

That's my favorite sentence to say in mandarin. 

Hope this works. It's our st patrick's day photo, and there's a leprechaun.

Preview attachment IMG_0063.JPGIMG_0063.JPG4.7 MB

Word of the word: Meiguo- may gwoe (means America, or "beautiful land)

Short version: My companion is staring me down because she's down and once again I'm writing this letter last minute.

Long version: It has been a pretty good week. I had an army of tsum tsums on my desk.  Here's a good scripture that helped me this week: 

Alma 36:27- 27 "And I have been supported under trials and troubles of every kind, yea, and in all manner of afflictions; yea, God has delivered me

 from prison, and from bonds, and from death; yea, and I do put my

 trust in him, and he will still deliver me."

Funny story: So we were pretending to teach little children (Elders that were little boys basically) and my companion asked them what they like to do with their dad, then she turns to me and asks how God shows His love for me, and I say "I like to play frisbee with him" and everyone starts laughing then I realize I said I liked to play frisbee with God. Uh... I thought she asked what I liked to do with my dad. But that's ok I'm sure God would play frisbee with me too....

Wo ai ni men! Xie xie for the support!

Zai Jian (good-bye) for now!

~Mao Jie Mei

My army:

It takes a million mistakes to learn how to do life

Nimen hao??!

Chinese word of the week: pengyou (pronounced pung-yo) means friend

Short version:This marks my month mark! It has been 4 weeks!

Long version: To commemorate this moment I'd like to share a story from my first day:

After being swept away quickly to a huge line for the elevator, we waited for about 20 minutes when surprise! I was on first floor and didn't need to wait at all. 

Then the "host missionary" who was giving me the orientation dropped me straight from my dorm to the classroom. I had a 30lb bag of books, and when I walked into class I was the 2nd to last to arrive. And there was my short ginger teacher (PICTURED ABOVE) already speaking mandarin to me. My host missionary left, but she still had my stuff, so dropped my books on the table, and ran after her. 

BUT my desked collapsed under the weight, so I ran back to pull my desk back up and my host missionary came back threw it at me basically then left again.

My companion summed it up as a whirlwind falling apart.

Also this week I realized that instead of guessing the charade the teacher does when I don't know a word in chinese, I just rhyme it with another word in chinese. In English for example it would be someone saying "house" and I'd go "oh ohhhhh mouse! wait no pounce!" or etc. 

I always wondered why I could never guess the words right.

Wo ai nimen!

Thanks for the love and support!

~Mao Jie Mei (Sister Hickman)

At Least I'm Not Learning Cantonese

Nimen Hao?!

Word of the week: Dongxi (kind of sounds like donkey but with a "she" sound at the end instead of key- it means stuff)

So I'm trying to be more optimistic this week! While listening to the Cantonese speakers, we decided they sound like aliens and we sound like pirates. And I am grateful I am not learning Cantonese.

Short version: Life is a roller coaster of emotions. And I really like to roll on the floor. 

Long version: So while in a practice teaching lesson with a teacher, she was telling us about her family, and motioned a steeple looking thing, with hand motions moving back and forth. I just stared for a moment, then said "oh... Catholic." She looked at me confused, asked if I understood, and I said yea. Yea... that was not what she said. She said she lived here and her parents lived somewhere else. I have no idea how I got Catholic out of that.

Here's a pic of us with our teacher/ the one we are teaching too! She's so sweet!

A MESSAGE: One of the Sisters here told me that the lighthouse does not see it's own light. It needs others to see the light. Sometimes we feel we aren't meeting our purpose in life, but we are! So even though we can't see our own progression, others can!... Though no one has really told me I've progressed in Chinese haha. I mean I went from just Nihao to nihao ma (hello to how are you) so I guess that's progress!

I love you all so much! Thanks for all of the support and kindness! You really have no idea how much it means to me!

Wo ai nimen!

Jiao you!

~Mao Jie Mei (Sister Hickman)

Jing tian hao ma? (How are you today?)

Jing tian- pronounced jean tee-ann; means "today"

Don't have much time this week; I type slow :/

Short: My stomach hurts. This week was hard.

Long: We've decided that our companion is Kylo Ren when she wears a black jacket. 

Personally, I've learned how hard this is- learning chinese is HARD. Like so hard. 

Sister Cullen created a game so I'm gonna copy and paste to show you how hard, yet cool it is- enjoy! ;)

Wo ai nimen!

~Mao Jie Mei (Sister Hickman)

"We're still FULL immersion so sometimes my eyes kind of glaze over when they're explaining something and I just kind of wish I could understand but I'm getting better and better and learning more and more. So I basically love Mandarin and my Mandarin teachers here. Mandarin is awesome because some of the words are very symbolic. Let's play a quick game. I'll give you some words in Mandarin, tell you the meaning of the parts of the word and then you try and guess the word's combined meaning:

1. Xianzhi. 

           Xian = First

           Zhi = to know, knowledge

2. XinXin. (there are different tones on those so they are different words)

         xin = believing

         xin = heart

3. Xinxi.

            xin = heart

             xi = letter

4. Jieguo.

           Jie = to mend or tie

            guo = fruit

Good luck with that. Now have those words memorized in 5.7 seconds and use them in a lesson tomorrow! Good luck! Jia yo!

ANSWERS:

1. Xianzhi = prophet

2. Xinxin = faith

3. Xinxi = message

4. Jieguo = consequence   (good luck with that one. I think it might be because a 'consequence' could be considered the fruit of our actions? Who knows, not me!)