Week 3: July 29, 2019

Another fun week! Officially finished our “basic core Chinese” and are going onto intermediate, which means we’re no longer beginners. We are also getting new Chinese elders this Wednesday, so I can’t wait! Unfortunately, all the Chinese elders that came end of May are finally leaving, I’m gonna miss them they were all way cool.  Also shout out to everyone who’s sent me packages already! You all are the best-My mom, my sister, Jonny Christian and Alma, it was very life saving ahaha. I kinda didn’t play that much b-ball this week, played more volleyball and ran basically everyday so I’m getting super strong. Just kidding haha but I love playing volleyball, reminds me of when I destroyed everyone in P5 “wallyball” at the rec center. We were able to clean the temple today, and it was so much work but still really cool we got to go to the celestial room so that was awesome. 

Cool experience this week at TRC’s. I had a hard time understanding what the people were saying, and knowing what to say. The first TRC me and my companion felt the spirit so strong, the sister we taught was actually crying it was so spiritual. The 2nd one was a little more rough haha, we taught someone that my older brother Michael taught in the mtc, but at the end I had a prompting to bear my testimony that our Heavenly Father loves his (the guy we were teaching) little sisters. Flash forward to the end, I figured out his sisters had actually been falling away from the church and he had been praying for them to receive testimonies. Really humbling experience for me and cool to see the Holy Ghost work work through me. We shared a verse from 1 Nephi 16: 24 through 32 in our lesson which literally fit perfect to both the people we taught needs so I recommend you all go read that. Another good chapter is one we read in class this week: Alma 5. It’s really good and you could kinda compare it as a spiritual heart rate monitor. One of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon so go check it out.

我爱你们！

Elder Ensign 

A pic with elder breinholt and his comp elder tumbokon, my 2 favorite elders that left 

My district with our teacher who just quit rip loved di dixiong

 Me and my boy elder Thompson 

Me with meow jiemei, the mtc cat

2 videos you’ll enjoy haha

Elder Breinholt and his companion, Elder Tumbokon, my favority elders that left

My district, with our teacher who  just quit (RIP), loved Di Dixiong

Me and my boy Elder Thompson

Me with meow Jiemei, the MTC cat

Week 2: July 22, 2019

Week 2 has been CRAZY! First off, I sent it to the bcc thing so you all can reply to the email directly without everyone else receiving the email, sorry I should’ve been doing this in the first place. Anyway, it’s been a good week! I’m with elder fangilinin now, and he’s way cool we get along well. He’s from the Philippines and can speak fluent tagolog fluent English and he can speak very comfortably in Chinese. He’s also super good at basketball so we ball out. They finally opened the gym back up on Wednesday so we’ve played a lot of basketball. They actually call me the Steph Curry of the mtc, I’m not kidding you can ask anyone here lol. I also scored on THE elder brenchley 2 times so I’m big time. We also got a new elder in our district which is weird, because normally we only get new mandarin elders every 3 weeks, so he’s with elder packer now. None of us in the district can figure him out though, he does some pretty unpredictable stuff all the time haha. The Chinese has been coming along well though! I’ve probably learned somewhere between 200 and 300 words in all the time I’ve been here, but I don’t have an exact count. Every free time I have I’m studying though, it’s an absolute grind. I think you know the Chinese is coming along well when you have dreams in Chinese haha. I had a dream I asked someone if they wanted to get baptized in Chinese so that was weird. On Wednesday we got a new shipment of missionaries so I got to see more familiar faces! Email me if you’re coming in soon! I also learned the 2 most important phrases in Chinese. wǒ zuò mòxīgējǔanbǐng shí gōngzuò along with wǒshì yēsū jīdū hoùqí shèngtú jiào huì de chuánjiàoshì. The first one is I work at taco time and the second one is I’m a missionary of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I’ll let you decide which one is more important haha. Scary thing this week is we have TRC’s on Saturday, where we teach a random investigator in only Chinese, so I’m gonna be studying extra hard this week. This week has been really fun though, I’ve finally got used to the grind and the gift of tongues is real. Every time the going gets rough, I have to remind myself that this is not about myself, but to bring others unto Christ. There’s nothing more important in my life right now than to help with the gathering of the children of Israel, and I hope all of you who are turning 18 soon (or 19 for the ladies) all choose to go on a mission, it’s seriously so important. Go read ether 12:27 as your motivation for the week. wǒ aì nǐmen! 

Love,

Elder Ensign

Also the first pic is elder tumbokon, anyway there was a fire just outside the mtc so he asked me to take a pic of him haha he’s so funny... just wanted to share with you all

2: PTK

3: Elder Cotton

4: The new district

5: my new comp

6: Elder Mathews

7: movie night lol

8: me elder Ensign and elder fangilinin

Elder Tumbokon

PTK

Elder Cotton

The new district

my new companion:  Elder Fangilinin

with Elder Mathews

movie night

me, other Elder Ensign and Elder Fangilinin

Week 1: July 15, 2019

Hola mis amigos y familia! I mean ni hao wo de jiating he pengyou!! First off, thank you all for the emails, I definitely needed them. I can read emails whenever, I just can’t respond until Monday, so feel free to email me some motivation or whatever you want whenever you want because I definitely need it. Life here at the mtc has been LONG! Like elder brenchley said, I barely remember life outside of the mtc. My companion is elder packer from Virginia, and he’s actually going to the Brisbane Australia mission as well. We don’t have really anything in common, but we’re gonna be companions for all 9 weeks here so I hope to get closer to him lol. The rest of my district is just going to Taichung but it’s whatever they’re still way fun! I’m in a room with elder packer, and 2 other elders who are both going to Adelaide Australia, and they’re both way fun. Elder Rawson and elder Pearce. Elder Pearce plays tennis and he’s way fun to talk to, I think his Older brother slapped my older brother in tennis back in the day hahaha but he’s really good, he’s playing at BYU when he gets back. I’ve also seen elder rigby, the one prodigy from bear river so that was fun, and he’s way chill. It was nice to see a ton of familiar faces such as elder brenchley, both jergensens, and I guess my twin along with countless others. It’s way hard here but super fun and there’s been some good stuff happen here. We do a lot of “funny” stuff here to break the tension and stress but you all probably won’t think it’s that funny. Elder breinholt’s (guy going to my same mission, he reported end of May to the mtc) companion is a clown, and the first time I saw him he sang the Barnie song “I love you” in Chinese to me and surprisingly I was able to tell what it was, even though it was only my first day, and I thought that was really funny. Another funny thing is that some elder left Christmas lights on elder Pearce’s bed so anyway me and elder rawson were throwing the woah to each other at like 10;30 when all the lights were off, and I turn to elder packer who was on his knees praying and pretend to throw him one, but then he turned around right when I did so Elder rawson and I were dying hahaha.... but right after that elder Pearce turned all his Christmas lights on and I couldn’t contain myself lol... but everything is funny in the mtc after about a day lol. It’s also depressing because  BoZhangLao (elder brenchley) is better at Chinese than me, so I gotta study extra hard to get better than him. A lot of spiritual events have happened this week that were crazy. Alma 26 got me through this week so feel free to go read it, and the Sunday devotional (the character of Christ) by elder bednar was the best talk I’ve ever seen. A shorter version is on YouTube, but it’s not as good as the mtc version, but still worth it to go watch. I also gave my first priesthood blessing to my companion yesterday which was a really cool experience. Also, I have dinner everyday at 4:30 so if you all would be willing to send me some food and candy or whatever PLEASE DO IT because let me tell you, those last 6 hours after dinner feel like FOREVER. Especially because the food here isn’t really that good haha... My address is 

Elder Matthew Jerald Ensign
SEP11 AST-BRI
2005 N 900 E Unit 253
Provo UT 84602-1793

So feel free to send packages lol... plus after week 6 my room got promised the blessed fridge, which has been passed down through the mtc and switches off between “mandos and cantos” every 3 weeks so In my last 3 weeks I’m gonna be living the life. Im not quite sure how it got here or how long it’s been here but I’m very excited! the mtc is so crazy and I’ve already learned more Chinese in these past 4 days than all of high school ahahaha... the spirit is so strong here that you could basically cut it with a knife. Also another scary thing is that for every sacrament meeting you have to prepare a talk on a certain subject and they randomly call on 3 people each week... and you have to talk In Chinese so that’s very scary but I won’t have to worry for the first 2 weeks. I love you all and please keep in touch! Wo ai nimen!!!
Sorry if this email was long and kinda all over the place, it’s just that so much happened this week!
Love Elder Ensign
Here’s some pics with my companion, my district, my roommates along with the Christmas lights, and elder brenchley!!!

with Elder Brenchley 

Christmas lights

with my companion Elder Packer

my district