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