Amanda Burr: Join The District

Jiating (family)!

I'm a sister missionary at the MTC and I LOVE it and I EMBRACE it! JOY IN THE MTC

Shenme hao erzhi (What's good son?)

First off let me say I'm the luckiest girl in the MTC. I feel the love! Three packages and all the letters! XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO Forever and ever! This shout out also goes out to all the friends( Ellie,Rebecca Lopez, Marcel, Madsie, Cecil L. Samulson, Anna, Tara Bear, and AB loves to you all) that have written me too. My heart melts every time. The first week was really hard for me and your love, words, and support helped me so much. KNOW THAT YOU WERE THE WIND BENEATH MY WINGS! Really, I thank you all so much. <3

SHOUT OUTS:
Tina! I'm so sorry!!! Hahahaha. ROFLS AND SYRUP! Happy 14th not 12! My brain is completely scrambled I can hardly remember anything right. The MTC does crazy things to your mind. I can't even think of life outside of the Empty sea. When I walked to the health center or when I walk to the temple It's strange because I've walked that path so many times, but it's different now because my mind is completely focused on this glorious work
Father! Thank you for the letters and the advice you are giving me. I take each thing you say to heart and it seems that what you tell me is JUST what I need to hear to make my day better. And the ROC book! I love it! It smelled like China! I can't wait to tell my diqu (district) facts about the book. And i love that you gave me contraban. Silly string and a squirt gun?? Oh you want me to live on the edge. Look out for this sister.
Mother! You angel. I loved the bread. I share most of my treats with the district because I love them so much and they just gobbled it up! Thank you Thank you! And the St. Patty's day card was so good!Also cool thing. The day I got your package I woke up and hoped for my water bottle and highlighters. Lo that afternoon i got your package!!! You are so in-tuned!!!

Grandma and Grandpa! You angles thank you for the card. I saw that card in Smiths the other day and hoped I would one day get one like it and you made that possible! So much love!
Tori! Congrats!!!! Man sissy you made it in! Congrats you chemistry genie! Follow your dreams sissy. You know what to do. Do what feels right. xoxo to the end.
Alex! So your papers are in now??? Brother. I can't wait to give you advice and hear what'll happen!

THE SUBJECT QUOTE:
Okay, so I love my phrases that I love to say. For the first week I would go around and say " Ni shi tianshi" Which means you are an angel. Literally an angel like Moroni appearing you Joseph Smith. I was really getting a kick out of if! These are the jokes that are funny in the MTC! And hopefully to you because it's good. Whenever anyone was sweet (which is basically all the sisters all the time) I'd say it. I however expanded my vocabulary and moved on to bigger and better things. I have been trying to find joy in everything. Joy in the companion. Joy in the MTC. Joy in the zone and most of all JOY IN THE DISTRICT! So apparently my Utah accent is rally coming out or my English is becoming slaughtered by mandarin because everyone thought I was saying "join the district"! How funny! So everyone around me thinks I want everyone to join my district. I'm trying to recruit. Well now that filming is done they moved us to 7m aka Asian Nation because all the Asian languages are there. I'm so glad to be around more mandarin speakers.

THE LIFE:
I can't believe I forgot to tell you I'm a movie star and what happened my first day in the Empty Sea! Picture this. I'm pumped and feeling good to be a missionary and I walk into my classroom. BAM cameras everywhere! I thought this was a normal thing so I went with it! The MTC development team was filming my district because they wanted to see how their teaching was. It was actually great because they put us in this really nice room. It was the 5th floor of the Spanish building so we had a great view and everyone would say "hola" to us and be extremely surprised when we said "ni hao" back. So for the past two weeks they film our class when this certain teacher teaches. On Monday they filmed us one on one and there were bright lights everywhere and I got my own personal microphone! So watch out! I might be in the District 4: Join the District. Not really. It's for the new teachers so they might take clips of what they filmed and put it for the new teachers to watch. Pretty cool. So If I decide to teach I could watch myself possibly. There should be a picture of Sister Graham and I in the room with cameras.

The Koreans have landed in my hall and they are so funny! I can't wait to be all around Asians. They are 1. loud 2. love candy 3. love when you tell them you love them in Korean or speak ANY Korean to them. I showed them the straw glasses and they freaked out and screamed a lot because they really love them.

There's so much I want to tell you all but there just isn't the time!

So there was a Spanish speaking elder that Sister G and I would teach Mandarin to, well he was on his way to SLC to do visa stuff on the train and he saw an Asian sitting there so he said hello and Book of Mormon in mandarin ( the two words we taught him) it started a conversation and he gave her a BOM! How cool!

For St. Patty’s Day I wore all green and my shamrock necklace. Gotta support the holidays. It was funny to see all the green in the MTC and only 1 missionary is going to Ireland. They had him stand up in the Devotional.

Okay so life in the MTC is this --> I have my badge and i love it. I love this life. It's hard but wonderful because of the work that I'm doing. I'm so grateful to be here and I have felt closer to God and Christ than I ever have in my life and it has only been two weeks. Amazing. I have a swipey card and I have to swipe into every buildings. We pray over our food before we eat and pray everywhere in the halls. That is just the life of the MTC. I like to wake up at 6:30! It is not hard at all for me but the days are just exhausting. I actually wake up at 6 automatically every morning. Going to bed at 1030 is the hard part because I want to talk to people and write in my journal. but strict obedience. Already I have been trying to go to bed at 10:30 like we should and it's amazing how much different I feel. It's only a 15 min difference of what I would normally do but through strict obedience miracles happen and it's such a little thing but it's real. I love the food. It's just like the cannon center but they have fruit, wraps, salads, and then mainly chicken stuff. I usually get salads wraps and cookies. I love the cookies o_o. We are now teaching two investigators who are my teachers and I'm super excited for that I love my laoshi (teachers). The girls around me are angels. The struggle right now is my companion (of course) . I love her but it's hard to have her as a companion because like I said she is very 19 and in a different mindset. She isn't very focused and she is kind of wild. It's just hard when I want to study and be on time and she is just fooling around and lollygags. We've been late twice for our teacher and I hate that because I feel so bad and I'm really trying to be strictly obedient, but she is great and I know God put us together for a reason. This is my companion 1. She loves to talk and tell stories 2. She likes to talk in voices and quote movies all the time 3. she is from Texas and California 4. she likes to be very natural with her products. She washes her hair with baking soda and uses hemp stuff and coconut oil, she also puts moss on her face (okay jk but i can see her doing that) 4. She lights up when she talks 5. she gets back pains but has such a good positive attitude 6. She is friendly to everytone7 she is understanding 8. she wears the vibram 5 finger shoes 9. She has the voice of an angel. It's like a southern Baptist voice 11. She is 5'6 blond cutie 12. She loves the Lord 13. She has a hole in her foot she likes to put her earring in so obv. We are a pair. We are actually pretty similar and I see a lot of me in her. She interrupts people a lot and That is one of my bad habits and so now I'm really trying to kick it because I know how it feels now.... I love her though and can't wait to strengthen our companionship.

Okay, I quickly want to end with this thought. Today in the temple I was thinking about why God does all that he does for us. It's because he loves us! he loves us all so much! That is why we have this gospel. That is why we are here. That is why he sent Jesus to atone for us and why he made this plan for us. He wants us to grow and progress and be the best we can. I feel like a lot of people ask why things are sometimes. We need to always remember God loves us and hold on to that conviction. If we do then they whys don't become such a bother because we know what happens, happens out of love. I just think of mom and dad and all they do for us and they love they give us and the love of family and friends. Why do you do the things for the people you love? Because you care and that's why God does everything he does for us.

The gospel is so true!! Read JSH of the First Vision! I’ll write you a letter about what I was thinking of it. It's so good. The gospel is true. Never forget because you knew it! You knew it in the premortal life! Heck you knew Christ so come to know him now in this life. It'll be familiar.

Love you all to the ends
axoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoz
Bu Jiemei