Paco the Irish Gentleman

I have my full Chinese name!! My full Chinese name is Yiuh Yuh Ting. (If you want to see the characters, go to my blog and my parents will post a pic) It means "Graceful Rain", but when my teacher first wrote down the meaning I thought she wrote "Graceful Vain."

 I see  how it is Lao Ji Muih. Once we got it figured out though, I was honestly a little bit confused. Joanna means "Beloved of God" and Coquete means hummingbird or butterfly.  Lao Ji Muih explained though that when she thought of a butterfly and Me, she thought of two primary songs (I'm just going to copy and paste the full songs, you can skip them if you want

My Heavenly Father Loves Me

Whenever I hear the song of a bird

Or look at the blue, blue sky

Whenever I feel then rain on my face

Or the wind as it rushes by

Whenever I touch a velvet rose

Or walk by a lilac tree

I'm glad that I live in this beautiful world

Heavenly Father created for me

He gave me my eyes that I might see

The color of butterfly wings

He gave me my ears that I might hear

The magical sound of things

He gave me my life, my mind, my heart

I thank him reverently

For all his creations of which I'm a part

Yes I know Heavenly Father Loves me

 and

When I am Baptized

I like to look for rainbows whenever there is rain

And ponder on the beauty of an earth made clean again

I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain

I want to be the best I can

And Live with God again

So I'm "Graceful Rain" because the message that I'm bringing people will wash away their sins and let them know that they ARE LOVED.

Also, I think I'm very beautiful and graceful, so two birds with one stone

I love my name

Elder Stober who was transferred out of our district has an awesome name. His first name is Patrick which he says means "Irish Gentleman and his Chinese name sounds like "Paco." So he is the Irish Gentleman Paco in China. 

My teacher Lao Ji Muih is ENGAGED!! AHHHH!!! That class was especially hard to focus, but she eventually answered our questions if we asked them in Cantonese. She's soooooooooo adorable and we're all SOOOO HAPPY FOR HER!

Every Saturday we teach two lessons to volunteers who speak Cantonese. They're supposed to be like lessons with members, and the volunteers are usually RMs going to BYU. Except for one gentleman. A senior named "Ai Hengdai" (Brother I). He's my new favorite person. When we taught him, it was really more like he was teaching us. He would say things like "can I share a scripture?" and " would you like to share an experience?" He's my new favorite person. 

Before we taught TRC the director said "Try to teach as if the Savior was in the room". My immediate thought was "that's silly. If Jesus was in the room I wouldn't be teaching. After giving him a big hug, HE would be teaching." She went on though "That might seem crazy because most of you would probably just turn the time over to Him. BUT because you are his mouthpiece, I think he would just turn the time back over to YOU." Wow. I'm not perfect, but through the spirit I can become a perfect teacher. I can be who the Lord needs me to be.

My companion Sou Ji Muih came up with our class motto based off a Stitch quote. "It is little, and broken, but still good." Our Vocab is little, our grammar is broken, but our lessons are still good!

We got to choir practice every Sunday and Tuesday, then we sing in the Tuesday devotional. It is the highlight of my week (except of course for all the letters! keep them coming please!). The choir director is amazing. It's amazing how much better we sound after every 1 hour practice. Especially since he spends about half of that time sharing the background of the song, and scriptures, and basically just giving a mini devotional. It's fantastic though, because then it's not that we're just singing a song. It's a prayer (DC 25:12) and a testimony. Yesterday we had a special choir practice AFTER devotional to prepare for Easter Sunday. The choir director said this "I'm not allowed to tell you who will be speaking. So I won't, but you WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTING. I'm also not allowed to tell you that the devotional will be broadcast live to every MTC around the world. So I won't." I'm so excited!! It's going to be so special.

I got an amazing care package from my family! It is the CUTEST thing ever. So much candy! Which is good, because I can't survive sitting in our little classroom for 9 or more hours a day without a little bit of candy. There were also a bunch of cute toys which I'll make sure to take pictures with this week. Thank you family!

It started snowing one day and my district are the only in Provo happy about it I'm pretty sure. 

This Monday the oldest district in our zone is leaving, which means that my two Canto districts will be the oldest! It's a really weird feeling.

Tuesday morning we got news of the bombing in Belgium, and our Zone had a Zone prayer to pray for those involved. Three missionaries were hurt, but I know that the Lord protects his missionaries

On Monday my zone got to host the new senior missionaries coming into the MTC and it was amazing! I definitely want to serve as a senior missionary. They were all so cute! One couple is going to Lebanon to do service with the displaced refugees. When someone asked where she was going she said "Lebanon" but then whispered under her breath to us "I almost said to Hell." 

Now, to the best part of this week. The Provo City Center Temple Dedication.

This is my favorite temple. I remember when I would go to the Tabernacle to watch the Christmas pageant. I remember when it burned down. I remember the announcement that it would be built into a temple. I went to devotionals about the engineering that went into it (which is amazing btw). When I was picking my availability date for my mission, I said the day after the first day of the open house. I was going to go in at least once before I left on my mission. I went to the open house 7 times. I used to say that I didn't care which temple I got married in, but now it has to be the Provo City Center Temple.

First the funny part. My grandma sent me a white lace handkerchief with the Provo City Center Temple screen printed on it. But when it came time to do the Hosanna shout (in case you don't know, everyone stands and shouts hosanna while waving their handkerchiefs) I couldn't find it. I had extras so I was fine, but I was confused because I had had it at the beginning and I had literally JUST SAT THERE! I didn't get up and move around or anything. When we stood up at the end of the session as the apostles left the room, I looked at the chair in front of me...... and saw my lost handkerchief. I must have dropped it there at the beginning when we stood up for the apostles coming INTO the room, and that poor senior sister had sat on it the entire time!! I quickly retrieved it, and now I have an awesome story about how I lost my handkerchief in 3 square feet of space.

There were a lot of things that I loved about the Temple Dedication, but I'll just focus on the best part because I don't have tons of time. By far my favorite part was the Hosanna shout. This Hosanna shout was unlike any other, and I might go to other Temple dedications (I hope I do) but this was a once in a lifetime experience for me.

Sunday was Palm Sunday. The day that Jesus rode into the city, not as a conqueror, but on the foal of an ass. The people were so excited to see him, that they started shouting "Hosanna" which meant "God help us". They spread clothes and palms on the ground so that Christ's donkey never touched the ground. The next day, Christ cleansed the temple (his house) and spent the day teaching the people. 

This is where it gets cool.

Because of Palm Sunday, Hosanna is now the word that we use whenever we are welcoming Jesus. And so when I did the Hosanna shout at the temple dedication to welcome Christ into his new home, it was almost 2000 years to the day after the original Hosanna shout to welcome him into his house in Jerusalem. And I got to do it with more than 2000 missionaries, preparing to assist in the Lord's work.

How amazing is that?

I love you all so much

But the Lord and Heavenly Father love you more.

That's a lot of love.

He's right there just waiting for you to reach out. Please reach out to Him.

Please.

--

Love

Sister Hugo

Yui Ji Muih

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