Letter from Ben - July 21, 2014

I think Ben would like a letter from someone besides me (from the sound of his letter.) His MTC address is:

Elder Benjamin Jeffrey Heaps
SEP10  TAIW-TAI
2007 N 900 E Unit  18
Provo UT 84602

July 9, 2014....Drop of Day

If you would like your letter delivered the day it is written you can send it through dearelder.com for free.

Hey everyone!! What is up? The MTC is AWESOME. From day one all the Elders have been way super nice and the spirit here is sooo strong. We started working on speaking chinese right after I was dropped off and I was surprised that two of the elders in my district knew as much (if not more) chinese than I did! My companion was one of them, his name is Elder Elliot and his dad is the organist for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!

I'm grateful that he is my companion though because on our 3rd day here they dropped us in a room with a girl that spoke only chinese and acted like she couldn't understand english and was an "investigator" and we had to teach her about the gospel for a week! That was probably the most exciting ever because not only were elder elliot and I the most prepared companionship for EVERY LESSON, we got a baptismal commitment by our third day and convinced her to quit drinking tea! Don't get me wrong there are plenty of things we can't do in chinese! on the 4th day of teaching she asked about why Nephi could kill laban and then asked us a question about bad people and blowing up airplanes. She used sound effects and even drew a picture to help illustrate what she was trying to ask us. I assume she was saying this "If god said it was ok for Nephi to kill Laban because he was a bad person, why don't we shoot down all the planes full of bad people? Isn't that ok?" She then tried to explain how she lost her cat after we had taught her about praying and then she prayed and it came back. She actually started laughing because I kept saying "Shenme?" which means "What?" when ever she said the word cat even though I already knew what she was saying, so she started to do actions and meowing to help us understand that too. I had a lot of fun teaching her. It is kind of weird though because she is now our teacher and will speak like a sentence of english here and there now.

The spirit has been so strong here and I have seen tiny miracles happen everywhere already. It is so cool to be a missionary! I love our lessons and my teachers to! They are so awesome and I am learning a ton

Yesterday for our sunday night devotional we had T.C. Christensen come speak to all of us and he used clips from the movie 17 miracles to explain his points. Although I am saddened to say I have not yet met a general authority I am totally confident that I will meet one before I leave for Taiwan. I love and miss you all please write or email me! You can use this thing called Dear Elder.com  (My mom could tell you how to use it) where I get the letter the day you send it or you can email me or send a letter in the mail, again ask my mom for my address in the MTC if you need to.

Sincerely, ELDER HEAPS

Called To Serve - Taiwan, Taipei

I was so excited to get Ben's first email today!!! He sounds great. I can't wait to see what the next two years bring!

Here is the letter he sent today:

Family,

I LOVE YOU GUYS! But please never EVER say howdy again. I like the idea of you guys writing every sunday though, so you can keep that up! Ill start off by saying its hard to miss the "tooting" when the MTC food does nothing but give the other Elders here GAS. So you could say that's the lords way of keeping us cancer free!

I think that it is crazy that all this stuff is happening at home right after I LEAVE. Ugh they couldn't wait for me to come home. You can tell Bishop he is very welcome for the amount of people at my farewell. I strive every day to be as awesome as I am and it is a good thing that it finally is paying off for someone else!

Is it wrong that your description of Wednesday and the idea of Josh rolling down the hill with his drum on made me smile? Ha I'm glad you all miss me because I miss you too. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not homesick or anything!

I love it here at the MTC! My companion is awesome! His name is Elder Elliot and his dad is the Senior organist for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir! He actually really reminds me of Josh, because he is really into programming and how things work. We have one district (group of elders) that will be leaving for Taipei in three weeks and they have all been super cool. I love my district that came in with me though! My district has 10 missionaries (4 Sisters and 6 Elders) and we are the only district in the new group that has sisters and we have a military elder who is on leave for his mission (his name is Elder Wheeler and we sang bohemian rhapsody all the way through during our temple walk yesterday....) He is my kind of guy. BUT GUESS WHO CAME TO THE MTC THE SAME DAY I DID!!!!! Elder Eyring! (Not Henry B. Eyring, but his grandson).

We have already started teaching "investigators" here and since Elder Elliot already knew some Chinese too we did really well on our first 2 lessons, meaning we gave her a Book of Mormon and she promised to read and pray about it and she said the closing prayer after we taught her how to pray! Oh this is so much fun! Yesterday was our first sacrament meeting and I got to say the opening prayer in Chinese. I actually was surprised to find out that two of the elders in my district had studied Chinese for 6 years and I still knew more than both of them! Don't worry, I still need to practice because I want to give the best lessons I can with our investigators, (did I mention we have to teach all our lessons in chinese and ONLY chinese?) 

Today I got to go through the temple and it was so amazing! I am beyond grateful that we are right next to the Provo temple and will have the privilege to go every monday! Ill close with my testimony. In chinese of course! I need the practice. 我知道耶稣基督的福音是真实！我感谢神给我们耶稣基督的赎罪。我知道约瑟斯密是神的限制。奉耶稣基督阿门。If any of that translates weird, I am sorry and will say it in english next time. LOVE YOU!

Elder Heaps