February 1, 2010‏

Dear Jiating and Pengyou,

Nimen Hao! I know I start every letter with "Nimen Hao" but that is because I like it. :)

It was another busy but great week. The old jiemeimen (sisters) left, which was sad, but I am so excited they are out there in the field! They will be great missionaries! Also, I am so excited that we are getting the new missionaries in this week!

One of the biggest hardships since the older missionaries left is that there is pretty much no musical talent among the missionaries that are left. Sounds harsh, but we all know it is true! Sunday, getting people to play the piano was an adventure. We had to use two different missionaries for accompaniment and one of the songs they could only play the right hand! It was an adventure.

The intermediate musical number was the best part though. My companions are the new music coordinators, and we decided it would be a great idea if our whole district sang "A Child's Prayer" for the musical number. I want to quote my journal from this experience:

"I would say, on a scale of 1-10, the musical talent in our district is about a 2. So we sang. It sounded absolutely awful; but it felt amazing. I felt the spirit so strong! It testified that God truly does hear our prayers. His love truly does surround us. He truly loves the children.

It occurred to me that as bad as our singing ability was today, my ability to communicate in Chinese is even worse, but it doesn't matter. The spirit testifies of the same truth no matter where I lie on a scale of 1-10. That is something I learn every time I teach in Chinese, but I have never felt it quite so strong as I did when my humble little district testified in song that God does hear our prayers, and that He loves us."

Now, truthfully, I may have been one of the few people that was really edified by the experience. Our branch presidencies wives tried to hide the pain they were feeling for us, and a few of the Elders were suppressing laughs as hard as they could. But it doesn't matter. It was hilariously awesome, and that is the important thing.

The rest of the week was great as well. I am really growing to be great friends with my district. I am kind of sad that not a single one of them is going to my mission! But that is ok. We are all going where God needs us, and that is much more important than anything else.

This week I decided on a theme scripture for my whole mission. It is in D&C 6:32-37. I really like it a lot. I don't have time to type it out, but basically it says something like "where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I. fear not to do good. Let earth and hell combine against you." Now certainly, right now I don't feel like earth and hell are combining against me, but I know that there will be difficult things on my mission, and I really feel that this scripture can get me through anything.

Wo ai nimen! You are all so amazing!

Ke Jiemei
(Sister Collyer)