January 27, 2016

Hey everyone! (Man, I just had the strangest feeling to say Elders and Sisters)

Life here in the MTC is very scheduled. My goodness has it been a long week, and yet it has flown by. So many good things have happened and so many things have been driving me crazy. Everything in the district is going pretty well, I'm sad to say that I'm totally sick today though :P No fun, being sick in the MTC. There's so much going on and it all moves so quickly, that I'm just going crazy! Definitely ready to make it to the field, and I've had a few people tell me my Cantonese is pretty good. there's an Elder here from Malaysia, and he speaks Mandarin, Malay, Cantonese and English. He saw my name tag and asked, "Ni Hao Ma" which is Mandarin, and I replied in my language, "Oh, excuse me, but I don't speak Mandarin. I speak Cantonese." His instant reaction in English was, "WOAH! Your Cantonese is freaking good!" Glad I could get my message across. ;) That was a cool experience, and definitely one I needed as I feel like I'm being pulled behind a boat and expected to drink the lake. ;) My other experience is when we went to teach TRC, and the woman there was from Heung Gong (Hong Kong to us!). We started teaching and getting to know her a little bit, and I said something a bit wrong and corrected myself (The difference in tones though.) and she instantly was like, "Wow, I didn't think you could correct yourself like that. You are all ready for HK already! Just send you out!" Of course, my response was "Gong daaih Wah!" (You speak big words, or liar) but she knew I was kidding. Sister Lau also said we were ready for Hong Kong and I feel like I don't know anything in this language. I can't wait to come home and just speak it, I'll be fine if I have a hard time speaking English!

One thing I found out is that because of Christmas we are scheduled on a 10 week course, not a 9 week course. So this will be an extended stay in the MTC. I'm happy about it though, it just means that I get to spend much more time learning the language, or Hohkjaahp Gungdungwa (Man that looks weird without tones).

I've decided to take it on myself to start learning ending participles, because that's how you show emotion, that's how you show the meaning behind the tone. It confused me for awhile that Sister Lau has no idea what tones are and that they're hard for her (She can't read Ping Ngaahm), but then I thought to my own language. Do we ever explain tonality to imply meaning? Nope! It's just something that comes naturally and it's the same way. I didn't even realize that our language used tones to imply meanings, but it does! Difference between a question and a statement! It honestly makes me think of sometimes at home when I'd talk to my mom and because of the way I said it she'd go, "Was that a question?" I hadn't noticed before that was the reason. Super weird huh? You start to learn your language better even though you're studying something completely different. Cool Right?! :D This gospel is so amazing, and every day I learn more about how much our Savior cares for us and the reason that we are called to serve. Isn't it great that the Savior designed missionary work? Because he designed missionary work, we benefit other people by teaching the gospel and we are raised up as well! Those at home know I love to serve people, and so I can't tell you how excited I am to share even more!

Also, sorry Dad, I told your first time skiing story. The zone thought it was a hoot! ;) (I told them that's what my language feels like right now!)

Thank you for all of the support that all of you send, I super appreciate every bit of it.

加油!!

方長老

--Elder Chance Farr

More from Mom...

Cool knowledge of the gospel: the word in Cantonese for Repentance is "Fui Goi" which means to regretfully change. We regret our decisions, but luckily Christ helps us to be able to change our ways and understand his plan for us, even if only for a second! (so appropriate)

The other day Elder Harding was throwing a ball at a wall, and he was laying on the floor, and he threw it a bit too hard and it hit Elder Caloobanan square right between the eyes while he was sitting at his desk! Dead shot, I can't believe that, hahaha!

(All of you who know about Chance's crazy-high singing will love this:)
I'm singing with a quartet of Elders in sacrament meeting soon, and we are singing "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing". I'm singing Alto and I realized that the notes were so confusing to the others when we're all down an octave, so my part now is a soprano harmony xD (I know they don't call it alto/soprano in a men's quartet) I'm super excited because I love the part that I have, I've realized alto is the most fun part to sing. Here in the MTC every time we sing to a piano I sing all 4 parts, one on each verse. It's been fun but I can't tell you how sick I am of singing "Called to Serve". I didn't ever think I'd get sick of a song!! XD (I feel like maybe this is why you shouldn't be in the MTC too long... Called to Serve shouldn't ever get old!)

(one more funny story:)
So when I was first getting acquainted with the elders in this zone, I decided to take a round wheel of Gouda that Grandma sent me and we played Residence Hockey with it and our feet. Afterward we ate the cheese, it still was delicious ;) (Um, ew.) So that's a story to tell my kids.

Only two pictures today:

This is the MTC Choir Chance sang with a little while ago.

Yeah we are rockstars. I'm the lead obvi with my nice coat ;) Jk hahaha!

January 20, 2016

Hello Everyone!

My my my, has it been a long week! I've missed P-day (even though it doesn't feel like one because we have a devotional this morning, which kills basically all my time).

The language is insane! It's crazy to think that I learn so quickly, and yet I'm still not even close!! Funny right? I shouldn't learn this quickly. I know it's the spirit helping me.

Everything is going well, my companions are finally learning to get along with the other districts in the new zone, mostly because now our classroom is by them (Curse them taking away our window view! ;) ) And now our residencies are the same. Last night Gui Zhang Lao (Elder Gui in Mandarin) asked Ga Jeung Louh (My companion Elder Caloobanan) if he would show him his "Karate" of which he happily obliged. Gui wanted Ga to hit him, so he said he'd gentle palm him. Gui is so cool, and when he took that hit, he totally had a huge red mark where Elder Caloobanan struck him. Then he did it to Elder Budd (Yes that's his name. ;) ) That was so funny. Also, we got to have a devotional from Sister Kapp Perry, the one who wrote a bunch of the Children's Songbook songs. She's so cool! You can be cool at 80 apparently!

Good luck everyone! Ga yauh (good luck, add oil)
加油！
-方長老

--Elder Chance Farr

Other funny stories this week:

Sister Gomez left her camera in the room charging while she went to teach, which was a mistake. My companions decided to take her camera and go take bathroom selfies, so she now has like 15 pictures of the mirror in the men's bathroom. xD super funny!

So I gave Elder Sagastegui (Elder Gui from the email above) a hug last night, and he was like "Man, I love you Elder Farr" and I decided I'd use a line from one of the movies we watch on Sunday nights: "By the next time we meet, no matter where we are, it will be Zion to me!!!!" Basically both of us were laughing so hard we fell on the floor. +Added bonus on the funny stories, we totally built a snowman at 9:30 at night, I'll send tons of pictures because I have a lot of them.

And here's the story about the almost-brawl before they changed to the new branch and new dormitory:

So we were in our old building, and we had Argentina missionaries on the bottom floor. They were always rowdy and obnoxious (like howling like monkeys at the top of their lungs during quiet time and beating their desks and singing literally all night, none of us could sleep!) but they decided to run through the 2nd floor with a HK flag tied around their neck (IDK where they got it) and screaming at the top of their lungs. Why? I don't know. But Elder Vo (who's ex-military and one of his ears are deformed from a mine) and Elder Walker (who also served in the military) and Elder Tanner (which I love, he's so funny and such a good friend (but I love them all!)) (Elder Tanner is just super buff) all got so mad, they went down there and were yelling at them, and they started talking fighting words, but I stepped in and tried to hold Elder Tanner back, and Elder Vo had some from his Vietnamese branch, and Elder Walker restrained himself. I'm pretty sure none of those Argentinians would have survived a fight with those three. Like, they're Conan the Barbarian buff. they're scary. I love them to death though and I miss them.

This is our district with Lau ji mui (Sister Lau). She's our teacher, she's from HK and we keep joking with her because if you change the tone on her name she turns into Sister Angry. Elder Harding is very sarcastic and she's so funny, any time he's sarcastic she slaps her hands together like "I'm gonna slap you!" or she'll just give him this look and one of her eyes will twitch. She's so animated, so I totally relate to her in that way, because I'm an animated person! I love Lau jimui, she's our favorite teacher (other than Si hingdaih. We like them all. ;) ) She helps so much with Jung mahn. She's one of the nicest people and I'm glad we have met her.

This picture is for my sister. See? I wore the tie!

 This is everyone sliding around in the snow like crazy people.

This was our snowman when it's head fell off. Some Elder going somewhere in the States had this bag and this ice cream and he just stuck it in. It looked like a great picture so I took it xD

 This is me as a snowman, he's frowning because he's at the MTC and not in the field ;) Seriously though. MTC is Mh hou / Bu hao / Not good :) jkjk!

Elder Harding kissing the snowman him xD

January 13, 2016

Hello everyone! Week four!

Hi everyone,

If you haven't noticed my P-day changed to Wednesday, sorry about that! :) I'm sure that didn't make much of a difference for everyone else, but it definitely did for me. Life is crazy here at the MTC, and man am I ready to be in the field (Actually not at all, this language is hard!)

I still have so much to learn here. I was called as the district leader in my new branch, so I guess I leave one calling and get 2 more harder ones, right? (Note from mom: He was called to be the music specialist just before they changed branches, I think the 2 callings are singing with the choir he talked about last week plus this new calling.) I'm excited to be the district leader, though. I feel like I was called for a reason and I'm excited to try to work on all of that. Singing for General Authorities was great, although I got a serious nosebleed and couldn't perform on Tuesday, I was able to perform today and we sounded lovely! It was a great time and a special experience for me. I'll have pictures to do with that later, if you want pictures from my mission email me, I don't think I'll send them all as a part of these emails. (Note from mom: any pictures I get I'll share with you right here!) Elder Andersen spoke last night at the devotional and one thing impressed me, "Always have Christ's name on your lips." Wow. what a powerful message. some of us missionaries forget that sometimes, like the near-fight in our last dorm room. With certain things taking away the spirit, we have to remember to always have good on our lips, and never evil. Language is good. I feel the spirit strongly and I feel as if I can understand much more than I ever would without the spirit. We moved dorms because they're renovating the other ones, and thank heavens for that. Because we had some other missionaries that wouldn't listen to any of the rules.

That's all for me, Ga yauh! Email me :)

--Elder Chance Farr

The District at the temple! 

Elders Chin, Farr, Harding, Caloobanan, Hague and Sisters Gomez and Hansen

 Elder Harding, "Doing his thing"

The View at the Temple

"Here's what Elder Chin drew for me, It's Link as a missionary!! How awesome is that!? and it's also me at the same time :) Elder Chin is so awesome! I wanna be like him someday."

January 8, 2016

I just saw a couple of extra pictures in my email that I didn't realize were there! It's almost like getting an extra email this week!

The first picture is Elder Farr wearing the orange tie that Shane and I chose for him last week. Each week one of us will choose a tie and he will take a picture of himself in that tie :) The second picture is of his two new ties, one was sent to him by some of our best friends, the Negus family. The other tie was sent by Sister Hansen's mother, she sent one to each of the Elders in the district so they could all have matching ties. Why didn't I think of that??

January 6, 2016

Hello once again everyone!

We just completed week three in the MTC, and it's been a great but stressful time. Trying to learn the language is rather difficult, and I know that the spirit is consistently helping us even when we don't want to keep going, it's an amazing feeling. The spirit is incredibly strong here and I know God is preparing us for the work that we are about to face. I'm so excited to serve the people of Hong Kong. There's an elder in our Zone named Elder Shu, and his home is in Aberdeen, Hong Kong. Talking to him made me feel so awesome about it, and also just helped me to know that we are really doing good in Cantonese. He was shocked when I spoke to him in Cantonese, and he asked me how I had gotten such a good accent. I don't attest to say that it was me though, because it totally wasn't me, it was the Lord helping us for what we needed. Apparently there are some who come from Mainland China to Hong Kong that never sound as good as we do, which is good because I'd like to be understood. I feel like I should know more and at the same time there is no way I could know any more than I know because I'm doing my best.

To make a long story short, the choir director here asked for every choir member to turn in a slip based on their experience to join a selective choir. Long story short, I'm in. I get to sing for the MTC executives, as well as (or as far as I've heard) 6 of the Apostles of the church! I cannot tell you how excited I am to share my talent with those brethren (like our choir had the opportunity to do with Elder Oaks!) I feel so blessed to be in this place, I know my Savior is pushing us through all of this even though it's very stressful and sometimes beats down upon you with "Shafts in the Whirlwind." It's such a great time and even though the food kills me, I still feel like we are improving a lot!

See everyone next week (By the way, my PDAY changed to Wednesday!)

--Elder Chance Farr

--Also a note from the mom....

Chance's branch was shifted last week from the Hmong Laotian Thai Vietnamese Cantonese branch to the Mandarin/Cantonese branch, so that's why his P-Day changed. He also got the opportunity to play violin in Sacrament meeting this past week with Sister Hansen from his district. Funny story in his words:

"So we practiced last Tuesday, and the violin for whatever reason doesn't have a shoulder rest....
So we decided in our district that we are going to celebrate everyone's birthdays, because Elder Chin's was the 28th of December and so we wanted to celebrate everyone's. So for my birthday my companions stayed up (DISOBEDIENCE ;) ) and made me a huge block to put under the violin. I can't even tell you how much it hurts to play but it was so kind, and it's better than nothing, I love it and I wanna keep it forever! XD  It's made out of note cards stacked together sideways, rubber bands, and two instant towels."

I told him I'd send a real shoulder rest for the violin, so he can keep his makeshift one :)

Now, pictures!!

The District, in order of appearance:

Elders Farr, Harding, Caloobanan, Sisters Hansen and Gomez, and Elder Hagen

"This was our New Years party, we counted down til Quiet Time (10:15) but we were 3 seconds off XD! It was kinda funny, when we started counting down and as we said three, the ominous voice announced quiet time. It's pretty great, and these guys are way cool!"