Dad note... I usually clean up and edit the emails from Braydon, but I think this email shows his personality and how excited he gets. I'm leaving it unedited.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Braydon Carter <braydon.carter@myldsmail.net>
Date: Mon, Aug 27, 2018 at 3:43 PM
Subject: Finding the Catalyst. 08/27/2018
Hello Everyone!
Holy cow has this week just been an absolute booster! I seriously can’t believe that 2 months of my mission are already over. That I have spent 2 months in the field! I also can’t believe that I will be leaving for across the world in just one week! I could not be more excited to go and serve. This week was really emotional but it was really an uplifting week as well! Let me tell you all about it!
So just last night, and tomorrow as well, a lot of people are leaving. That was a super weird feeling. I seriously made some seriously tight friends here. Some that I never hope to lose contact with! Not only that, but yesterday, they split me and my companion up. Because the Singapore Elders won’t be leaving for another week they decided to put us all in one district, meaning that I lost my companion, and I gained a new one!
The new one is awesome! His name is Elder Verkler. He is a super smart kid that attended Berkeley before he went on his mission. It’s been really cool to see how he thinks about life, and we’ve been able to click pretty well with in the last day. Although leaving my companion was weird. For the sake of email, as well as memory, I will explain that my first companionship wasn’t the easiest, and that’s mainly because we were both adjusting to missionary life. But some of the other hard things about it were actually really funny, because God in a way paired me up with my 'before mission' self. My companion almost every day forgot things, we would have to go back and forth to grab his things. There was even times where we went back to grab his forgotten stuff, left, and then he remembered he had forgotten more stuff. He was a hoot :) IT really did remind me so much of myself, and the many times I had forgotten about my phone, keys, or wallet. It was kind of a blessing in a way, because I totally understood where he was coming from, and I did my best to be patient and loving towards him.
To continue this week like I had mentioned before was a little bit hard because some of my favorite people had left! Here’s their photos!
This is Elder Jackson Young. He is from Riverton Utah and we clicked right from the get go. He is an absolute stud! He was a wrestler, and did a lot of sports growing up. Not only that but we shared a lot of the same goals. We would push each other every day, whether it was language or the gospel. We often asked each other questions and helped each other grow. I’m gonna miss him! He will be serving in the Taiwan Taizhong mission, but he is being Visa waiting in Ventura California.
This is Elder Mike Franklin Caubalejo, or how ever you spell his name. The kid was an absolute stud. He is from the Philippines and will be serving in TaiZhong too. Right now he is going back to the Philippines for a medical check up and then will be on his way to Taiwan. Him and I would often team up and play basketball. He was freaky good. Like I would argue one of the best players at the MTC. He was full of finesse and would drive in against anyone. He had the craziest hook shot and would just not miss. Then when me and him would play together we would mess around with people doing some crazy passing and just having a good time! I hope to never loose contact with him as well. He always brought a joyful spirit to everyone and around him, and was quick to crack jokes. Not to mention I think his American Pop Culture was stronger than mine, he knew every song people started to sing or hum. One of his favorite lines in Chinese was “ In order to be humble we must sit down” Making reference to a very popular song. Humble by Kendrick Lamar.
Then the rest won’t be leaving till tomorrow or later in the week. Yesterday our branch president took us out to do a special lesson with all the departing missionaries. He taught us, and encouraged us to be the best we could be for God. He taught us all about goals, and why they were important, especially in the mission field. He encouraged us to come up with a vision statement. Something that was simple and would keep up going. I decided mine is going to be 神会说 which translates to God will speak. Reminding me that not only am I here to further His gospel and build His kingdom, but that I will be able to do it in the language that He needs me to use. That I am going to be able to learn this language through him and His miracles. ( I will explain later, this has a pretty pumped up story too ) Here’s a photo with all the departing missionaries that I have been here at the MTC since the beginning!
Here are the rest of the photos that we took as a branch as we had our last Sunday all together!
Because this was our last full week all together we also had to get our goodbyes with our teachers taken care of as well! Our teachers were absolute studs. Here’s all the cute photos of them too :)
This is Brother Teh, or ZhangLaoShi. Not only did I love talking with him, but he is also from Malaysia! I was able to pick his brain so many times about what he like about about Malaysia, and about what he thought we would experience would be like! The craziest part is for almost 7 weeks he taught me, and I just recently found out that his dad is the 1st Councilor is our Mission Presidency. It will be really cool meeting his family :)
This is HeLaoShi or Hailey Harrison! She was an awesome teacher! She served in TaiWan and taught us much. Although just did remind me probably almost daily to be humble. She teased me a lot, but a lot of the time is was needed, and a lot of the time true!
Because this week was “Our last” Everyone got our new name tags too! Which was really exciting. It kind of symbolized we were at the end! Here’s what mine looks like
Now to explain why this week was such a catalyst.
The week started off with me just going after it. On Tuesday I was able to learn 45 new words, as well as 10 characters. I was just going after it, I told my self I would study hard and be diligent. It’s probably the coolest thing in life to see God help direct you to accomplish the things you want to do, especially in doing his work. He has not only blessed me to be able to understand and better myself. But to help me adjust my goals, and help me know what to do in order to better myself and strengthen my knowledge. Because of this, this week I started to really focus on simplified characters. ( Brother Teh let me know that they commonly use simplified in Malaysia! ) I felt like if I were to start doing this it may help me in learning all the things necessary. Reading, writing, tones, and speech. It really has. I have set the goal to try and finish the Book of Mormon in Simplified Chinese before I come home. As I have started to do these kind of studies I haven’t been able to get the high 40 numbers like I used to, but I really solidify 20 to 30 and have a really good understanding of the word, and why the character is the way it is. It has helped me so much! This idea all kind of started and formed because of a meeting I had with HeLaoShi ( Sister Harrison ) We did our language evaluation, and as we did so she said 2 things that really stuck. The first not as great as the other, but she told me everything is really starting to get good. But my tones weren’t great. She said that she think I created bad habits while learning and assigned tones to words that are false. She recommended me work on that and my Chinese will soar! She recommend me really watching how I speak and really liked the idea of me learning the characters so that I could get the sounds associated with the characters. The second thing she said is something I don’t think I will ever forget, and when she said it she wasn’t being mean, or judge-mental, or rude. She just kindly was reminding me. It started off with her asking where my motivation was for learning Chinese was. I told her through the roof. That there’s no way I’m not goin to learn Chinese. Then I continued to say, although I’m not sure if I am motivated for the right reasons. She knew that I was really into business and I hoped to you Chinese after my mission. We talked about that for a minute, and then she said a sentence that still rings in my ears. “ Are you learning Chinese for you? Or for God?” My heart dropped. She was right, all this time it was me me me. I was so focused on myself learning the language I forgot why I was learning it. Something to add onto the reasoning is for the whole time I have been at the MTC I have been very concerned I wasn’t going to come out of my mission fluent. That made it so my goals were more towards “oh I’ll show them” instead of I need to learn this for God. As she said that simple reminder it helped shift my mind set and not only know that with God I am way more powerful, but also I need to stop worrying about whether or not I will speak Chinese, every time I do it’s assuming God was wrong. But I know for a fact, God doesn’t make mistakes, He called me to learn Chinese, so I’m gonna give my 100% towards him and speak Chinese! This is where the Catalyst started to grow.
From there we had a departure devotional all about what may happen in the field. One of the big things is people start to make things up in their heads. Like this area won’t have anyone that want’s to learn. They said as people start to say things like this don’t believe them. That there are multiple times in history where there is no success areas due to attitude towards them. Attitude literally changes everything. That if you go in thinking that you won’t have any success, you’re not going to be looking for any success. From all the study and knowledge I have obtained over the years, it’s just proof of the law of attraction. As you go in thinking something, that think will probably happen. As I learned this, and started to think about how I could do better it brought me right back to Chinese. God called me to speak Chinese, He has blessed me with the gift of tongues. At this point the only thing that will get in the way of success is myself. That I’ve gotta to have the attitude to give it all to God. He doesn’t make mistakes and through Him, I will be able to assist in building the kingdom of God.
Seriously this week has been so good! I have had a whole shift in motivation to bettering myself not for myself, but for God and for everyone else I come in contact with. I know as I do so I will be assisted and blessed. 1 Nephi 3:7.
I love you all so much and I could not be more grateful for all your support and prayers. They are very much felt! I want to encourage all of you to find your purpose. See why God has placed you in this place at this time. I know as you do you will be blessed with motivation, and your life will become incredible.
我非常喜欢做传教士的工作。我知道我们的天父爱我们。祂为我们想我们变得快乐。如果我们对神祈祷和求祂帮助我们，他会祝福我们的生活。这个福音是真实的。我知道当我们读摩尔门径的时候我们会获得回答。
( I really like doing missionary work! I know that our Heavenly Father loves us. He wants us to become happy. If we pray to him and ask, He will help us, he will bless our lives. This church is true. I know that as we read the Book of Mormon we will receive answers. )
That is all I have for you this week! I love you all so so much! I hope you all have a fantastic week!
Love,
龚长老
Elder Carter
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