Time For Me to Fly. July 13, 2015

It is officially my last full day inside the MTC (or the compound as we like to call it here)! I seriously cannot believe I've already been here 9 weeks. Anyone who has experienced the MTC before can attest to what I mean when I say that MTC time is the weirdest thing in the world. In so many ways the time has gone by so incredibly fast, but in some aspects I feel like I've been here my entire life. I do think the time has been slightly accelerating though.... Anyways, I've really come to gain a real testimony of the MTC. I KNOW that I could not learn as much or as fast anywhere else in the entire world. My laoshi (teacher) taught us that the purpose of the mtc is not for us to learn Mandarin to the best of our abilities (although that is extremely important), but rather to teach us how to be the best missionaries we can be, to be independent in the field, and to be able to teach with the spirit according our investigator's needs. It was just a couple days a go on Saturday, Elder Duffin and I were teaching our last lesson with our "investigator" (played by our teacher) that we have been teaching for about 7 weeks now. Since we knew it was our last lesson, we felt like it would be appropriate for all of us to bear our testimonies. When Zhang DiXiong (our investigator) began to bear his testimony, that's when I really realized the reason why I'm here and for the first time tasted just a little bit of how awesome it will feel when I really help bring someone unto Christ. That's the magic of the MTC, after 7 weeks of teaching this "investigator" 5x a week, my companion and I truly came to love Zhang Di Xiong and I realized that only then could we truly teach with the spirit and learn all the things that we've learned. And for THAT I will be forever grateful for the MTC. Anyways I leave the MTC tomorrow at 6:30, and then at 11:33 I fly straight from Salt Lake to Tokyo and then Taiwan! Love you all, and thanks for everyone who sent me stuff and wrote me! You guys are awesome! But in the words of REO Speedwagon, "it's time for me to fly"!

-Elder Poon

Good bye pic with the whole zone!

​District 39-B with one of my favorite teachers Ge Laoshi (Brother Gerber)! love these guys and they've all taught me so much!