Photos - At last!

Hai!

So all the Chinese elders in the district (6) got invited over to a member's home in our branch for Thanksgiving dinner which is pretty cool. By a member who also happens to be the ward mission leader Xiao Yang Di Xiong. He's the man. Unfortunately, he recently got laid off at work but has a lot of faith in Christ and so isn't worried about finding another job. The 2nd dinner appt. since getting here! And from the same guy! Haha! Although it's not too bad since dinner appts. take kind of a lot of time sometimes and aren't exactly the most effective use of time.

That's cool that Brother Bothwell's son is in the area. Do the mongolian speakers have their own branch? Or do they just meet with you guys? Cause it would seem weird for you to be helping them out and inviting them to dinner appts if they were serving in a different branch... I can't believe the bothwells have 20 kids.... pretty wild.... I can't even imagine that. How could you keep track of them? I'd feel like mom as the relief society president and have like a reference card in my pocket to take out and look out so I could remember my own kids' names haha.

"Heyyyyyyy...... (check card).... Jake!?!?!!!!!....."

"Scott"

"....Oh... that wasn't your middle name?"

I feel like there'd be at least a couple bad eggs in the lot too. I mean just a statistical probability. Hopefully, they managed ok though.

That's awesome Eric and Brooke are coming out to stay with you for a couple days. Hopefully spice up your lives a bit eh? Say hi to them for me. And try to keep Eric from breaking stuff...

Yeah, I know I have loads of money on my USAA card haha but I'm doing my best not to use any of it that I don't have to. I'm sure I could afford a haircut, but I'm pretty sure no one would be able to do it as well as me. I mean cause my hair is pretty avant-garde now... and I even got made fun of in elder's quorum for it which is pretty good. The first counselor Elder Zhong was like (in Chinese) "Well the missionaries don't have any new investigators here in elder's quorum today... but Elder Li did bring a new hairstyle..." haha. Ahhhh well.... couple weeks and it'll be ok I'm sure... haha.

So true about that Chinese-thinking-they-can-sing-but-really-can’t comment haha. Although my companion's pretty down-to-earth on the whole which is something to be grateful for. Probably won't sing on the bus TOO often... since it's not really that effective... but if there aren't any Chinese people on the bus then maybe haha. Pres. Wade just responded to my last letter to him and was like "welcome to the "sang on a San Francisco public bus" club. Fairly exclusive and very prestigious" haha. President Wade is pretty good. Wouldn't say he's AS hardcore as President Hoer probably was but he is a baptizing mission president. Since he's “come into office" baptisms have gone up 35% which is a pretty big difference. That's not to say the old mission president wasn't good or anything... but I heard his focus wasn't really on baptizing which really should be the focus of any mission.

Talked to this lady last night for like an hour just street contacting and at first were like "Yes! Someone searching for the truth!" Since she said she thinks about the questions we were asking her a lot... but then when we were talking about her and sharing stuff she'd like look like she was listening and then like not really address what we were telling her... kind of annoying but we left her a pamphlet and our number so I guess we'll see...

That investigator with a word of wisdom problem is going along pretty well since the word of wisdom isn't really a problem for him anymore although he's not gonna be able to get baptized on schedule since he didn't make it to church yesterday since although he says he liked going last week he feels like going just raises more questions and whatnot. He's the 72-yr-old guy from Vietnam who used to be a math teacher and basically has really really deep thoughts. We're hoping to still be able to get him to be baptized but will be a little longer process than just this weekend being done. Unfortunately for us, our district is pretty far away from the church so getting investigators to come is kind of a mafan.

All our investigators are old people these days haha. Have a 72-yr-old man from Vietnam, 70-yr-old woman from Vietnam, 60+ woman from Shenyang, 80+ yr-old-guy from Shandong originally but moved to Taiwan... and then have a 20-yr-old student... who isn't looking all that promising to be honest...Old people are the best in that they usually have time to meet with us unlike everyone else in this busy busy city but on the other hand have a lot of old habits that are a little tough to change. Hopeful though.

I have to wrap this up since we still need to get back to our apt and buy groceries and eat dinner all before 6 and it takes like 30 minutes to get back to the appt from here and it's already 4:30... so basically... gtg! Thanks for your emails though. I love you guys!

-Ian

P.S. Yeah loads of homeless people in San Francisco... particularly around the civic center govt. buildings for some reason... probably cause they're public property and you can always hang around...