On the Streets

Oh Hai!

So yeah. That was pretty random. Felt a little panjiao [apostate] though to be honest. ALMOST talking to you guys. Pretty panjiao. Whatever the case, pretty fun. I wouldn't worry about the scarf since it's really not that cold here and I'm thinking of dropping by the subway lost and found which I haven't checked yet to see if they have my scarf. And then while we're there we can ask them if they have our umbrellas... and then see if my camera's there too on the off chance it got left on BART accidently... whatever happens, I'm sure those BART (the name of the subway) employees have been spending the past couple weeks following me around and picking up all the stuff that has left my person and taking it to the lost and found until I decide to go and pick it all up so I really should be fine.

Anyways, yeah we had transfer calls the day before yesterday which was pretty exciting. Well not really since Elder Luo and I are staying in this area as companions haha. Elder Luo is being made district leader though and our current district leader is headed to Oakland where he will be taking the bus and training someone. No more car for him! And no more rides for us unfortunately since the two missionaries coming to take the place of our district leader and his companion (they're both moving away) are sisters and therefore are not able to give us rides anywhere. Pretty zaogao I have to say. Especially since sister missionaries always strike me as super hardcore and it's kind of awkward talking to them since they're girls and stuff. And have cooties.

On the other hand, Elder Luo being district leader means I'll have the opportunity sometime this transfer to go on exchanges with Elder Lee which should be pretty much awesomely hilarious... I just hope we can still keep working hard since every time we're together we just joke around. Like how at church we were like joking about how we need to sabotage the new sister missionaries so they don't make us look bad hahaha. Our proposed pranks kind of got a little out of hand though with the bucket of nails above the door to the bathroom and the venomous snakes in their beds. However we're still planning on seran wrap on the toilet seat and itching powder on the chairs. I am, of course, kidding. But I have heard that sister missionaries are pretty awesome. So we're pretty much expecting a huge upsurge of baptisms in the branch which should be good. Meanwhile, Elder Luo and my district suffered some setbacks earlier in the week which forced us to spend most of the time street contacting. On Tuesday we had 4 appointments set up, 3 with investigators, and 1 with a potential we had contacted on Monday night. 3 of them cancelled, and the prospective then fanged our gezi (stood us up)... Which was pretty lame. But we did have a stroke of luck as we first ran into a member who had served a mission in Gaoxiong 3 years earlier and so treated us to dinner which was nice of him. And then we ran into Roger Andelin, which of course you know about already. Then we had a couple more appts cancel so we basically spent most of the week street contacting around Chinatown which is where we spend most of our time. Although, for some reason, there seemed to be trouble in Chinatown this week since not only did people seem rather uninterested in listening to us (rather a lot), but we kept running into the rudest people ever haha. First there was this random white guy who just started swearing at us for some reason which was rather uncool of him, and then we contacted these people on the bus yesterday who were saying the most ridiculously rude things ever to us haha. It was funny cause one of them was from Shenyang and usually when people say that Elder Luo goes "ME TOO!" except this time he was like "oh yeah I'm from like somewhere near there......" Looks like Shenyang isn't the zionistic paradise Elder Luo would have me believe it is haha.

However, this week had a lot of really good stuff too. On Saturday night we went to visit a family that's been inactive for years (Tan family). Everything has basically already been taught to them so every time we go over there we're like "what should we teach?!" At the end of the lesson, we asked who they knew who we could teach the restored gospel and they actually had a referral for us! And what was even more amazing is that the referral walked in like 5 minutes later! We set up an appointment for last night and it went really well. Basically pretty golden since it's a family (one of the first we've been able to teach) and both the husband and wife seem really receptive. AND we have an automatic friendshipper since they're a referral. Member referrals really are the best way to do missionary work. The only problem we see now is how we're gonna get them to come to church if their member friends, the Tan family, don't even come. But I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it which we hope won't be an unbreachable gap since church is really important... seeing as how they can't get baptized or anything without going. But we still have hope that the Tan family will be able to come back to church since they clearly still have super strong testimonies which they bore pretty freely last night as we taught our lesson. We hope that they'll just get super excited about missionary work and then just naturally want to come back to church. We have hope!

Whatever the case though, teaching them really made me realize how important the gospel is in our lives since there really is very little to go by without it. Like I can't imagine what values I'd teach my kids if I didn't have some kind of golden standard to go by. Definitely hopeful for this family... who's surname is O'Yang which makes me think of like O'Reilly or O'Malley or something. Pretty sure they're not Irish though...

And Dad, you of ALL people should know that tithing is really more of a SUGGESTION than a real PRINCIPLE... haha. Yeah that's definitely really lame of those missionaries. And there's no way they'd even be able to pass the baptismal interview if they weren't prepared to pay tithing. Which seems to kind of be a pretty big problem for most Chinese converts. Which is a shame since I'm a pretty big fan of those bigger commandments that are generally harder to keep since the blessings really are so much greater. Tithing really is such a blessing.

Glad to hear you're keeping my legend alive in the Arlington Ward. Make sure to tell them about the thousands of people who are being baptized here in San Francisco as a result of my efforts and how I can shoot laser beams out of my eyes. (That last one is pretty new though.)

Pretty cool you're in the news dad [Wikileaks]. Although I can't imagine you've said anything really ridiculous in any of your cables or whatnot. If so though, I'd be excited to see your name in the headlines of the papers I occasionally get glimpses of. And if you lose your job in the government, there's always reality television.

Glad to hear things are going well as the Relief Society Czar mom. I'm sure you're top notch! Tip top! Recent converts are the best. Oh except for that one that we baptized a month or so ago since this week we think he's been avoiding us. Ok we know he has. But yesterday we finally found out why since his friend Sister Liu said that he said we shouldn't get him to accompany our lessons anymore like we had been doing before since he doesn't really feel like he's up to that. Just wish he'd just have said that in the first place haha so we wouldn't have to get avoided which is a bummer. Still, it's always a fun time to go by his apartment on Broadway haha.

Elder Luo and I basically spent most of our P-day restoring our apartment to the Celestial Glory we assume it at some point had possessed. It does look a lot better now since we spent quite a while cleaning it. At the very least Top Degree Terrestrial.

I need to go write michelle and joel back but thanks a lot for your emails! And for your presents! I love opening one every day before companionship study haha. So fun. And all the stuff you've sent so far has been so awesome and useful... except maybe the clay.. but i'll find a way to use it! I love you guys! Stay strong in the gospel and whatnot!

Love,

-Ian