Herrow! Man I can't believe you had to get up to go to 9 am church! Man! How early did you wake up?!?! Like 8?!?! I can't even imagine getting up that earlier since I pretty much get up at noon most days here.... Except for when I get up at 6:30... which is everyday... wait...
Hai! Yes! OuYang family did come to church along with Liu Tony... despite the fact that Liu Tony probably won't be able to get baptized this month since he's having trouble quitting smoking and drinking tea. We've decided to take a more realistic stance that he can't just quit it all at once and work out a plan of step-by-step reduction and whatnot so that he'll at least be able to shoot for next month's baptismal service (since our branch decided they were having too many baptisms so we only hold one every 4th Sunday of the month... which is actually ok... but kind of funny of our branch...).
The OuYangs are doing really well though. We taught them the word of wisdom on Saturday night knowing Brother Ouyang had a problem with drinking tea since he'd always drink it when we went over. But it turns out he also likes to drink alcohol and smoke which we didn't know earlier. Whatever the case though, he agreed surprisingly readily to live the word of wisdom which was really cool. His wife was like "I don't believe you!" and he was like, "What? It's not like I'm robbing a bank. Why don't you believe me?!" Which I didn't really get but Elder Luo thought it was pretty funny. Still though, doing really well and it's looking good for their baptismal goal of the 23rd. We also went to the temple with them and the Tan family yesterday which was pretty cool and will definitely be super helpful for them. Unfortunately, we did everything in Cantonese so I didn't really get it... but it seemed like they were having a good time. Only foreseeable challenge now is the law of tithing... but judging from how they've been doing so far I don't think it'll be too bad. High hopes!
Had a pretty good week this week I suppose you could say. Went on exchanges with Elder Lee which was pretty fun. Although not as much fun as it could've been since it seems like we were out doing missionary things all the time... I mean since we probably would've had more fun sightseeing or just like hanging out. Whatever the case, it rained super super hard that day and we both got pretty wet. They have this super awesome park with a science museum inside next to their apartment there in the Sunset Area which we walked through at night in the rain. Then the power went out in our apartment which is always good fun haha.
Had a New Year’s party thing for the whole zone on Friday night which was pretty fun. We got to watch 2 whole movies! “The Last Airbender “ (clearly the pick of a pop-culture ignorant missionary population) and “How to Train Your Dragon.” Elder Luo and I ended up missing the “Last Airbender” though since we were out helping Brother Liu [homeless investigator] find a place to spend the night. We took him to a homeless shelter downtown to get him registered in the system and try to find out how to get in contact with people who might have access to a more permanent solution. I have to say there are a lot of interesting people down there. There was this 20-30 yr-old woman at the desk who was really really nice and helpful. I was really impressed with how incredibly Christlike she was. Really patient with everyone and you could definitely feel how much love she had for others. She arranged for Brother Liu to be able to have a bed there that night and gave us some numbers to call for him. Unfortunately, the organizations we got the numbers for were only open today so I called them this morning and got referred to some other organizations. Finally got a number for the County Veterans Office and had him head down there. It sounds like they might be able to get him some money which is really good but I'm not entirely sure of the result at the moment. I really hope they can help him.
Sounds like your guys' holidays went (are going) well. I don't really remember many of those people from Hong Kong. Or maybe any... haha. I did however, run into a lady at the branch here who works at HKIS teaching Chinese and has for like 20 years meaning she probably taught me at some point haha. Pretty funny. It's a small world... afterall... it's a small world... afterall... (Reminds me of a really good song or something...)
I need to wrap this up so I can still have time to go to the chapel and play the piano for about an hour. I love you guys! Thanks so much for all your love and support and for your righteous examples to me!
Love you!
-Ian
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