Downtown Oakland - New Area

Hai!

Yes! Sister Zheng did get baptized yesterday! I went back to San Francisco for it and everything. She actually got baptized with another sister named SIster Huang who was the sister missionaries' investigator in the Daly City area. It was pretty fun to go back to San Francisco though... even though I'd only been gone for about a week haha. It was good to see everyone from my old branch. Especially our branch mission leader Brother Yang who's really funny and awesome.

Also it was great to see Sister Zheng get baptized. I ended up like running the baptism haha. I played the piano for both the musical numbers, for the hymns, gave a talk on baptism, did translation, witnessed the baptism, and shared a spiritual thought while Sister Zheng and Sister Huang were getting changed back into their normal clothes haha. Sister Zheng shared her testimony at the end which was really great. She talked about how she couldn't quite put her finger on it, but after she started meeting with me and Elder Wu, she felt like there was something more in her life. She felt like a "warmth" she hadn't felt before and it was definitely different. It was really great to hear her bear that testimony cause it definitely strengthened my faith that we truly are working with the Spirit and helping others to feel its influence in their lives. Which is fortunate, cause I'm thinking it's what makes the difference between us and salesman haha. Also cause what we're selling is free.

So, at the beginning of the week, we had virtually no investigators in the area. Elder Lee and Elder Tang were working in the english program in Alameda for the past two weeks because the elder there was waiting for a new missionary to arrive that he would be training. So this area here had been kind of neglected for a bit basically haha. So anyways we got dropped by all the investigators Elder Tang and Lee were previiously working with in this area, so we're doing our best to add investigators to our teaching pool as fast as we can. We added 5 last week, which was pretty good, but we're hoping to add even more this week.

We found this art school called the California College of Art that we went to go contact at cause I was like "yeah another AAU!!!!" But then we got there and it was like this really rundown, weird, creepy school with like no people. When we first got there, we ran into this Taiwanese girl and were like "yes! There are gonna be plenty where this came from!!!"... She wasn't interested... and there weren't... So that ended our trips to the California College of Art. However, we found a big list of all the universities in the area and although our area doesn't cover Alameda, we're gonna go there to contact at the College of Alameda since Elder Lee says there are a lot of chinese people there which I don't doubt in the slightest cause it seems like they like to come to america and study at really random schools... although I guess the California college of art is a little too random... It was so weird... there were all these faces carved into the trees and rocks and just had a really creepy feeling... also I rolled my ankle walking down this random rocky path. So basically it was probably haunted anyway.

Yeah it's always knid of struck me as weird that we don't really do anything special for Easter in our church. Actually someone brought it up during Sunday school and we were all like "ummmm... Idk....." Our branch president did mention something about it during sacrament meeting but there really wasn't anything special. Sounds like you guys had a pretty good Easter program though so... at least someone is making a big deal about it.

And no I haven't gotten the easter basket yet.... but it's nice to know there's one coming! Thanks! We'll probably head up to the mission office today and see if it's there. Although getting up there is kind of a pain without a car... which we're going to bug president Wade about till he gives us one haha. Mainly cause the bus really isn't allt hat convenient in this area... especially on p-day when we have to walk miles and miles to get anywhere... although this library was really convenient to our apartment... ok well maybe I'm exaggerating a little... But still... a car would be nice... Haha I got so spoiled for those 2 days that we had one...

Elder Lee and I are having quite a bit of fun working together but we are still working haha. We do a lot of contacting in Chinatown which, although it is more effective than San Francisco's Chinatown for some reason, is still not the best ever. Our english class does haev a lot more potential though since we have like 40 students in the intermediate class which we teach and like 60 in the beginner class, which the other Elders teach. We have a lot of potential investigators that I think we could be better about contacting. Also we're doing a lot about working with formers which seems to be doing pretty well. We added a family last night who first contacted the church like 5 years ago... and they were like "Yeah I believe your church is true... I just don't want to get baptized cause I feel like it would be going against my Chinese traditions..." So we're thinking they just don't understand what "your church is true" really means. So we're gonna help them find out.

So this new area isn't nearly as ghetto as I thought it'd be. In fact, it's way less luanqibazao than San Francisco even was haha. Although our area doesn't actually cover West Oakland which I hear is the real ghetto... and I've heard it's not that safe to go out at night but, as missionaries, that's not a huge problem anyway.

That's cool you got to baptize Jimmy Xu finally dad! Seems like he's taken quite a while. But I'm sure his wife can't be too far behind. Just get them to do family prayer and read the book of mormon together and I'm sure good things will happen.

That's cool you get to go to Hawaii. I think I'm going there for summer break so... Or maybe the next zone activity.

Hey, only 2 more weeks and we get to talk on the phone! Wah! Time's gone pretty fast... Feel like a super veteran missionary already... except not really cause it seems like I just got out haha.

Love you guys! Thanks for your emails and prayers and support! I know they're helping!

Have a great week! And give more referrals to the missionaries! Maybe if you do it will send some good kharma this way and we'll actually get some! I have yet to receive a referral from an active member of the church... which is frustrating haha.

Love you!

-Ian

The Acupuncture Approach...

Sounds pretty weird... the week was pretty weird here too... although it had less to do with the Federal Government... Had a pretty hilarious day on Wednesday. Just like really random. We have an investigator named Sister Luo who we've run into like 3 times randomly on the street (hen you yuan fen... not sure I entirely believe in the concept but it's proved to be pretty useful for adding new investigators) who works as a Chinese traditional medicine person in Chinatown. She specializes in ba guanr! (where they put those cups on your back and see how purple it gets... the more stagnant your qi, the more purple it gets... also apparently has some healing properties or something)... So anyways, we had a lesson with her on Wednesday but before we were going to meet with her, we ran into her as she was on her way to work in Chinatown so she took us to her office (she's pretty enthusiastic about everything and is really cool and funny.. and really likes us! haha) and we met her teacher Dr. Chen, who specializes in acupuncture. We chatted for a couple minutes and Elder Wu mentioned how he has bad knees and sometimes they hurt when he walks a lot or goes downstairs... then were like "well we'll just come back at 2:30 since we can't meet in our office anyway cause we couldn't find any male member to come along to our lesson. When we went back, Dr. Chen was like "come here and I'll treat your knees" and started feeling Elder Wu's knees and diagnosing him and stuff. Ended up sticking a couple needles in his arms in the joints by his elbows and the whole time I was like "uhh... ok..." Then Sister Luo wanted us to go meet her daughter who was working in Chinatown for the day like 4 or 5 blocks away and Dr. Chen was like, "Wait 20 minutes and I'll take out the needles..." Turns out, Sister Luo's daughter also has a degree in Chinese traditional medicine and she was like, "Hey let's just go! My daughter can do it!" So we ended up walking all over Chinatown with needles in Elder Wu's arms so he couldn't move them and was like, "Ouch! It feels so weird and tingly!" So random. I was just thinking the whole time... Where else would this happen? (Just went across the street since Elder Wu needed to use the bathroom so I kind of lost my train of thought...) That's pretty cool that Chad and Joel are there in DC. Just like old times... except no me! But I'm sure you can just make a cardboard cutout of me (if you haven't already) with a couple recorded phrases that play when you go by. Whatever the case, had a fairly good week. Three investigators came to church again.. although Brother A'Yong changed to Brother Lin. But it was pretty good. Sister Zheng is still on track to be baptized this Sunday which is great. We taught her almost all the commandments at once on Friday and she was like, "Yeah no problem! I already do that anyway! Yeah that makes sense!" So pretty much no problem there. Super great investigator. Kind of like Sister Ying! Unfortunately, it seems like for every golden investigator, there are like 10 others who really aren't golden and run into insurmountable obstacles which then lead to them having to be dropped which is really annoying. Kind of like Yufei who was like, "I don't think this church is all that suitable for me cause I don't like obeying commandments..." Pretty lame. Better wrap this up and whatnot since we're gonna go to Japantown and see all the cherry blossoms and hang out and take pictures and stuff (I got your package and do have the other memory card... but the one I have in my camera now is 4 gigabytes so I kind of want to at least get a few more photos on it before I send it back...). Should be pretty fun. Love you! Thanks for your funny emairs! Also tell Chad I rove him!... Except that he's a freak of nature with red cheeks and a pointy ear... but aside from that... Bai bai! -Ian

General Conference

Hai! Yeah well if the Japanese weren't so darn wicked! Then nothing bad would ever happen to them! Isn't that how things work? How if you're righteous then nothing bad will ever happen to you? Pretty sure I heard that yesterday in one of the talks... or that could've been something else entirely since I watched the Sunday morning session in Chinese and didn't get a whole lot out of it... which isn't to say I didn't understand it.... but those translators really don't have very much expression... which is lame since we had 3 investigators there and they all fell asleep... sigh... I guess i can't really blame them since I was pretty darn sleepy a year ago watching conference, not to mention a year and 6 months ago when I fell asleep IN the actual conference center... which is pretty lame. I don't know what I was thinking before I came on my mission. How could I have missed out on such awesomeness before... I must've been drugged by some malefactor... (Yes! I still know words like malefactor! Even after speaking nothing but Chinese for 7 months!... well almost...) Whatever the case, since I've already been through my second general conference on my mission I guess it means I'm pretty much halfway done. Man that time went fast! Although I've been in San Francisco 6 months! Not 5!!! Guess time is going a little faster than you even thought dad! This week went super super fast, speaking of time going fast. It seems like it was just yesterday that we went to golden gate park and looked at the incredibly exciting buffalo there... ok they weren't all that exciting. The sisters and other elders in our district went to the Zoo today but we figured a) it was too expensive and b) it was too far away... also we were too lazy to go with them and I want to play the piano which we keep missing out on cause the sisters keep organizing these random activities... although I guess the golden gate park thing wasn't their idea... in any case, we didn't go. But I'm thinking your dream version of me is better than any photos that I could send mom! I think I'll probably just refrain and keep letting you dream up really awesome looking versions of me. We had three investigators come to general conference yesterday (would've had 5 but 1 slept in on accident and the other one was too lazy and doesn't want to obey commandments... sigh... yufei...)... Which was pretty good. Had a really great member named sister Niu from Beijing who is really really faithful and knowledgeable about the gospel pick them all up and bring them to the stake center in Pacifica which is where the conference was broadcast. Anyways, that's cool you got to talk to Misty! But darn Adriana's getting married to some sharp Mexican guy. I can't compete with that! I'm neither sharp nor Mexican! Oh well, I'm sure i'll pull through... I've heard missions change people so... maybe I'll turn Mexican at least... We have this like mexicantown place in my area where I've been like twice in the 6 months serving here in downtown... mainly since there aren't a whole lot of Chinese people down there... which seems pretty authentic. I'm a pretty big fan of serving in downtown San Francisco. I don't really want to get transferred elsewhere although I'm thinking downtown Oakland might be kind of fun since that's where Elder Lee is and it'd be awesome if we could be companions at some point. Also, I've heard you get mugged all the time which is always fun fun fun! In any case, I'd better finish up so I can still have time to play piano. That's weird about "the Book of Mormon." I did actually hear about it from this random guy who started talking to us on the street and ended up being an investigator in a different area although all he said was that it was by the South Park people and was getting good reviews which I just assumed to mean that they just made Mormon people look stupid and everyone loved it. Which is generally how things go. But it seems like our church's public relations have been getting better recently since Mormon.org is pretty cool and I think more and more people know our church as a legitimate religion and not some cult or something. Although there are still quite a few people we talk to who are like "oh you're not Christian" and we're like "yes we are" and they're like "no you're not"... etc... Anyways, love you guys! Thanks for your emails! Hope you have a great week! -Elder Christensen