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