Behind the Wheel

Hellow!

Howsit going? Sounds like it's going pretty well...

Had a pretty interesting week. Just really getting used to the new area and actually am really liking it. Having a car is a pretty big change and it really kind of changes the nature of missionary work....Mostly makes it way more awesome haha. I'm also really enjoying being back with Elder Luo. I think it's quite different from the last time we were together just because we both have a lot more experience and work and teach in a really unified manner. And being a Zone Leader's not such a huge jump to be honest... although we haven't done any exchanges yet... so I guess that's where the real training and stuff takes place...

We had a struggle getting our investigators to church this week though... Which was weird because we had 6 who promised to come and then they ALL for various reasons, failed to show up. Pretty sad. Elder Luo and I are going to do a better job this week in helping our investigators realize the importance of church attendance and do everything we can to help them attend... The new ward is pretty cool although I did expect that there would be more Chinese members, the population of which, as I understand, would have been almost doubled if all of our investigators and a couple less active members had shown up. I am, however, really excited to get to work in this area with Elder Luo to find more people who are ready for the restored gospel in their lives.

Elder Luo and I had an experience last night which really built my faith that the Lord is preparing people to hear our message. Remember my investigator in San Francisco named Alice Luo who she was always trying to get us over to her house here in Fremont for dinner and didn't quite understand why we couldn't just go although we did tell her about rules quite a few times? In any case, when I got transferred here, I immediately thought of her although after I left San Francisco she didn't really keep meeting with Elder Wu and them mostly cause she's so busy. Anyways, so we went over to her house last night and her father and mother were there along with her niece. Although Alice Luo doesn't have a very strong understanding of the gospel, she has always been really interested, however, last night we decided to focus on her niece, who really showed a lot of interest. As we taught her the first lesson, the Spirit was really strong and she understood it all quite well. At the end when we asked her what she thought about what we had taught she said she believed it and she had felt that it was true as we taught. Needless to say, we set a baptismal date with her before we left for June 26. It was super awesome. Also it was really fun to see Sister Luo again cause she's super funny and awesome.

It seems like every person Elder Luo and I talk to lately is just really interested which is great and a pretty big change from Oakland and San Francisco where it was like 1/50 or 1/100. I think this area has tons of potential and I'm really excited to keep finding and helping our investigators progress to baptism. There's this one supermarket called Marina Foods where there are like tons of Chinese people all the time where we go whenever we don't have a lesson or any other plan and it seems like every time we go there like everyone we talk to is interested. Which is possibly because none of them are from GuangDong haha. I don't know what it is about those GuangDong ren... but I do agree with your decision not to bid on the job there dad.

That would be sweet if you went to Vietnam! Taiwan would be... ok... I guess.. although learning Vietnamese would probably be a bit of a challenge? Think you're up to that? I've heard it's like super hard... although it might be kind of like chinese in some ways since there are a lot of chinese people who live in Vietnam and I think i've heard it spoken before and it's kind of similar... How much Vietnamese do they expect you to speak if you go there though?
Grandma doesn't want to come to California? But the weather is so nice here! And I'm here!

Anyways, I'd better wrap this up so I can go write michelle and joel who both wrote me this week!

Thanks for your emails! I love you!

-Ian

P.S. The 68 woman back in Oakland, Sister Luo, has postponed her baptism indefinitely... which is a bummer and rather perplexes me... but I guess that's the way it goes sometimes... we'll see what Elder Lee and his new companion Elder Ho can do to persuade her to join the church...