The BeeeeezzeeE?!?!?!? Oh nooooo!!!! That's too bad.... Bee stings are pretty lame. Although... if you didn't see them... then it could've been anything... like a rat-bee. Or a mutated scorpion attack bee! Who knows... you should probably amputate though just to be safe.
In any case, this week has gone pretty well... Although, even though we do have quite a few investigators and added a few new ones, I feel like there are a lot of investigators in this area which just really aren't progressing very quickly... which is kind of a change from my last areas where if they didn't keep progressing, we kind of just dropped them pretty readily... which I'm not sure is the best thing to do because there are some people that just need time before they will commit to be baptized but a lot of the time I feel like I don't want to keep working with them until they feel prepared enough to at least set a baptismal date. I think I need to work on still keeping a focus on getting these investigators baptized while also being patient enough to realize that perhaps they do need some time before they will commit to taking that step. I just need to remember that that really is my focus and not just go over to talk with them or share a message about the gospel that wouldn't really do a whole lot for their progression.
We still managed to get a fairly high amount of member present lessons which is great although it seems like in this area there's not much excuse not to have them because we have quite a few members willing to come to our lessons who have cars. Also, our church attendance was way better this week which was great (5! Hurrah!). Elder Luo and I really emphasized with our investigators the importance of church attendance which I think really helped.
We do feel, however, that as a companionship and a zone we really need to focus on getting more baptismal dates and being more bold in inviting during the first meeting and having a baptismal date set no later than the second meeting. I went on exchanges with one of the Assistants to the President, Elder Hakim this week which was a really great experience where I learned a lot about missionary work. I think one thing I found that I could really be doing better is teaching for understanding and focusing my teaching on baptism and its importance. Something I really liked about the way Elder Hakim taught is that he really made baptism seem like something everyone should want to do and really seemed to make our investigator and another woman we contacted in English, desire to be baptized which I think was really great because it really is something everyone should desire and I hope to be able to convey that in my teaching. Although Chinese people don't really know what baptism is... but still... pretty cool.
We also have this really funny investigator, who came to church on Sunday incidentally, who's like in her late 70's and calls us about 2-3 times a day to tell us that her daughter isn't answering her phone and that we need to call her to get her to move closer to her here in Union City haha. So random. The other day she called and was like "my nephew is moving to Utah and I don't want him to." And I was like "half my family lives in Utah! Everyone loves Utah! It's the greatest place on Earth!" And she was like "really?! Oh... ok!" Hahaha. It was pretty funny.
Rachel Luo is still doing really well. Pretty golden still. We're gonna try to get her cousin to our lesson with her tonight which we hope works out. Her cousin may not be as interested but we're gonna give it a go and see if we can get him baptized as well.
Anyways, we get fed a lot! Like every night almost. Pretty crazy. Since we go with the English missionaries to dinner appointments so... Also we do have zone conference this week but it's really under the direction of the mission president so we don't really do anything. But we do have to go on exchanges with the district leaders to train them and stuff and I have my first opportunity to do that tonight with Elder Bond, who's the district leader in a Spanish speaking area... so that'll be fun... mostly cause I won't understand what's going on. But I guess we can see if I remember any Spanish from my two years of studying it in South Africa. I'm sure it'll all come back to me....
And Elder Luo does translation during sacrament meeting. Which can be pretty hilarious mostly cause he always brings in the General Conference talks and many times just like reads out of them since the topics in Sacrament Meeting are following the order of the latest general conference and things go pretty smoothly when he uses the talks already writting down haha. In any case, I'd better go now.
Have fun hanging out with Joel this weekend!
Love you! -Ian
P.S. Jogging... is going not so well... So tired in the mornings!!!
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