Hello!
How are you? Sound pretty good! Sorry I missed thanksgiving this year. But we did stay up for the midnight Black Friday sale though... they had a great sale on... um... scripture cases!... so... In any case, I really like that talk by Ian Ardern also. He had a great accent and an even greater name. I just wish I could get the general conference issue of the Ensign... for some reason the mission office is being really slow getting it out to us...
Anyways, I had a pretty interesting week. First off, our two people scheduled for baptism fell through. Bummer. One had a problem with the Word of Wisdom that came out only during the baptismal interview, and the other didn't like the idea of tithing which, in hindsight, we should have probably taught him earlier. Still, kind of frustrating. Fortunately, we'll still get to be able to continue teaching them hopefully and I have faith that we'll be able to help them work past these barriers.
We had 12 investigators at church, which was pretty ridiculous. Church went really well yesterday. Everyone stayed after it ended and chatted which was really great. We had about 25 people in total so the room looked a lot more full. We have more people at church than at English class! Which is kind of strange and probably means Elder Brown and I need to spend more time passing out flyers, which we did actually do for a couple hours this week... However, we're not really having any problems finding since we found 7 more new investigators this week...
Lately, we've been discussing how we can help all of the investigators we are teaching and who are coming to church set baptismal dates. We're going to redouble our efforts this week to set a baptismal date with every one of our investigators and help them progress towards that. We feel that with the sheer number of investigators we have in our teaching pool right now, if we're planning correctly, we should have very little time to find and loads of time teaching them and helping them to build their faith in Christ and progress towards baptism. We've decided to set more clear expectations with our investigators for more frequent meeting and also daily contact.
Elder Brown and I went on exchanges with a couple elders in the filippino ward here this week which went very well. I went on exchanges with Elder Salazar seems like a very good elder. He was telling me all these crazy stories about his conversion back in the Philippines which were really hilarious. He was talking about how he was baptized when he was 12 without his parents' permission and then he was inactive for like 5 years because the branch in the area where he lived like dissolved. Then after five years the missionaries came back into his area and he like kicked them out of his house and was like "I'm Catholic now. Don't come back." Except one of the Elders told him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon so he did like a couple months later and was like "if it's true, give me a way to go back to church." So the next day, the Elders went back to his house even though he told them not to and he was like "dang it..." since he said all his friends would make fun of him if he went back. Anyways, to make a long story short, he ended up moving and was like "yes the missionaries won't be able to find me anymore!" Except he moved right accross the street from one of our chapels in another city and then proceeded to run into both one of the missionaries he first kicked out of his house and then one of the other missionaries who had tried to reactivate him who both got transferred to that area hahah. So random. It was pretty funny the way he told it. I guess if God wants you to join his church, he'll find a way haha.
In any case, I got my first ticket last night which was a real hoot. We were coming back from the baptism of one of my investigators in Union City: Ethan Wu... and I wasn't really paying attention to how fast I was going and got pulled over for speeding... I had no idea our Toyota Corolla could even go that fast: 150 mph... Ok just kidding. Only about 80. But knowing California traffic police, they'll probably charge me for an 150 mph speeding ticket...
Anyways, my time is almost up here on the library computer here so I'd better sign off. However, I hope you ahve a great week!
Love you!
-Ian
Monday, November 28, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Return to Chinatown
Nov. 21, 2011
I'm loving being back in Chinatown. Our area is really really great. We have loads of investigators and our English class is doing really well. I really notice a difference when we have that kind of an awesome free service to offer people rather than just having to chat them up on the street about the Gospel... which works sometimes, but English class is so much more effective for stuff like that. Elder Brown and I are working really hard to get the group going here. It rained yesterday which was a bummer because Chinese people are not fans of the rain and when it rains they aren't as willing to go places. Despite that fact, we still had 9 investigators at church which was really good. Especially considering the fact we only had 9 members there including the two of us and the 2 speakers from an English ward. Pretty interesting. It was a funny Sacrament meeting. I like it alot though. Kind of reminds me a little of meeting in China or overseas in a place where the Church is pretty small and not super established. I was playing the piano (really really horrible keyboard hahaha), blessing the sacrament, and translating for one of the speakers. Fun stuff.
Also we had a baptism yesterday. Our investigator, also named Ian incidentally, Ian Yan, was baptized yesterday. He's a 28 yr-old guy from Taiwan. He's seriously hilarious. I like him a lot! He's super nerdy and draws comics for a living. Not the funny kind but he is really really funny in an awesome nerdy way. His baptism was really great and another brother from the Daly City chinese area was also baptized at the same time. Next week we have another brother, Jason Lei, set up to be baptized. We have a goal of baptizing 5 people in December which is definitely achievable. We also started teaching Alice Luo again and she is planning on being baptized on Christmas which is exciting. This time she definitely will be since our church is so convenient to where she lives. She came yesterday and seemed to have a tolerably good experience haha.
Our awesome PeiKe Wang (member present lesson king... or in this case, queen), took our whole district out to eat lunch at this sweet Sushi buffet called Kome over in Daly City. So I'm basically very full right now and rather sleepy. We're here at a public library on a road called Ocean Avenue. Which I think there's a song about... but I can't remember any of that Babylonian nonsense now that I'm a missionary... so...
Sorry I can't make it back for Thanksgiving this year. I'm sure it'll be grrrrrrrreaat! We're going to eat at a member's house that night so... don't worry, we'll still be fed. I think Sister Ma has been the states for a while now so it'll probably be pretty good.
In any case, it's fun being back in the same district as Elder Luo. He cracks me up so much. So hilarious. Unfortunately, we're not in a three person companionship since he's with some English missionaries in Sunset, but that's ok. We see enough of him anyway haha. Incidentally, Elder Brown's Chinese name is also Luo... so... pretty close!
Anyways, my time is almost up so I'd better wrap things up. Thanks for your letters mom and dad! Love you!
-Ian
I'm loving being back in Chinatown. Our area is really really great. We have loads of investigators and our English class is doing really well. I really notice a difference when we have that kind of an awesome free service to offer people rather than just having to chat them up on the street about the Gospel... which works sometimes, but English class is so much more effective for stuff like that. Elder Brown and I are working really hard to get the group going here. It rained yesterday which was a bummer because Chinese people are not fans of the rain and when it rains they aren't as willing to go places. Despite that fact, we still had 9 investigators at church which was really good. Especially considering the fact we only had 9 members there including the two of us and the 2 speakers from an English ward. Pretty interesting. It was a funny Sacrament meeting. I like it alot though. Kind of reminds me a little of meeting in China or overseas in a place where the Church is pretty small and not super established. I was playing the piano (really really horrible keyboard hahaha), blessing the sacrament, and translating for one of the speakers. Fun stuff.
Also we had a baptism yesterday. Our investigator, also named Ian incidentally, Ian Yan, was baptized yesterday. He's a 28 yr-old guy from Taiwan. He's seriously hilarious. I like him a lot! He's super nerdy and draws comics for a living. Not the funny kind but he is really really funny in an awesome nerdy way. His baptism was really great and another brother from the Daly City chinese area was also baptized at the same time. Next week we have another brother, Jason Lei, set up to be baptized. We have a goal of baptizing 5 people in December which is definitely achievable. We also started teaching Alice Luo again and she is planning on being baptized on Christmas which is exciting. This time she definitely will be since our church is so convenient to where she lives. She came yesterday and seemed to have a tolerably good experience haha.
Our awesome PeiKe Wang (member present lesson king... or in this case, queen), took our whole district out to eat lunch at this sweet Sushi buffet called Kome over in Daly City. So I'm basically very full right now and rather sleepy. We're here at a public library on a road called Ocean Avenue. Which I think there's a song about... but I can't remember any of that Babylonian nonsense now that I'm a missionary... so...
Sorry I can't make it back for Thanksgiving this year. I'm sure it'll be grrrrrrrreaat! We're going to eat at a member's house that night so... don't worry, we'll still be fed. I think Sister Ma has been the states for a while now so it'll probably be pretty good.
In any case, it's fun being back in the same district as Elder Luo. He cracks me up so much. So hilarious. Unfortunately, we're not in a three person companionship since he's with some English missionaries in Sunset, but that's ok. We see enough of him anyway haha. Incidentally, Elder Brown's Chinese name is also Luo... so... pretty close!
Anyways, my time is almost up so I'd better wrap things up. Thanks for your letters mom and dad! Love you!
-Ian
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Old Stomping Ground
HERROW!
The big news here is that I'm being transferred! To.... guess where?!?! DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO! AGAINNNNN!!!! Hahahaha! I didn't think I was going anywhere cause if you get released as a Zone Leader you usually get called in the morning by President Wade... but I didn't get a call... and then at night when the Assistants called us they were like "Elder Christensen has been transferred to be the Zone Leader in the San Francisco West Zone..." I was like... "wat? Engrish?!" And then they were like "also President Wade's made kind of a fun change in the San Francisco West Zone, now it's a Chinese speaking area in downtown San Francisco." Hahaha. I am actually really excited to go back though because they recently started a new Chinese group in downtown San Francisco in the middle of Chinatown. So basically it's going to be great to work with all the people who were baptized while I was serving there and help lots of people get reactivated since I think most people in downtown San Francisco were just unable to attend church because of how dang far away it was in Sunset. But now they have no excuse not to come since it's A) Only Sacrament Meeting! and B) Right in the most convenient location ever. It's apparently held in the place where they teach a new English Class there in the An Lao Zi Zhu Chu right through the tunnel as you head into Chinatown. I'll still be senior companion and my new companion is Elder Brown who I knew in Oakland so that should be good. I'm excited to get to work and really help the group there grow like crazy. I have the feeling that we can really just baptize tons of people and get a branch going in no time. Apparently they already have about 25-30 people who attend the group on Sundays including the OuYang family and the Tan family (formerly very less active).
President Wade is so inspired. Ever since I heard about the new English class and Sacrament Meeting services in San Francisco downtown I really wanted to go back and get involved... but I always thought it would not be possible. So awesome though. ALSO, since we're Zone Leaders, we have a car now. A brand new Toyota Corolla. But we'll also still keep our bus passes... so basically when it's inconvenient to use a car, we can take the bus and when the bus is inconvenient, we can drive. Win win. However the best part is that Elder Luo is going to be in my district as district leader AND since he's going to be training for the last transfer of his mission, and his new companion will be 2 weeks late into the field, he's going to be in a tri-panionship with Elder Brown and I for the first 2 weeks hahahaha. So basically this will be my 3rd time becoming companions with Elder Luo. So that's what's new on the missionary front. Pretty exciting.
Apparently, aside from the OuYang family beginning to attend church, Ying Meng is still super active and awesome in the group there and Sister Zheng, who has been inactive because church is so far away, will definitely have loads of potential to start coming every week since it's so near her house. Basically salvation for everyone! I'm excited to go back to the area. It'll probably be pretty weird though... plus i'm a little sad to be leaving so many awesome members behind. Fortunately, one of them is treating our whole district to lunch at their restaurant and then another member is taking Elder Wu, Albretson, Lee, and I to dinner at the Texas Roadhouse... so basically I will not be hungry today. In fact very likely quite the opposite ha.
Anyways, I hope you are having a wonderful birthday. Sounds like you had quite the crazy bike odyssey over the weekend. And for dad, a crazy Taiwanese arrested woman odyssey in Kansas City. I hope they don't arrest you just out of spite when you move there next year... just try to play a low profile and blame everything on your subordinates dad. Better them than you! Right?!
Love you! Hope you have a great week! Next email I send will very possibly be from a library or apple store in San Francisco!
Bai bai!
-Ian
The big news here is that I'm being transferred! To.... guess where?!?! DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO! AGAINNNNN!!!! Hahahaha! I didn't think I was going anywhere cause if you get released as a Zone Leader you usually get called in the morning by President Wade... but I didn't get a call... and then at night when the Assistants called us they were like "Elder Christensen has been transferred to be the Zone Leader in the San Francisco West Zone..." I was like... "wat? Engrish?!" And then they were like "also President Wade's made kind of a fun change in the San Francisco West Zone, now it's a Chinese speaking area in downtown San Francisco." Hahaha. I am actually really excited to go back though because they recently started a new Chinese group in downtown San Francisco in the middle of Chinatown. So basically it's going to be great to work with all the people who were baptized while I was serving there and help lots of people get reactivated since I think most people in downtown San Francisco were just unable to attend church because of how dang far away it was in Sunset. But now they have no excuse not to come since it's A) Only Sacrament Meeting! and B) Right in the most convenient location ever. It's apparently held in the place where they teach a new English Class there in the An Lao Zi Zhu Chu right through the tunnel as you head into Chinatown. I'll still be senior companion and my new companion is Elder Brown who I knew in Oakland so that should be good. I'm excited to get to work and really help the group there grow like crazy. I have the feeling that we can really just baptize tons of people and get a branch going in no time. Apparently they already have about 25-30 people who attend the group on Sundays including the OuYang family and the Tan family (formerly very less active).
President Wade is so inspired. Ever since I heard about the new English class and Sacrament Meeting services in San Francisco downtown I really wanted to go back and get involved... but I always thought it would not be possible. So awesome though. ALSO, since we're Zone Leaders, we have a car now. A brand new Toyota Corolla. But we'll also still keep our bus passes... so basically when it's inconvenient to use a car, we can take the bus and when the bus is inconvenient, we can drive. Win win. However the best part is that Elder Luo is going to be in my district as district leader AND since he's going to be training for the last transfer of his mission, and his new companion will be 2 weeks late into the field, he's going to be in a tri-panionship with Elder Brown and I for the first 2 weeks hahahaha. So basically this will be my 3rd time becoming companions with Elder Luo. So that's what's new on the missionary front. Pretty exciting.
Apparently, aside from the OuYang family beginning to attend church, Ying Meng is still super active and awesome in the group there and Sister Zheng, who has been inactive because church is so far away, will definitely have loads of potential to start coming every week since it's so near her house. Basically salvation for everyone! I'm excited to go back to the area. It'll probably be pretty weird though... plus i'm a little sad to be leaving so many awesome members behind. Fortunately, one of them is treating our whole district to lunch at their restaurant and then another member is taking Elder Wu, Albretson, Lee, and I to dinner at the Texas Roadhouse... so basically I will not be hungry today. In fact very likely quite the opposite ha.
Anyways, I hope you are having a wonderful birthday. Sounds like you had quite the crazy bike odyssey over the weekend. And for dad, a crazy Taiwanese arrested woman odyssey in Kansas City. I hope they don't arrest you just out of spite when you move there next year... just try to play a low profile and blame everything on your subordinates dad. Better them than you! Right?!
Love you! Hope you have a great week! Next email I send will very possibly be from a library or apple store in San Francisco!
Bai bai!
-Ian
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Jam Packed Week
Hellow!
Had a wonderful week! Elder Lee and I were able to accomplish almost all of the goals we set for ourselves this week which is great. We were really excited about that. We hope to be able to continue improving and keep our investigators on the straight and narrow towards baptism. This area is great. I would love to stay as long as I can. I feel things are really moving along and I know that with faith this Chinese group can really reach a larger potential. There are prepared people everywhere.
Our family home evening type activity went really well yesterday surprisingly. We thought there would be like no one there but then like 10 people showed up from the Ward down in southern Fremont which is out of our mission. It was interesting. However, it gives us hope for the next one. Sister Breen hopes to have an activity like this at least twice a month so we're definitely going to get investigators lined up to come to the next one since it really is a very effective fellowshipping tool. Pretty good though... although we only had like 5 members from our group show up. No worries. Next time we'll get it all on lock down.
We put together a bunch of activities this week and it really made me realize how great the members of the Union City ward are. I guess I already knew but really they are amazing. We went to the young single adult fireside with Elder Scott (well not really Elder Scott since he got sick so Elder Wilson of the 2nd Quorum of the 70 stepped in) with three of our investigators who are students at Cal State East Bay and that was a great experience for them to see the temple and participate in an activity like that. One of the members, Ben, a young man preparing for his mission, was able to take us all up which was really helpful. Although at most they probably understood about 70%, Elder Wilson did give a great talk and the Spirit was there which I'm sure was helpful. Also, although only 2 of them previously knew one another, our other investigator from Beijing (Ethan) got along really well with them and so we're kind of using our investigators to fellowship our other investigators, which seems to be working pretty well. Ethan is pretty awesome and went out to Shunyi on the weekends when he was in Beijing haha so he knows exactly where ISB is and all that other stuff, pretty small world eh? Anyways, he asked one of the other investigators that came (Ryan) if he had been baptized and he was like "no" and then Ryan asked Ethan if he had and he answered "no, but I am going to on the 27th!" It was good to hear an answer like that and we're feeling really good about Ethan. He really enjoys church too! So that's a definitely plus.
We also took our English class up to the temple on Saturday which was quite crazy. We had about 17 students sign up and had 27 actually show up. Miraculously, we had enough members there to seat everyone and had absolutely no seats left over once everyone was on board. It was pretty crazy. It could not have gone better than it did though. We went in and listened to the Cristus recording and then watched the 20 minute Restoration movie after which we split into 2 groups and one group we took around the visitor center and the other was taken by the Chinese sisters to the temple grounds. It was a pretty spiritual experience for all involved. We're doing our best to follow up with everyone that went so we can capitalize on this experience and help them begin to learn the gospel. We've already had 1 lesson from it last night and set one up for tomorrow night. We'll continue to make phone calls to set more up. We have some pretty tricky investigators lately with complex concerns having to do with Buddhism and what not so I've been trying to find out ways to straighten that out in my gospel study. It's interesting how many people think that more than one religion can be right at the same time and that they are all right because they all get people to do good things. And I guess they're partially true because all (ok maybe most) churches are good, but only one church is true. Sometimes it's a struggle to get that all straightened out with people though.
One thing I really liked from what Elder Wilson said the other day in his talk that kind of has to do with that scripture you shared mom is he said "the people you meet are those that God has put into your life curriculum. Your job is to learn how to love them." I thought that was pretty profound. It always seems like wherever you go, and we've been quite a few places now I suppose, there will always be people who test your patience or who you don't really get along with or find annoying or are just not very endearing and I'm pretty sure that's how life will always be until you learn to become more Christlike and love everyone. I'll probably still be working on that for a while.
That sounds like a rather insane bike ride mom. Are you sure you want to do that? I would discourage it because I don't want you getting picked up by "cute" paramedic guys. Just have dad drive alongside. Having a car is very convenient. I can't even imagine living in the States without one. But then again, you could probably manage with a bike mom.
In any case, that's about it for this week. We had 3 dinners last night. It was pretty wild. I was a little more conservative but Elder Lee was suffering haha. The first was scheduled. The second was at the FHE activity, and the 3rd was unscheduled but forced upon us. Pretty crazy stuff.
Love you!
-Ian
Had a wonderful week! Elder Lee and I were able to accomplish almost all of the goals we set for ourselves this week which is great. We were really excited about that. We hope to be able to continue improving and keep our investigators on the straight and narrow towards baptism. This area is great. I would love to stay as long as I can. I feel things are really moving along and I know that with faith this Chinese group can really reach a larger potential. There are prepared people everywhere.
Our family home evening type activity went really well yesterday surprisingly. We thought there would be like no one there but then like 10 people showed up from the Ward down in southern Fremont which is out of our mission. It was interesting. However, it gives us hope for the next one. Sister Breen hopes to have an activity like this at least twice a month so we're definitely going to get investigators lined up to come to the next one since it really is a very effective fellowshipping tool. Pretty good though... although we only had like 5 members from our group show up. No worries. Next time we'll get it all on lock down.
We put together a bunch of activities this week and it really made me realize how great the members of the Union City ward are. I guess I already knew but really they are amazing. We went to the young single adult fireside with Elder Scott (well not really Elder Scott since he got sick so Elder Wilson of the 2nd Quorum of the 70 stepped in) with three of our investigators who are students at Cal State East Bay and that was a great experience for them to see the temple and participate in an activity like that. One of the members, Ben, a young man preparing for his mission, was able to take us all up which was really helpful. Although at most they probably understood about 70%, Elder Wilson did give a great talk and the Spirit was there which I'm sure was helpful. Also, although only 2 of them previously knew one another, our other investigator from Beijing (Ethan) got along really well with them and so we're kind of using our investigators to fellowship our other investigators, which seems to be working pretty well. Ethan is pretty awesome and went out to Shunyi on the weekends when he was in Beijing haha so he knows exactly where ISB is and all that other stuff, pretty small world eh? Anyways, he asked one of the other investigators that came (Ryan) if he had been baptized and he was like "no" and then Ryan asked Ethan if he had and he answered "no, but I am going to on the 27th!" It was good to hear an answer like that and we're feeling really good about Ethan. He really enjoys church too! So that's a definitely plus.
We also took our English class up to the temple on Saturday which was quite crazy. We had about 17 students sign up and had 27 actually show up. Miraculously, we had enough members there to seat everyone and had absolutely no seats left over once everyone was on board. It was pretty crazy. It could not have gone better than it did though. We went in and listened to the Cristus recording and then watched the 20 minute Restoration movie after which we split into 2 groups and one group we took around the visitor center and the other was taken by the Chinese sisters to the temple grounds. It was a pretty spiritual experience for all involved. We're doing our best to follow up with everyone that went so we can capitalize on this experience and help them begin to learn the gospel. We've already had 1 lesson from it last night and set one up for tomorrow night. We'll continue to make phone calls to set more up. We have some pretty tricky investigators lately with complex concerns having to do with Buddhism and what not so I've been trying to find out ways to straighten that out in my gospel study. It's interesting how many people think that more than one religion can be right at the same time and that they are all right because they all get people to do good things. And I guess they're partially true because all (ok maybe most) churches are good, but only one church is true. Sometimes it's a struggle to get that all straightened out with people though.
One thing I really liked from what Elder Wilson said the other day in his talk that kind of has to do with that scripture you shared mom is he said "the people you meet are those that God has put into your life curriculum. Your job is to learn how to love them." I thought that was pretty profound. It always seems like wherever you go, and we've been quite a few places now I suppose, there will always be people who test your patience or who you don't really get along with or find annoying or are just not very endearing and I'm pretty sure that's how life will always be until you learn to become more Christlike and love everyone. I'll probably still be working on that for a while.
That sounds like a rather insane bike ride mom. Are you sure you want to do that? I would discourage it because I don't want you getting picked up by "cute" paramedic guys. Just have dad drive alongside. Having a car is very convenient. I can't even imagine living in the States without one. But then again, you could probably manage with a bike mom.
In any case, that's about it for this week. We had 3 dinners last night. It was pretty wild. I was a little more conservative but Elder Lee was suffering haha. The first was scheduled. The second was at the FHE activity, and the 3rd was unscheduled but forced upon us. Pretty crazy stuff.
Love you!
-Ian
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