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