The Gathering

We had a pretty good week. We met a guy named Gregory Huey the other day on the bus. He's a 16 year-old kid who was born here but who's parents are from Guangdong. We taught him yesterday after he came to church and had a really great lesson. He has a really strong desire to follow Christ. On the bus he was like "I think I'm going to join the Catholic church because I want to be closer with God." I was like "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a second! Come to our church first!" haha. It was pretty cool. He had a really great experience although he doesn't really speak Mandarin very well... but that's ok. We speak Taishanese... ok just kidding, but he speaks English so that works too. So as of right now, 3 of our 4 investigators scheduled to be baptized on the 24th are in high school. It's interesting to me how interested they are in the Gospel despite the fact they're so young. Pretty cool.

Our other investigator scheduled for the 24th is Alice Luo and she's doing pretty well. Yesterday was her second time at church. We taught her on Saturday and she was like "sorry I can't come tomorrow, I need to go register for classes..." Elder Brown was like "no. You need to come to church." She was still being a little resistant so finally, I was like "just get someone else to do it!" She paused for a second and was like "hmm... you're pretty smart. I could do that." Haha. She cracks me up. Especially since she brought a notepad and paper to Sacrament Meeting so she could take notes and stuff.

I love church here. It's usually stressful and people don't have a good experience but our group here in downtown is really great. We had an awesome fast and testimony meeting yesterday where we had our recent convert Ian Yan (moving to Provo at the end of the month haha), a member who had been less active for 35 years because church was so far away but who is active now because of the new group, and a couple other really awesome members share their testimonies. It was so great. And then afterwards everyone just kind of hangs around and chats with one another. Church is awesome here. Also we have a potluck activity every second Sunday of the month after church which is coming up this weekend which Elder Brown says is awesome so I'm excited for that. We met a woman on the bus coming home yesterday who we invited to church and it turns out she works for this place that makes all kinds of cakes and pies and she said she'll bring 2 cheesecakes to church next week. I told her "looks like us meeting you really WAS arrainged by God!" Haha. Pretty sweet.

Anyways, the new movies about Jesus' life look really sweet. I'm excited for when we can start using them as proselyting tools and stuff. I guess some of them are already up on LDS.org. Also, I don't have much time left so I'd better go write a quick letter to President Wade. Zone Conference this week. Hoorah!

Love you!

-Ian