Hellow!
We had a pretty good week. We had a goal initially of having 3 people baptized this weekend and ended up with one, which in and of itself was something of a miracle I have to say. Ma, HuaQiang was definitely not even thinking about anything close to baptism about 1 month ago and to see the change of heart that he has experienced is pretty amazing. Unfortunately, his mom, who was also scheduled to be baptized this weekend was forbidden rather strongly by her husband for some reason that we don't fully understand. We did try to convince him otherwise. We tried to strike a deal where we'd teach her English if he let her be baptized, then we tried to convince him it wouldn't affect her ability to find work (which seemed to be his major concern) and that there was absolutely no downside to getting baptized (which there really isn't). In any case, it came down to him being really really stubborn and obstinate in his opposition and there was nothing we could say or do that would change his mind. Really weird since he didn't care about his kids getting baptized. In any case, kind of a tough concern to resolve. She's really ready to be baptized but he is definitely not having it.
Our other investigator meant to be baptized yesterday, Carlyn Chen, was very very close. She's a 16 year old girl in high school and really acts her age, or perhaps younger than her age.
Whatever the case, we were a little pressed for time and so taught her a rather long lesson on Saturday afternoon where we basically taught her almost everything haha. Kind of a mainland China gospel teaching approach. Then she had her baptismal interview where she insisted she wanted to try alcohol and coffee later in life because she wanted to know what they tasted like. Basically a rather ridiculous concern which is probably not the true root of her concern.
However, we'll spend some more time teaching her and hopefully help her cultivate a stronger desire to be baptized and some stronger faith in Christ that will allow her to overcome concerns. Hopefully be able to shoot for the end of January or early February for her date.
Have I told you about our district leader by the way? Elder Jin from XinJiang? I think I probably have... but in any case, I asked him yesterday how big the branch is in Urumuqi and he was like "6 people" haha. Him, his parents, his aunt, his grandma, and his cousin. Pretty sweet ratio of full time missionaries to members now though ha. He's a pretty funny guy and speaks really good Chinese. Hopefully I can use my guanxi with him to get to go out to visit XinJiang again and see some more sights. Pretty cool place.
So we had a pretty crazy day yesterday. First off, yesterday was stake conference so we had to find transportation for our investigators and members to get from Chinatown all the way down to Pacifica. Then, once we got there, we discovered that they hadn't brought any of the translation equipment which I was absolutely baffled at because I had totally thought about it the day before but was just like "nah they definitely have it under control". They didn't. So we raced back to the Sunset chapel, grabbed the equipment, and raced back and I translated for the last hour and 15 minutes. It went pretty well actually. I think my ability to translate has actually improved a lot from all the practice I got in Union City. I'm at least the most qualified to do it here in the Chinese branch in San Francisco anyway.
Anyways, then we had the baptismal service immediately after... or so we thought. We ended up waiting for like 40 minutes listening to prelude while the bishop of the Samoan Ward (we combined our baptism with theirs) made us wait while he was in a meeting or something. It was very ridiculous since we had President Wade and President Pearce (our branch president) in attendance so we totally could have and should have started without him. Very frustrating. However the baptism itself went well and HuaQiang bore a pretty great testimony at the end.
Then, that night we had a missionary stake correlation meeting with President Wade and the stake president Dillinder and then we had a fireside called "why I believe" which we were assigned to organize and conduct this month. It was pretty ridiculous. Fortunately, as is usually what happens when you do your best and pray a lot, it all went very well. Why I believe had a really really small turnout but ended up being one of the most spiritual meetings I've attended as a missionary and just in general. It was pretty sweet.
Yeah pretty crazy finally running into Lynn and Anette at the Daly City Chapel. It was good to see them again.
Good to hear us Mormons are looking up in the whole public media arena. Hope Romney can get elected... although that would probably not be a good thing since I don't think anybody really likes the President no matter who it is haha. Pretty thankless job. Can't please anyone.
I'll send my iPod along today probably. When is the class signup time for the fall semester anyways? Probably not for a while... right?
Anyways, I'm excited for the coming week. We had a bunch of trainings and stuff last week that took up a bunch of our time so we hope to be able to use our time effectively this week and really make things happen. We're gonna start teaching Alice Luo's parents who she's like "get them baptized!!!" Haha and we're gonna teach another one of her friends who is 16 years old here in San Francisco. We have a goal to have 5 baptized in February and definitely have the faith to get it done.
Love you! Have a great week!
