Cold

Herrow!  Happy Father's Day!...Yesterday!  Yeah I was gonna call you guys anyway but I don't actually remember your number.  Or my old number I should say.  That sounds like a pretty fun trip Joel's on right now. I want to go!  So unfair!  Can't believe he didn't even invite me...

 

So I have a pretty bad cold today.  Woke up yesterday with a scratchy throat since we opened the window to sleep (which we do almost every night but it must have been blowing in a particularly vibrant brand of virus that night) and it's just been getting worse.  Last night was pretty longggggggg... kept having to get up to blow my nose and my throat felt like it was on fire.  I said a prayer to ask for some kind of cough medicine and then found some literally 5 seconds later haha. Not sure how much it helped but it had at least a placebo effect.  I don't really know about all these Chinese remedies for curing colds though.  Is it true you can just sweat it out?  Anyways, we ran lake merrit around noon and it did seem to help.  Still.  I' haven't gotten sick in a while and it's really not my cup of tea.  Quite inconvenient expect for if you're like 7 and going to elementary school in which case it's actually kind of nice in a way...

 

So Fiona came up with some random concerns that we don't really understand too well.  She actually passed her baptismal interview which we told her means that she's ready to be baptized but she said she doesn't feel ready.  Not sure why.  She might just think it's too fast or something.  She was saying ridiculous things like "I want to read the whole Book of Mormon before I get baptized" and "there are still some imperfect things about myself I feel like I need to change first"... anyways, so she wasn't baptized this weekend.  However, Brother Xing's baptism went really well.  He's super funny but shared a really great testimony at his baptismal service.  He's got a pretty solid testimony and he's just a really cool guy.  The baptismal service went really well too.  Unfortunately Fiona left church early for some reason and so she missed it even though she said she wanted to come.  Very lame of her.

 

We added 11 new investigators this week which was pretty cool.  Two of them are sisters from HaiNan and are preparing to be baptized next month.  The younger sister, Wang Li, is 22 and is a "Christian" although she doesn't know much about Christianity and hasn't been baptized.  The older sister, Wang Yan, is 25 and doesn't really have any set of beliefs but seems really interested in obtaining one.  They've been in the states for 20 something days.  Pretty prepared.  I think they quite enjoyed church yesterday so hopefully they won't get scared off by the inevitable accusation that we're a cult.  Something I've come to realize about that though is that if they know you pretty well and like you as a missionary, other people calling us a cult won't scare them off right away.  They'll at least come for an explanation generally and give you a chance to explain the situation.  I've definitely learned a lot about developing the right kind of relationship with investigators.  I definitely want to stay in contact with all the people I've been able to teach and baptize here in the bay area.  I think a lot of missionaries just kind of cut off all contact or find it hard to get in contact just because of where they served but I'm pretty sure most of my recent converts have facebook... so... it should be pretty easy.

 

That's great we'll be able to come back for a couple days in August.  That's like right after I'll have left haha.  Leave for a week and then suddenly show up again ha.  It's too bad we wouldn't be able to come on a Sunday so we could go to church in Chinatown but oh well... that's ok.

 

Yeah I'm not sure how much an xbox would be worth these days but I suspect not a lot.  I don't really expect to play any video games when I get back but maybe I can give it to someone...

 

Anyways, I'm really enjoying being here in Oakland.  Apart from being sick.  Oakland honestly has absoutely the best weather of any place I have ever been.  And I think that even includes South Africa... mainly cause I can't remember how nice the weather was there.  But seriously.  Oakland.  Too bad the quality of the people here isn't quite up to standards.  Rather rude of them to "occupy" the area and make it not as nice as it should be.  San Francisco is too cold and north, south, and west all get too hot.  Berkeley's not bad... but it's full of liberals so...

 

In any case, thanks for all your love and support!  I love you!  Have a great week!

 

-Ian