YMCA!

Hai

Too bad about the pictures. I was hoping to see some sweet cherry blossom adventure. However, the cherry blossom festival in Japantown is coming up so we'll see if we can't schedule some tracting or something over there during the festival and then happen upon the festivities. I wasn't in SF last year when it was going on.

That's kind of funny about your office burning down dad haha. I think most of the time those ceiling sprinklers end up causing more damage than the actual fire. Kind of like my year at BYU where we had approximately no fires but I think 3 or 4 random sprinkler attacks where entire floors were flooded and all heck broke loose. Including on my floor... fortunately only on the half I wasn't a part of. Those sprinklers are super powerful though.

So things are going pretty well here. We had 2 baptized last week but only 1 confirmed this weekend which was a first for me... Steven Chen failed to show up at his own confirmation. We were thinking about doing a proxy confirmation but then realized you can only do them for the permanently absent. In any case, we still haven't managed to get ahold of him to figure out what happened. Although he really wasn't the only one since we had like 32 people (investigators, members, recent converts and the like) who committed to come to church and then had an actual of 16 who came. It wasn't even raining! Which was probably working against us since one of our investigators had some workers over to her house to fix something who wouldn't have come if it rained she said. Basically kind of a bust. not a total failure mind you but it could have gone better. In any case, we went over to the YMCA this week which is across the street from our English Class here in Chinatown and held a basketball activity for the young ppl in our small group. It went pretty well and we discovered that there are a whole host of other young Chinatown people who go there that we were able to meet. Basically we're thinking of getting a YMCA membership and then playing basketball there everyday instead of street contacting. I think my perception of missionary work has changed a ton in the past little while. We do as little street contacting as possible just because of how much more effectively we can use our time doing other things like setting up lessons with people, participating in random activities in Chinatown and doing stuff like that. I sometimes feel like it would actually be easier to be a good missionary in everyday life as a normal person if that's what I was really focused on all of the time. I can just imagine how many of my classmates I could get to come to church if I went to school at one of these high schools.

We have a bunch of really great investigators right now even though a bunch of them didn't show to church this week for some reason. We have about 4 people scheduled to be baptized on Easter and 1 for April Fool's Day haha between sessions of general conference. We met with Alice's mom yesterday for the first time in a while (the one half paralyzed since December) and convinced her that she needs to be baptized on Easter. So we're gonna be working hard to make that happen. She basically only has to come to church every week till then and she'll be fine. I feel like most people who are ready to be baptized are basically already living most of the commandments and just need to develop faith and commit. Especially these young people. As long as they have desire and a basic understanding, they can join the church and then learn more. At least that's the philosophy we're going with for the time being.

Anyways, thanks for your emails this week. Love you!

-Ian

The Field is White

Hai!

I'm writing today on a really massive 27-inch iMac in the apple store. Despite the fact this screen is bigger than big the font is still really really small and hard to read. Kind of ironic.

Had a pretty good week here. Our Sacrament Meeting attendance wasn't as good as last week but still remained pretty high. We had about 22 attendees and 8 investigators which is pretty good and just enough to keep the feeling of excitement and growth so vital to our small group. Everyone stayed after for literally an hour and a half and just chatted and bonded with one another. It was pretty awesome. We had all of our recent converts there except for JianHua who was baptized in October and is going through a rather rebellious stage, but his brother was there and all his friends who he is trying valiantly to convince not to come hahaha. His mom (also our investigator and a regular at church) said he doesn't really know what to do now cause he's like trying to convince everyone not to come to church and say it's bad and everything but it's totally not working and now he just feels left out because he's the only one not coming hahaha. We had 6 high school guys there, 3 of whom are recent converts, 2 of which have a baptismal date, and 1 who we just need to start teaching. Pretty sweet. I don't really get it though... We've taught like 3 girls at their school and they have like no spirituality and no desire but all the guys we teach are like "I want to be baptized now!" And then come to church regularly. It's pretty sweet but way the opposite from what it usually is since i always thought sisters had more spirituality than brothers. Anyways, we're hoping to get a temple trip organized to take all these recent converts to do baptisms but we're already so busy teaching investigators that it's tough to find time to focus on them as well.

We had a pretty cool experience on Saturday afternoon teaching one of our investigators scheduled to be baptized this coming Sunday. She was being all hesitant about her baptism saying she wanted to change to March etc etc and so finally I was like "alright let's kneel and pray and see what Heavenly Father thinks." Now this is generally an "all or nothing" approach to resolving an investigators concern and in my experience only really works like 70% of the time since a lot of the time they can't really recognize the influence of the Holy Ghost or what it's telling them. So anyways, we kneel and set the expectation that we'll wait and listen for about a minute after she finishes. So after she finishes praying she goes "I think He's telling me I'm OK".... I'm like... uh oh what does that mean?... "I feel like I need to get baptized on the 26th and stop worrying about everything else since it'll all work itself out." Elder Brown and I were like "YEP!" Haha. Really a pretty miraculous answer to prayer. I feel like prayer kind of works like that though. Sometimes it really yields great results and other times it just does not get answered like you want it to. Kind of like how I was praying that the Huang sisters would be able to make it to church this Sunday and then they didn't... Argh!!! It was pretty lame too because we went to the Oakland Temple Visitor's Center on Wednesday and had a really great spiritual experience and set a baptismal date with them for March 3rd which they'll not be able to now meet because they can't come to church 3 times. Really frustrating. Sometimes this Chinese sense of intense filial piety is really really annoying. And their mom's not even like that strongly opposed to them coming to church they're just afraid that she'll be mad they can't be with her on her only day off. Which I suppose I can understand but we've stressed the importance of church with them so many times you'd think they'd have strong enough faith by now to make it there regularly or bring their mom and help her to at least come to an understanding that no, we're not a cult and church isn't a place where we just do nothing and sing songs or something.

Anyways, things are going pretty well. I'm really enjoying serving in downtown San Francisco. I guess I've been in this area for about a year now... man. But honestly I feel like my vision for missionary work has been so drastically changed in the time that I have spent here. I could not even imagine baptizing like 2 or 3 people in one month last time I was serving here and now it's pretty lame if we don't. We have Zhang SiShun pretty solid for next weekend and we're gonna be doing our darndest to get Xia Fan on board since she's already gotten her answer from God. Hopefully she'll have the courage to act on it.

In any case, that cracks me up that Seth was living like that. How stingy can you be? And is that 60 american dollars?! If so then that's a huge ripoff! hahaha!

Pretty impressive about the running madness you two are engaged in. Yeah I don't doubt I could probably run about 10 miles without too much difficulty at this point as long as I kept a steady pace. Elder Brown is running me rather ragged and since it hasn't killed me yet, I think I've become rather stronger as a result. Unfortunately, his application to BYU just got denied which is a huge bummer for him... but I think there are some backups in place so it'll probably turn out alright.

In any case, with regards to my release date, it's technically Sept. 5... but I'm sure I'll have to be leaving a little bit early to make it back in time for school and stuff so I'll talk to President Wade maybe and then get back to you. And can't I sign up for classes in March? I thought that's what you said...

Anyways, Love you guys! Have a great week!

-Ian

There is Sunshine in my Soul

This week was sooo much better! We had like 33 people come to church 12 of whom were investigators and probably like 4 or 5 were nonmembers from english class or just people we invited on the street. It was pretty sweet. We called a ton of people on Saturday and got commitments out of a lot so we were really excited to have a good attendance this week and it went really well. We also moved Sacrament Meeting to the beginning and had a bit of a shorter gospel principles lesson afterwards making the whole meeting a tiny bit over an hour which worked out perfectly. Then afterwards we had a potluck activity which we have once a month (will probably change it to twice a month if at all possible) which was a huge success cause it basically provided a great opportunity for everyone to get to know eacthother and socialize etc. It was a great experience over all. When you have a church meeting like that, it's really easy to keep people coming because they want to be there because of what a positive experience it is. I really enjoyed it anyway. I think I've finally caught the vision of what potential we have here in this area and what to do to keep it up.

Even the Huang sisters showed up! They said their mom got sick so they could do whatever they wanted that day and Elder Brown was like "finally she's being punished!!!" Hahaha. They laughed really hard at that since they knew he was joking (hopefully...) ha. It's not really their mom's decision though ultimately since they are both over 20 and can totally do whatever they want anyway. However they had a great experience yesterday and so we hope they'll continue coming.

In other news, that's cool that John is coming out to visit you. I vaguely remember what he looks like and stuff so that's good. A tour of the state department?... wat? Why? There's like nothing interesting there. Just ask dad! Haha. Pretty lame.

My back feels alright now. I just kind of had a weird knot in it last week or something. In any case, yeah, Elder Brown likes to exercise so I've been doing more exercise than I think I ever have in my life. It's definitely having an effect although I still really don't like to wake up in the morning so I don't know how effective I'll be at keeping it up once we're seperated. But we'll see. Sometimes I have more self discipline than I give myself credit for.

Anyways, you might be able to find me walking around Chinatown this time dad. We spend more time there than I did last time I was in this area. Also I'm thinking I may not want to take that random bioethics course in the fall so I just changed my schedule a little. Mostly cause I think possibly 15 credits would be enough to keep me busy.

In any case, I guess that's all I have to talk about this week. Thanks for your letters and stuff. And also the magnets... even though I thought it was the ipod shuffle... but that's ok! Magnets are great too! Happy Valentine's Day!

Love you!

-Ian

There is Sunshine in my Soul

This week was sooo much better! We had like 33 people come to church 12 of whom were investigators and probably like 4 or 5 were nonmembers from english class or just people we invited on the street. It was pretty sweet. We called a ton of people on Saturday and got commitments out of a lot so we were really excited to have a good attendance this week and it went really well. We also moved Sacrament Meeting to the beginning and had a bit of a shorter gospel principles lesson afterwards making the whole meeting a tiny bit over an hour which worked out perfectly. Then afterwards we had a potluck activity which we have once a month (will probably change it to twice a month if at all possible) which was a huge success cause it basically provided a great opportunity for everyone to get to know eacthother and socialize etc. It was a great experience over all. When you have a church meeting like that, it's really easy to keep people coming because they want to be there because of what a positive experience it is. I really enjoyed it anyway. I think I've finally caught the vision of what potential we have here in this area and what to do to keep it up.

Even the Huang sisters showed up! They said their mom got sick so they could do whatever they wanted that day and Elder Brown was like "finally she's being punished!!!" Hahaha. They laughed really hard at that since they knew he was joking (hopefully...) ha. It's not really their mom's decision though ultimately since they are both over 20 and can totally do whatever they want anyway. However they had a great experience yesterday and so we hope they'll continue coming.

In other news, that's cool that John is coming out to visit you. I vaguely remember what he looks like and stuff so that's good. A tour of the state department?... wat? Why? There's like nothing interesting there. Just ask dad! Haha. Pretty lame.

My back feels alright now. I just kind of had a weird knot in it last week or something. In any case, yeah, Elder Brown likes to exercise so I've been doing more exercise than I think I ever have in my life. It's definitely having an effect although I still really don't like to wake up in the morning so I don't know how effective I'll be at keeping it up once we're seperated. But we'll see. Sometimes I have more self discipline than I give myself credit for.

Anyways, you might be able to find me walking around Chinatown this time dad. We spend more time there than I did last time I was in this area. Also I'm thinking I may not want to take that random bioethics course in the fall so I just changed my schedule a little. Mostly cause I think possibly 15 credits would be enough to keep me busy.

In any case, I guess that's all I have to talk about this week. Thanks for your letters and stuff. And also the magnets... even though I thought it was the ipod shuffle... but that's ok! Magnets are great too! Happy Valentine's Day!

Love you!

-Ian

The Straight and Narrow Path

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!

Choir of Angels

Hello!

Let me first answer some questions so I don't forget. California is really slow I guess so I still haven't received any word about my speeding ticket... I guess it would be too much to hope that they just forgot about it... more likely would be that it got caught up somewhere in the post service and I won't get it till I'm 45 and it's grown to $500,000,000... which, of course, by that time will be about $50 in our money now when adjusting for inflation so I suppose it's a bit of a win-win here.

Yes I did get the box! Thank you! We have a pretty sweet Christmas corner in our apartment now complete with the mini Christmas tree that Aunt Katherine sent me last year that I found still kicking around in the apartment where I had left it last year. So that was pretty awesome. What are the odds right?

Also for Christmas we could just call... or Elder Brown and I were thinking we could just use Skype since we're allowed to now... so I guess next week you may as well send me your Skype username as well as phone number since I'm pretty sure I've forgotten it... yep... definitely can't remember.

Sounds like your Christmas program was pretty good. We don't really have any plans as a group for Christmas but the whole branch is throwing a Christmas party on the night of the 23rd at the Sunset building so that should be good. Also we're going to have a Christmas potluck party thing at our English class on the 24th... and then on the 25th... we'll just be going out doing service and stuff. Should be pretty fun. The potluck yesterday went pretty well too. The Cheesecake investigator DID show up. We actually went to the restaurant she works at on Saturday so we could make sure she'd come. It's actually this weird Chinese food vegan restaurant and she makes vegan Cheesecakes with Tofu and imitation cream cheese which sounds weird but was actually really good. I might even like it a little better than actual cheesecake just because it's not so rich. Unfortunately, Elder Brown and I think she may have heard something bad about the church and so she only came for like a minute and then was like "I have something to do so I have to go!" and then left... which was really weird cause she was super excited to come... Oh well, we know where she works so we can see what's up sometime later on. Still, it's kind of annoying to have so much random anti-church rumors/propaganda.

Speaking of which, our awesome golden investigator Gregory got pretty much shut down by his dad who apparently is Christian, but according to Gregory, doesn't really practice his beliefs. Elder Brown and I kind of predicted something like this might happen but it seems like a little more intense than we thought since we think they may have taken away his phone since it's been off the past couple days and he didn't make it to church yesterday... but I guess we'll see how it works out. Hopefully we can get the situation worked out. But it is so annoying to have people who don't understand our beliefs at all just come to really erroneous conclusions and then make irrational decisions. And family opposition is so inconvenient.

Also Alice Luo's mom fainted the other day and hurt herself really seriously and so is in the hospital right now and has been for about a week. However she is doing a lot better and Alice is still really enthusiastic about the gospel and being baptized so things are still going really well in that area.

We went to this high school winter concert the other day (with permission) since we had a couple investigators who invited us to go and we went and met loads of their friends there which was awesome. It was a pretty hilariously unprofessional concert where the choir teacher (this super tall black guy) was like calling people out in the audience who ware making too much noise haha. He was like "Hey! You, you, and you - not in the choir, get out of the choir section! You know who you are!" Haha. It was a really hilarious concert though and we got loads of good contacts. Hopefully we can get them all to church. Even and Joseph are two students there who are scheduled to be baptized on the 24th. Pretty awesome. I don't really understand why they like coming to church so much but I guess it really is just easier for some people to feel the Spirit and helps them have motivation to do the right thing. Joseph texts us all the time and is like "hey guys go on Facebook right now and check this sweet video I posted!" We're like "um.... we don't have access to a computer right now... but..." And then follow up on his reading of the Book of Mormon haha.

Anyways, we just got back from Fisherman's Wharf where we ate at an overpriced restaurant with very mediocre food. However the view out the window was pretty nice so it wasn't a total loss.

Yes I am writing in my journal pretty often lately... not too much in Hayward... but without roommates you have a lot more time in the evenings so I'm keeping up pretty well here.

Alright well I'll just go ahead and end there since I don't have a whole lot more to report. But thanks for your emails! Sounds like not having a car is pretty inconvenient... if only the States actually had convenient public transit! Pretty sure it's not really possible to not have a car any place other than San Francisco... and maybe NYC.. but taking the bus in Oakland was pretty darn annoying haha.

Love you!

-Ian

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