Herrow!
Glad to hear you got my awesome heart-card. It took me about 6 hours to get that drawing done... but I think it was worth it. Good to talk to you guys this week. Although it made me feel kind of trunky. Like makes me think about what's going to happen when I get home... which is weird... and best not to think about. But I guess you'd better start arranging people for me to marry since I expect to be married at most 6 weeks after I get home. Haha Elder Lee was telling me about how the only thing his mom talked to him about was how she's making all kinds of plans for him to marry his girlfriend when he gets home. He was like "mom why are you talking about this to me now?" haha. Pretty funny.
Good to hear you had the Johnsons come over to be your proxy children for mother's day. How old is Eric and Will now? Is Eric in high school already? Pretty wild. But I guess it's been like 3 or 4 years since we lived there last. We were listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir last night and listened to that one song that took the lyrics from John 3:16-17 which always makes me think about how we sang that in the choir in the Arlington ward which was pretty epic. Pretty great choir.
Which reminds me of yesterday when we sang one of those mother's day songs out of the children's hymn book with the elder's quorum. And the elder's quorum president president was like really hilariously professional about it. First of all he got bright red bowties for everyone which was hilarious cause it was like the cheesiest thing in the world but Elder Lee and I were talking about it and decided that they didn't see it as cheesy or weren't doing it to be funny. But we thought it was pretty hilarious. And then Felix's (the elder's quorum president) bowtie was different than everyone else's since it was white and he was conducting us like we were some kind of professional choir. So funny since we were not only an unprofessional elder's quorum, but an unprofessional chinese elder's quorum at that haha. It was pretty funny though. Such a weird program for mother's day... people just like went up and talked about their mothers and then one guy went up and read some random poem about mothers while another brother was playing this random song on the piano as background music. It was pretty weird. But I think our investigator Sister Meng was a fan. Especially of all the men in the branch and how they were all praising mothers and stuff. Her husband and 8 year old son are coming to the States in June or July which is pretty awesome. So lots of potential there.
That's cool that dad's chinese teacher finally made it to the states. Although to be honest, Falongdafa people are weeeirrrrdddd hahahaha. I ran into this Falonggong lady in San Francisco twice and she was talking our heads off about how awesome falonggong is for like 30 minutes each time. Finally, we ran into her AGAIN right by our apartment here in Oakland where she apparently lives which was hilarious and she talked to us for like an hour about how falonggong is the best and we should convert. Anyways, she ended up talking about how aliens gave us technology to harm us and how we shouldn't eat any genetically modified food because it will make our kids deformed. It was really really hilarious. But on the upside, she seemed like a nice person and is really committed to her faith, which I think counts for something since if all of our members were as active in spreading the gospel as she is in spreading falonggong, I think missionary work could really be going places. I really think the church has a lot of untapped potential in the members. I feel like the missionary program could be so much better if we could just get the members on board.
I'd better write my president's letter now... but I can probably call you on skype next time if you like. Since it seems like everyone else was using it. Well not everyone else... but some people.
Love you guys!
-Ian
Monday, May 9, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
Downtown Oakland - New Area
Hai!
Yes! Sister Zheng did get baptized yesterday! I went back to San Francisco for it and everything. She actually got baptized with another sister named SIster Huang who was the sister missionaries' investigator in the Daly City area. It was pretty fun to go back to San Francisco though... even though I'd only been gone for about a week haha. It was good to see everyone from my old branch. Especially our branch mission leader Brother Yang who's really funny and awesome.
Also it was great to see Sister Zheng get baptized. I ended up like running the baptism haha. I played the piano for both the musical numbers, for the hymns, gave a talk on baptism, did translation, witnessed the baptism, and shared a spiritual thought while Sister Zheng and Sister Huang were getting changed back into their normal clothes haha. Sister Zheng shared her testimony at the end which was really great. She talked about how she couldn't quite put her finger on it, but after she started meeting with me and Elder Wu, she felt like there was something more in her life. She felt like a "warmth" she hadn't felt before and it was definitely different. It was really great to hear her bear that testimony cause it definitely strengthened my faith that we truly are working with the Spirit and helping others to feel its influence in their lives. Which is fortunate, cause I'm thinking it's what makes the difference between us and salesman haha. Also cause what we're selling is free.
So, at the beginning of the week, we had virtually no investigators in the area. Elder Lee and Elder Tang were working in the english program in Alameda for the past two weeks because the elder there was waiting for a new missionary to arrive that he would be training. So this area here had been kind of neglected for a bit basically haha. So anyways we got dropped by all the investigators Elder Tang and Lee were previiously working with in this area, so we're doing our best to add investigators to our teaching pool as fast as we can. We added 5 last week, which was pretty good, but we're hoping to add even more this week.
We found this art school called the California College of Art that we went to go contact at cause I was like "yeah another AAU!!!!" But then we got there and it was like this really rundown, weird, creepy school with like no people. When we first got there, we ran into this Taiwanese girl and were like "yes! There are gonna be plenty where this came from!!!"... She wasn't interested... and there weren't... So that ended our trips to the California College of Art. However, we found a big list of all the universities in the area and although our area doesn't cover Alameda, we're gonna go there to contact at the College of Alameda since Elder Lee says there are a lot of chinese people there which I don't doubt in the slightest cause it seems like they like to come to america and study at really random schools... although I guess the California college of art is a little too random... It was so weird... there were all these faces carved into the trees and rocks and just had a really creepy feeling... also I rolled my ankle walking down this random rocky path. So basically it was probably haunted anyway.
Yeah it's always knid of struck me as weird that we don't really do anything special for Easter in our church. Actually someone brought it up during Sunday school and we were all like "ummmm... Idk....." Our branch president did mention something about it during sacrament meeting but there really wasn't anything special. Sounds like you guys had a pretty good Easter program though so... at least someone is making a big deal about it.
And no I haven't gotten the easter basket yet.... but it's nice to know there's one coming! Thanks! We'll probably head up to the mission office today and see if it's there. Although getting up there is kind of a pain without a car... which we're going to bug president Wade about till he gives us one haha. Mainly cause the bus really isn't allt hat convenient in this area... especially on p-day when we have to walk miles and miles to get anywhere... although this library was really convenient to our apartment... ok well maybe I'm exaggerating a little... But still... a car would be nice... Haha I got so spoiled for those 2 days that we had one...
Elder Lee and I are having quite a bit of fun working together but we are still working haha. We do a lot of contacting in Chinatown which, although it is more effective than San Francisco's Chinatown for some reason, is still not the best ever. Our english class does haev a lot more potential though since we have like 40 students in the intermediate class which we teach and like 60 in the beginner class, which the other Elders teach. We have a lot of potential investigators that I think we could be better about contacting. Also we're doing a lot about working with formers which seems to be doing pretty well. We added a family last night who first contacted the church like 5 years ago... and they were like "Yeah I believe your church is true... I just don't want to get baptized cause I feel like it would be going against my Chinese traditions..." So we're thinking they just don't understand what "your church is true" really means. So we're gonna help them find out.
So this new area isn't nearly as ghetto as I thought it'd be. In fact, it's way less luanqibazao than San Francisco even was haha. Although our area doesn't actually cover West Oakland which I hear is the real ghetto... and I've heard it's not that safe to go out at night but, as missionaries, that's not a huge problem anyway.
That's cool you got to baptize Jimmy Xu finally dad! Seems like he's taken quite a while. But I'm sure his wife can't be too far behind. Just get them to do family prayer and read the book of mormon together and I'm sure good things will happen.
That's cool you get to go to Hawaii. I think I'm going there for summer break so... Or maybe the next zone activity.
Hey, only 2 more weeks and we get to talk on the phone! Wah! Time's gone pretty fast... Feel like a super veteran missionary already... except not really cause it seems like I just got out haha.
Love you guys! Thanks for your emails and prayers and support! I know they're helping!
Have a great week! And give more referrals to the missionaries! Maybe if you do it will send some good kharma this way and we'll actually get some! I have yet to receive a referral from an active member of the church... which is frustrating haha.
Love you!
-Ian
Yes! Sister Zheng did get baptized yesterday! I went back to San Francisco for it and everything. She actually got baptized with another sister named SIster Huang who was the sister missionaries' investigator in the Daly City area. It was pretty fun to go back to San Francisco though... even though I'd only been gone for about a week haha. It was good to see everyone from my old branch. Especially our branch mission leader Brother Yang who's really funny and awesome.
Also it was great to see Sister Zheng get baptized. I ended up like running the baptism haha. I played the piano for both the musical numbers, for the hymns, gave a talk on baptism, did translation, witnessed the baptism, and shared a spiritual thought while Sister Zheng and Sister Huang were getting changed back into their normal clothes haha. Sister Zheng shared her testimony at the end which was really great. She talked about how she couldn't quite put her finger on it, but after she started meeting with me and Elder Wu, she felt like there was something more in her life. She felt like a "warmth" she hadn't felt before and it was definitely different. It was really great to hear her bear that testimony cause it definitely strengthened my faith that we truly are working with the Spirit and helping others to feel its influence in their lives. Which is fortunate, cause I'm thinking it's what makes the difference between us and salesman haha. Also cause what we're selling is free.
So, at the beginning of the week, we had virtually no investigators in the area. Elder Lee and Elder Tang were working in the english program in Alameda for the past two weeks because the elder there was waiting for a new missionary to arrive that he would be training. So this area here had been kind of neglected for a bit basically haha. So anyways we got dropped by all the investigators Elder Tang and Lee were previiously working with in this area, so we're doing our best to add investigators to our teaching pool as fast as we can. We added 5 last week, which was pretty good, but we're hoping to add even more this week.
We found this art school called the California College of Art that we went to go contact at cause I was like "yeah another AAU!!!!" But then we got there and it was like this really rundown, weird, creepy school with like no people. When we first got there, we ran into this Taiwanese girl and were like "yes! There are gonna be plenty where this came from!!!"... She wasn't interested... and there weren't... So that ended our trips to the California College of Art. However, we found a big list of all the universities in the area and although our area doesn't cover Alameda, we're gonna go there to contact at the College of Alameda since Elder Lee says there are a lot of chinese people there which I don't doubt in the slightest cause it seems like they like to come to america and study at really random schools... although I guess the California college of art is a little too random... It was so weird... there were all these faces carved into the trees and rocks and just had a really creepy feeling... also I rolled my ankle walking down this random rocky path. So basically it was probably haunted anyway.
Yeah it's always knid of struck me as weird that we don't really do anything special for Easter in our church. Actually someone brought it up during Sunday school and we were all like "ummmm... Idk....." Our branch president did mention something about it during sacrament meeting but there really wasn't anything special. Sounds like you guys had a pretty good Easter program though so... at least someone is making a big deal about it.
And no I haven't gotten the easter basket yet.... but it's nice to know there's one coming! Thanks! We'll probably head up to the mission office today and see if it's there. Although getting up there is kind of a pain without a car... which we're going to bug president Wade about till he gives us one haha. Mainly cause the bus really isn't allt hat convenient in this area... especially on p-day when we have to walk miles and miles to get anywhere... although this library was really convenient to our apartment... ok well maybe I'm exaggerating a little... But still... a car would be nice... Haha I got so spoiled for those 2 days that we had one...
Elder Lee and I are having quite a bit of fun working together but we are still working haha. We do a lot of contacting in Chinatown which, although it is more effective than San Francisco's Chinatown for some reason, is still not the best ever. Our english class does haev a lot more potential though since we have like 40 students in the intermediate class which we teach and like 60 in the beginner class, which the other Elders teach. We have a lot of potential investigators that I think we could be better about contacting. Also we're doing a lot about working with formers which seems to be doing pretty well. We added a family last night who first contacted the church like 5 years ago... and they were like "Yeah I believe your church is true... I just don't want to get baptized cause I feel like it would be going against my Chinese traditions..." So we're thinking they just don't understand what "your church is true" really means. So we're gonna help them find out.
So this new area isn't nearly as ghetto as I thought it'd be. In fact, it's way less luanqibazao than San Francisco even was haha. Although our area doesn't actually cover West Oakland which I hear is the real ghetto... and I've heard it's not that safe to go out at night but, as missionaries, that's not a huge problem anyway.
That's cool you got to baptize Jimmy Xu finally dad! Seems like he's taken quite a while. But I'm sure his wife can't be too far behind. Just get them to do family prayer and read the book of mormon together and I'm sure good things will happen.
That's cool you get to go to Hawaii. I think I'm going there for summer break so... Or maybe the next zone activity.
Hey, only 2 more weeks and we get to talk on the phone! Wah! Time's gone pretty fast... Feel like a super veteran missionary already... except not really cause it seems like I just got out haha.
Love you guys! Thanks for your emails and prayers and support! I know they're helping!
Have a great week! And give more referrals to the missionaries! Maybe if you do it will send some good kharma this way and we'll actually get some! I have yet to receive a referral from an active member of the church... which is frustrating haha.
Love you!
-Ian
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
The Acupuncture Approach...
Sounds pretty weird... the week was pretty weird here too... although it had less to do with the Federal Government... Had a pretty hilarious day on Wednesday. Just like really random. We have an investigator named Sister Luo who we've run into like 3 times randomly on the street (hen you yuan fen... not sure I entirely believe in the concept but it's proved to be pretty useful for adding new investigators) who works as a Chinese traditional medicine person in Chinatown. She specializes in ba guanr! (where they put those cups on your back and see how purple it gets... the more stagnant your qi, the more purple it gets... also apparently has some healing properties or something)... So anyways, we had a lesson with her on Wednesday but before we were going to meet with her, we ran into her as she was on her way to work in Chinatown so she took us to her office (she's pretty enthusiastic about everything and is really cool and funny.. and really likes us! haha) and we met her teacher Dr. Chen, who specializes in acupuncture. We chatted for a couple minutes and Elder Wu mentioned how he has bad knees and sometimes they hurt when he walks a lot or goes downstairs... then were like "well we'll just come back at 2:30 since we can't meet in our office anyway cause we couldn't find any male member to come along to our lesson. When we went back, Dr. Chen was like "come here and I'll treat your knees" and started feeling Elder Wu's knees and diagnosing him and stuff. Ended up sticking a couple needles in his arms in the joints by his elbows and the whole time I was like "uhh... ok..." Then Sister Luo wanted us to go meet her daughter who was working in Chinatown for the day like 4 or 5 blocks away and Dr. Chen was like, "Wait 20 minutes and I'll take out the needles..." Turns out, Sister Luo's daughter also has a degree in Chinese traditional medicine and she was like, "Hey let's just go! My daughter can do it!" So we ended up walking all over Chinatown with needles in Elder Wu's arms so he couldn't move them and was like, "Ouch! It feels so weird and tingly!" So random. I was just thinking the whole time... Where else would this happen? (Just went across the street since Elder Wu needed to use the bathroom so I kind of lost my train of thought...) That's pretty cool that Chad and Joel are there in DC. Just like old times... except no me! But I'm sure you can just make a cardboard cutout of me (if you haven't already) with a couple recorded phrases that play when you go by. Whatever the case, had a fairly good week. Three investigators came to church again.. although Brother A'Yong changed to Brother Lin. But it was pretty good. Sister Zheng is still on track to be baptized this Sunday which is great. We taught her almost all the commandments at once on Friday and she was like, "Yeah no problem! I already do that anyway! Yeah that makes sense!" So pretty much no problem there. Super great investigator. Kind of like Sister Ying! Unfortunately, it seems like for every golden investigator, there are like 10 others who really aren't golden and run into insurmountable obstacles which then lead to them having to be dropped which is really annoying. Kind of like Yufei who was like, "I don't think this church is all that suitable for me cause I don't like obeying commandments..." Pretty lame. Better wrap this up and whatnot since we're gonna go to Japantown and see all the cherry blossoms and hang out and take pictures and stuff (I got your package and do have the other memory card... but the one I have in my camera now is 4 gigabytes so I kind of want to at least get a few more photos on it before I send it back...). Should be pretty fun. Love you! Thanks for your funny emairs! Also tell Chad I rove him!... Except that he's a freak of nature with red cheeks and a pointy ear... but aside from that... Bai bai! -Ian
Monday, April 4, 2011
General Conference
Hai! Yeah well if the Japanese weren't so darn wicked! Then nothing bad would ever happen to them! Isn't that how things work? How if you're righteous then nothing bad will ever happen to you? Pretty sure I heard that yesterday in one of the talks... or that could've been something else entirely since I watched the Sunday morning session in Chinese and didn't get a whole lot out of it... which isn't to say I didn't understand it.... but those translators really don't have very much expression... which is lame since we had 3 investigators there and they all fell asleep... sigh... I guess i can't really blame them since I was pretty darn sleepy a year ago watching conference, not to mention a year and 6 months ago when I fell asleep IN the actual conference center... which is pretty lame. I don't know what I was thinking before I came on my mission. How could I have missed out on such awesomeness before... I must've been drugged by some malefactor... (Yes! I still know words like malefactor! Even after speaking nothing but Chinese for 7 months!... well almost...) Whatever the case, since I've already been through my second general conference on my mission I guess it means I'm pretty much halfway done. Man that time went fast! Although I've been in San Francisco 6 months! Not 5!!! Guess time is going a little faster than you even thought dad! This week went super super fast, speaking of time going fast. It seems like it was just yesterday that we went to golden gate park and looked at the incredibly exciting buffalo there... ok they weren't all that exciting. The sisters and other elders in our district went to the Zoo today but we figured a) it was too expensive and b) it was too far away... also we were too lazy to go with them and I want to play the piano which we keep missing out on cause the sisters keep organizing these random activities... although I guess the golden gate park thing wasn't their idea... in any case, we didn't go. But I'm thinking your dream version of me is better than any photos that I could send mom! I think I'll probably just refrain and keep letting you dream up really awesome looking versions of me. We had three investigators come to general conference yesterday (would've had 5 but 1 slept in on accident and the other one was too lazy and doesn't want to obey commandments... sigh... yufei...)... Which was pretty good. Had a really great member named sister Niu from Beijing who is really really faithful and knowledgeable about the gospel pick them all up and bring them to the stake center in Pacifica which is where the conference was broadcast. Anyways, that's cool you got to talk to Misty! But darn Adriana's getting married to some sharp Mexican guy. I can't compete with that! I'm neither sharp nor Mexican! Oh well, I'm sure i'll pull through... I've heard missions change people so... maybe I'll turn Mexican at least... We have this like mexicantown place in my area where I've been like twice in the 6 months serving here in downtown... mainly since there aren't a whole lot of Chinese people down there... which seems pretty authentic. I'm a pretty big fan of serving in downtown San Francisco. I don't really want to get transferred elsewhere although I'm thinking downtown Oakland might be kind of fun since that's where Elder Lee is and it'd be awesome if we could be companions at some point. Also, I've heard you get mugged all the time which is always fun fun fun! In any case, I'd better finish up so I can still have time to play piano. That's weird about "the Book of Mormon." I did actually hear about it from this random guy who started talking to us on the street and ended up being an investigator in a different area although all he said was that it was by the South Park people and was getting good reviews which I just assumed to mean that they just made Mormon people look stupid and everyone loved it. Which is generally how things go. But it seems like our church's public relations have been getting better recently since Mormon.org is pretty cool and I think more and more people know our church as a legitimate religion and not some cult or something. Although there are still quite a few people we talk to who are like "oh you're not Christian" and we're like "yes we are" and they're like "no you're not"... etc... Anyways, love you guys! Thanks for your emails! Hope you have a great week! -Elder Christensen
Monday, March 21, 2011
Some fell among (radioactive?) stony ground...
Herroww!
Well when I said Elder Wu's Mandarin wasn't that good I mean his pronunciation is pretty poor. But his mandarin is quite good. Despite the fact that mine might be just a little bit better (mainly in the pronunciation dept.), we only use Mandarin to communicate. Elder Wu is pretty cool. We get along really really well for the most part. Maybe even better than Elder Luo and I did since Elder Wu grew up in the church and as a HongKonger is a little more westernized. Also doesn't have random radical views of Chinese superiority/ethnocentrism haha.
Whatever the case, that sounds pretty serious about the nuclear plants in Japan. Although, let me share with you how it's affecting the work here in San Francisco. Got the most ridiculous message the other day from our investigators with an excuse for canceling our lesson I have not yet encountered on my mission. They were like (actually just the girlfriend sister jiang) (and i'm quoting word for word) "Sorry we won't come today and I recommend you not to be out neither. The cloud with nuclear radiation from japan arrives in SF today so that it very dangerous of the rain now. So don't go outside when it rains"... I was soooooo mad. The most ridiculous excuse I have ever heard for canceling anything in my whole life. NUCLEAR RADIATION CLOUD FROM JAPAN!?!?!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!?!? Also since we'd already invited a member to come to our lesson and this was about 5-10 minutes before we were scheduled to meet. I was so so angry. So I sent back (although I wanted to be more angry in my text) "We actually invited a firend to come to our lesson today so we'd love it if in the future you could give us an hour or two prior notice to let us know if you won't be available. To be honest there is absolutely nothing to worry about with regards to radiation from japan but if we turn into mutants or something we'll let you know. Are you coming to church tomorrow? or going out of town?" I'm not sure if she knows what a mutant is, but I guess she never will since we suffered very few ill effects from swimming through the dense cloud of nuclear radiation falling from the sky upon our heads.... Well Elder Wu and I had a bit of a headache... but we think that's mainly a result of our investigators being really annoying.
Apparently their parents had like called/emailed them and said that Chinese news was really talking up the radiation that was gonna come over to SF and so told them to stay inside and that although they know local news says it's nothing (it was), they trust Chinese news is more "reliable". Which two terms I always considered somewhat anathema to one another... At least one good thing came out of the experience since I had to learn what radiation was in chinese: 輻射。Whatever the case, that's cool you had a chance to take part in missionary work mom! Yep! That's pretty much how it goes! Investigators drop off the map and then don't answer their phone/the door and you don't have any idea why. Kind of like an investigator who was looking super golden who we met a couple weeks ago and set a baptismal date and then canceled an appt. via text saying she was sick and has, since that time, not answered our phone/texts which is really annoying and frustrating. Anyways, I'm sure everything will be ok in the end. Just depends on the will of God.
Elder Wu and I are always like "靠神的旨意！ 我們什麽都不需要做！“華華華！(the hua hua hua being of course a reference to something Anirudh once said in our chinese class in 9th grade... pretty good... I'm sure you remember...).... Clearly joking... but still fun to say.
I love speaking chinese in downtown san francisco. There really is no downside to SYL here since a)no one can understand you so you can say whatever you want and no one knows what you're saying, b) If they do understand you, then you get to talk to them about the gospel and start teaching them, c) Helps improve the ol' chinese speaking skills and d) Contacting is totally not awkward cause people around you don't know what you're saying and so your conversations are totally private... Also cause I don't have to use english to contact which although I do occasionally, is always awkward and not my favorite activity... although a couple people we've contacted have ended up being pretty cool and getting baptized. (Ok one guy so far... and he's kind of crazy... so... still... not bad.)I actually think about the parable of the sower a lot dad. Like how Sister Ying is like 100 fold awesomeness and then there is brother OuYang who is like the one that falls upon really shallow ground and when the sun comes up, gets all dried out and dies... sigh... so sad... If his stupid kids weren't such brats... ok that was harsh... but they are pretty bratty. Also since his wife isn't that supportive, and although I'd say it would help, I still think most of the power in that family lies in the hands of the children...which doesn't make very much sense to me but is really annoying. Especially since they're 4 and 9 and don't know anything.
However, we had a pretty successful week this week. Had a lot of lessons (11! Which is the highest for our area... Never had more than 11 but it's still the highest... we tried to set a record... but failed.... ) Also we found this awesome hotel right across from our office where we can just 隨便 go in and out without any problems at all and therefore can teach a lot more lessons with female investigators cause we don't need to find a 陪課 which takes a loooot of pressure off. Especially since a lot of the time having a 陪課 isn't even that useful since our members aren't very good at fellowshipping and don't really seem to get the purpose of coming along to lessons which is kind of frustrating. I wish you could come and give a pep talk too mom.
Haven't been singing too much. Had a musical number where we did 3 part harmony (tried 4... didn't really take since I ended up having to go sing base with Elder Wu he was having a little trouble and so the first verse was sounding pretty rough... ok really rough.. but after that it sounded pretty good.
That's pretty awesome you got to participate in that brother's sponge bath hospital experience mom! Keep it up! That's good that rochester is making friends. Always nice to hear updates on how he's doing. Getting in any fights with squirrels/mice lately? Although I guess all he has to do is chase them into the bathroom and they'll do the rest hahaha.
Anyways, that's about it for this week. Had 2 investigators come to church yesterday which is better than 1 but not all that great... at least sacrament meeting was in Mandarin yesterday instead of Mantonese... I just wish our branch was better cause it seems like none of our investigators really understand the importance of church attendance and as Elder Wu said "There's not really anything to attract them..." Which I can't really disagree with... but I don't really know what to do about it. We're thinking of hiring a rock band or putting on some chinese acrobatic shows... let me know if you have any other suggestions...
In any case, I guess i'll stop here since although there are a billion gajllion things that happen within the week, I cannot write but an hundredth part of them (get that reference?!?! I AM studying the scriptures and stuff!)... much less remember that much. Also I only really keep occasional journal entries (once every few days...) since we're pretty darn busy all the time and most nights we have to make a bunch of phone calls anyways....Kay. Love you guys! Thanks for your emails!
Bai bai!
-Ian
Well when I said Elder Wu's Mandarin wasn't that good I mean his pronunciation is pretty poor. But his mandarin is quite good. Despite the fact that mine might be just a little bit better (mainly in the pronunciation dept.), we only use Mandarin to communicate. Elder Wu is pretty cool. We get along really really well for the most part. Maybe even better than Elder Luo and I did since Elder Wu grew up in the church and as a HongKonger is a little more westernized. Also doesn't have random radical views of Chinese superiority/ethnocentrism haha.
Whatever the case, that sounds pretty serious about the nuclear plants in Japan. Although, let me share with you how it's affecting the work here in San Francisco. Got the most ridiculous message the other day from our investigators with an excuse for canceling our lesson I have not yet encountered on my mission. They were like (actually just the girlfriend sister jiang) (and i'm quoting word for word) "Sorry we won't come today and I recommend you not to be out neither. The cloud with nuclear radiation from japan arrives in SF today so that it very dangerous of the rain now. So don't go outside when it rains"... I was soooooo mad. The most ridiculous excuse I have ever heard for canceling anything in my whole life. NUCLEAR RADIATION CLOUD FROM JAPAN!?!?!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!?!? Also since we'd already invited a member to come to our lesson and this was about 5-10 minutes before we were scheduled to meet. I was so so angry. So I sent back (although I wanted to be more angry in my text) "We actually invited a firend to come to our lesson today so we'd love it if in the future you could give us an hour or two prior notice to let us know if you won't be available. To be honest there is absolutely nothing to worry about with regards to radiation from japan but if we turn into mutants or something we'll let you know. Are you coming to church tomorrow? or going out of town?" I'm not sure if she knows what a mutant is, but I guess she never will since we suffered very few ill effects from swimming through the dense cloud of nuclear radiation falling from the sky upon our heads.... Well Elder Wu and I had a bit of a headache... but we think that's mainly a result of our investigators being really annoying.
Apparently their parents had like called/emailed them and said that Chinese news was really talking up the radiation that was gonna come over to SF and so told them to stay inside and that although they know local news says it's nothing (it was), they trust Chinese news is more "reliable". Which two terms I always considered somewhat anathema to one another... At least one good thing came out of the experience since I had to learn what radiation was in chinese: 輻射。Whatever the case, that's cool you had a chance to take part in missionary work mom! Yep! That's pretty much how it goes! Investigators drop off the map and then don't answer their phone/the door and you don't have any idea why. Kind of like an investigator who was looking super golden who we met a couple weeks ago and set a baptismal date and then canceled an appt. via text saying she was sick and has, since that time, not answered our phone/texts which is really annoying and frustrating. Anyways, I'm sure everything will be ok in the end. Just depends on the will of God.
Elder Wu and I are always like "靠神的旨意！ 我們什麽都不需要做！“華華華！(the hua hua hua being of course a reference to something Anirudh once said in our chinese class in 9th grade... pretty good... I'm sure you remember...).... Clearly joking... but still fun to say.
I love speaking chinese in downtown san francisco. There really is no downside to SYL here since a)no one can understand you so you can say whatever you want and no one knows what you're saying, b) If they do understand you, then you get to talk to them about the gospel and start teaching them, c) Helps improve the ol' chinese speaking skills and d) Contacting is totally not awkward cause people around you don't know what you're saying and so your conversations are totally private... Also cause I don't have to use english to contact which although I do occasionally, is always awkward and not my favorite activity... although a couple people we've contacted have ended up being pretty cool and getting baptized. (Ok one guy so far... and he's kind of crazy... so... still... not bad.)I actually think about the parable of the sower a lot dad. Like how Sister Ying is like 100 fold awesomeness and then there is brother OuYang who is like the one that falls upon really shallow ground and when the sun comes up, gets all dried out and dies... sigh... so sad... If his stupid kids weren't such brats... ok that was harsh... but they are pretty bratty. Also since his wife isn't that supportive, and although I'd say it would help, I still think most of the power in that family lies in the hands of the children...which doesn't make very much sense to me but is really annoying. Especially since they're 4 and 9 and don't know anything.
However, we had a pretty successful week this week. Had a lot of lessons (11! Which is the highest for our area... Never had more than 11 but it's still the highest... we tried to set a record... but failed.... ) Also we found this awesome hotel right across from our office where we can just 隨便 go in and out without any problems at all and therefore can teach a lot more lessons with female investigators cause we don't need to find a 陪課 which takes a loooot of pressure off. Especially since a lot of the time having a 陪課 isn't even that useful since our members aren't very good at fellowshipping and don't really seem to get the purpose of coming along to lessons which is kind of frustrating. I wish you could come and give a pep talk too mom.
Haven't been singing too much. Had a musical number where we did 3 part harmony (tried 4... didn't really take since I ended up having to go sing base with Elder Wu he was having a little trouble and so the first verse was sounding pretty rough... ok really rough.. but after that it sounded pretty good.
That's pretty awesome you got to participate in that brother's sponge bath hospital experience mom! Keep it up! That's good that rochester is making friends. Always nice to hear updates on how he's doing. Getting in any fights with squirrels/mice lately? Although I guess all he has to do is chase them into the bathroom and they'll do the rest hahaha.
Anyways, that's about it for this week. Had 2 investigators come to church yesterday which is better than 1 but not all that great... at least sacrament meeting was in Mandarin yesterday instead of Mantonese... I just wish our branch was better cause it seems like none of our investigators really understand the importance of church attendance and as Elder Wu said "There's not really anything to attract them..." Which I can't really disagree with... but I don't really know what to do about it. We're thinking of hiring a rock band or putting on some chinese acrobatic shows... let me know if you have any other suggestions...
In any case, I guess i'll stop here since although there are a billion gajllion things that happen within the week, I cannot write but an hundredth part of them (get that reference?!?! I AM studying the scriptures and stuff!)... much less remember that much. Also I only really keep occasional journal entries (once every few days...) since we're pretty darn busy all the time and most nights we have to make a bunch of phone calls anyways....Kay. Love you guys! Thanks for your emails!
Bai bai!
-Ian
We are sowing daily sowing...
March 13, 2011
Well it only took me 3 hours but I finally finished reading your email mom! Haha just kidding... more like 2...
That's awesome michelle is there! Get me a buddy pass! I want to go to NY/DC to hang out for the weekend! Mostly cause I'm afraid michelle will steal away all my friends while I'm gone... which she probably WILL. So good at making friends... and stuff... too good...
Yeah heard all about the earthquake in Japan since they thought there'd be a small tsunami here so our district leader called and was like "don't get drowned..." even though I think it didn't end up coming... or if it did it was like a foot high... 8.9 is pretty huge though. I guess they're kind of expecting an earthquake of that magnitude happening here sometime in the near future... but fortunately we all have 72-hour kits handy so we should be good. Also that's amazingly lucky they were having zone conference at the time in Japan. Pretty good timing.
That's cool you're developing such an appreciation for art mom. Although I'm not sure if I'd really be able to share in the artistic revelry with you since everytime we'd go to museums my eyes would glaze over after the first hour or 2 and then I'd just like walk through like a zombie going "oh look (motioning to some masterpiece or other)... art... that's nice... let's go"...
As you will recall dad, I AM in america... and as such am in possession of said refrigerator. And said nifty refrigerator magnet will most certainly be a wonderful addition to our apartment's decor. Although most mornings I don't really think about all that much aside from how tired I am... especially since Benjamin Franklin stole an hour of our sleep yesterday which I wasn't too happy about... especially since Elder Luo and I forgot about daylight savings when it was actually in our benefit and so ended up being up an hour too early which was a bummer... more like a tragedy actually.
Whatever the case, I had a pretty good week here, unfortunately, however we had to drop a lot of baptismal dates. 2 were because we found out they live together (boyfriend and girlfriend) which made us think that we couldn't really justify keeping their baptism date for April 3 just because of how many changes they need to make in their lives before they could really meet the requirements. 1 is because she isn't returning our calls/texts and we assume that she either a) lost/forgot to charge her phone or b) heard some anti-mormon propaganda which kind of scared her off. And the last is because he isn't really up to coming to church because he works the night shift doing some kind of repair work on BART and gets off work at 8 AM on sunday morning. Also, his parents always make him take them to look at houses and he's not exactly consistent at picking up his phone which is another problem. However, we added one additional baptismal date which is looking fairly stable, especially considering she is on spring break next week and will have more time to come to church and hopefully make it a habit.
Coming to church however is still a major challenge for all our investigators, since it really isn't ever very convenient for anyone and less so for students who have a lot of homework and no car. We are really going to do our best this week to help our investigators recognize the importance of keeping the sabbath day holy... which we also worked on last week, but this Sunday I guess was just too soon/too busy for most of our investigators.. kind of annoying... but.. whatever...
Fortunately, the one investigator who did come, Brother Zhou, is super solid. He has quit smoking for a whole week now and is still going strong. It's really investigators like Brother Zhou, and sister Ying (his girlfriend who was baptized two weeks ago) that make missionary work so great. Just really prepared people who you can actually see their faith growing. Unfortunately, for each one of those investigators, it seems like there are 5 or 10 others who aren't big on keeping commitments and therefore don't have much progression. It really does strengthen my faith to see investigators like brother Zhou though who didn't even believe in God before he began meeting with us and who's faith has just been getting stronger and stronger because of his commitment to reading the scriptures, praying, and coming to church.
Elder Wu and I have really kind of given up contacting places other than AAU (Academy of Art University... don't ask me why they have both Academy and University in the name... seems rather redundant to say the least) just because it's so effective. I'd guess that at least 30% of the student body is from China and it seems like for every hour we spend there we get at least two fairly solid potential investigators. I don't know if it's some natural spirituality of art students or something but a lot of them seem very interested in the gospel. Of course it also doesn't hurt that our downtown office is literally right across the street from their campus which just makes it especially convenient.
One thing that Elder Wu and I are finding becoming more and more challenging is finding members to come along to lessons since our branch is pretty small and we have a lot of female investigators who we really need a 3rd male present for, of which the branch is also rather short of. We're always afraid of using the same people too often since two members who were baptized in Sunset before I got here have already kind of been driven into inactivity likely because of how often the missionaries called them. Which I don't really get because they could always just say no... Whatever the case, it seems like our branch has a little problem with retention since a lot of the people who have been baptized in the past year or so have already gone less active which I find very annoying. Especially since we really have enough less active members in the church as it is and it doesn't really do very much good to baptize people into inactivity.
For example, both investigators Elder Luo and I baptized have already gone inactive. One because he was sick for a long time and is now preparing to go back to China, and another just because his kids are so against going to church and his wife isn't a fan either. Mostly the kids though since they are kind of ruled by their 9 year old daughter and 4 year old son which really really frustrates me just because there's no way their family is going to see any changes in their lives unless they actually LIVE the gospel and I feel like they think our message just didn't really work for them... when they don't realize that it's not working because they're not working at it. Just frustrating.
Anyways, for the most part, things are going fairly well. Also, Elder Wu just typed this super long letter to president wade and since we're using macs, he did ctrl C to copy it instead of command C and then consequently lost it all... And naturally is rather frustrated as a result. Fortunately it's just a letter to president wade and not a master's thesis paper... which would be worse... although I don't why he'd be typing one of those...
Whatever the case, thanks for your love and support and emails and stuff! Say hi to James for me and tell him I'll take extra long on my homecoming talk for him.
Love you!
-Ian
Well it only took me 3 hours but I finally finished reading your email mom! Haha just kidding... more like 2...
That's awesome michelle is there! Get me a buddy pass! I want to go to NY/DC to hang out for the weekend! Mostly cause I'm afraid michelle will steal away all my friends while I'm gone... which she probably WILL. So good at making friends... and stuff... too good...
Yeah heard all about the earthquake in Japan since they thought there'd be a small tsunami here so our district leader called and was like "don't get drowned..." even though I think it didn't end up coming... or if it did it was like a foot high... 8.9 is pretty huge though. I guess they're kind of expecting an earthquake of that magnitude happening here sometime in the near future... but fortunately we all have 72-hour kits handy so we should be good. Also that's amazingly lucky they were having zone conference at the time in Japan. Pretty good timing.
That's cool you're developing such an appreciation for art mom. Although I'm not sure if I'd really be able to share in the artistic revelry with you since everytime we'd go to museums my eyes would glaze over after the first hour or 2 and then I'd just like walk through like a zombie going "oh look (motioning to some masterpiece or other)... art... that's nice... let's go"...
As you will recall dad, I AM in america... and as such am in possession of said refrigerator. And said nifty refrigerator magnet will most certainly be a wonderful addition to our apartment's decor. Although most mornings I don't really think about all that much aside from how tired I am... especially since Benjamin Franklin stole an hour of our sleep yesterday which I wasn't too happy about... especially since Elder Luo and I forgot about daylight savings when it was actually in our benefit and so ended up being up an hour too early which was a bummer... more like a tragedy actually.
Whatever the case, I had a pretty good week here, unfortunately, however we had to drop a lot of baptismal dates. 2 were because we found out they live together (boyfriend and girlfriend) which made us think that we couldn't really justify keeping their baptism date for April 3 just because of how many changes they need to make in their lives before they could really meet the requirements. 1 is because she isn't returning our calls/texts and we assume that she either a) lost/forgot to charge her phone or b) heard some anti-mormon propaganda which kind of scared her off. And the last is because he isn't really up to coming to church because he works the night shift doing some kind of repair work on BART and gets off work at 8 AM on sunday morning. Also, his parents always make him take them to look at houses and he's not exactly consistent at picking up his phone which is another problem. However, we added one additional baptismal date which is looking fairly stable, especially considering she is on spring break next week and will have more time to come to church and hopefully make it a habit.
Coming to church however is still a major challenge for all our investigators, since it really isn't ever very convenient for anyone and less so for students who have a lot of homework and no car. We are really going to do our best this week to help our investigators recognize the importance of keeping the sabbath day holy... which we also worked on last week, but this Sunday I guess was just too soon/too busy for most of our investigators.. kind of annoying... but.. whatever...
Fortunately, the one investigator who did come, Brother Zhou, is super solid. He has quit smoking for a whole week now and is still going strong. It's really investigators like Brother Zhou, and sister Ying (his girlfriend who was baptized two weeks ago) that make missionary work so great. Just really prepared people who you can actually see their faith growing. Unfortunately, for each one of those investigators, it seems like there are 5 or 10 others who aren't big on keeping commitments and therefore don't have much progression. It really does strengthen my faith to see investigators like brother Zhou though who didn't even believe in God before he began meeting with us and who's faith has just been getting stronger and stronger because of his commitment to reading the scriptures, praying, and coming to church.
Elder Wu and I have really kind of given up contacting places other than AAU (Academy of Art University... don't ask me why they have both Academy and University in the name... seems rather redundant to say the least) just because it's so effective. I'd guess that at least 30% of the student body is from China and it seems like for every hour we spend there we get at least two fairly solid potential investigators. I don't know if it's some natural spirituality of art students or something but a lot of them seem very interested in the gospel. Of course it also doesn't hurt that our downtown office is literally right across the street from their campus which just makes it especially convenient.
One thing that Elder Wu and I are finding becoming more and more challenging is finding members to come along to lessons since our branch is pretty small and we have a lot of female investigators who we really need a 3rd male present for, of which the branch is also rather short of. We're always afraid of using the same people too often since two members who were baptized in Sunset before I got here have already kind of been driven into inactivity likely because of how often the missionaries called them. Which I don't really get because they could always just say no... Whatever the case, it seems like our branch has a little problem with retention since a lot of the people who have been baptized in the past year or so have already gone less active which I find very annoying. Especially since we really have enough less active members in the church as it is and it doesn't really do very much good to baptize people into inactivity.
For example, both investigators Elder Luo and I baptized have already gone inactive. One because he was sick for a long time and is now preparing to go back to China, and another just because his kids are so against going to church and his wife isn't a fan either. Mostly the kids though since they are kind of ruled by their 9 year old daughter and 4 year old son which really really frustrates me just because there's no way their family is going to see any changes in their lives unless they actually LIVE the gospel and I feel like they think our message just didn't really work for them... when they don't realize that it's not working because they're not working at it. Just frustrating.
Anyways, for the most part, things are going fairly well. Also, Elder Wu just typed this super long letter to president wade and since we're using macs, he did ctrl C to copy it instead of command C and then consequently lost it all... And naturally is rather frustrated as a result. Fortunately it's just a letter to president wade and not a master's thesis paper... which would be worse... although I don't why he'd be typing one of those...
Whatever the case, thanks for your love and support and emails and stuff! Say hi to James for me and tell him I'll take extra long on my homecoming talk for him.
Love you!
-Ian
Monday, March 7, 2011
Reach, Preach and Teach
Hi!
I get to stay in Downtown San Francisco for at least another 6 weeks! Transfer #5! Aw yeahhh!
I am so excited to be able to help all the investigators that Elder Wu and I have found to continue progressing towards baptism in this area and I really feel that there are even more people out there who are prepared to receive the restored gospel. Although we had a rather average week, it's actually really above average as I went back and looked at my old planners last night. I can't believe Elder Luo and I actually had a time when we had 6 weeks with only 1 investigator come to church. Elder Wu and I have been so blessed in this area. Also it really is the coolest area in the mission. Downtown San Francisco. Pretty awesome. Although Elder Lee is leaving to go serve in Downtown Oakland next transfer which is a bummer cause it means i'm just gonna be in a district with a whole bunch of people from hong kong... and one other American sister... but who's originally from Singapore... so i'm the only white person basically haha... but that's nothing new I guess.
One thing that's really tough in this area is getting investigators to come to church just because it's so far and we have no members to pick people up and no one in our area has cars. However, it means that the investigators who do come just have to show that much more faith which I guess is good for strengthening it. It's just getting them to take that step that is so hard. Like we have 7 investigators with a baptismal date but only 2 that came to church on Sunday... arghhhh!
Our investigator who got baptized last week Sister Ying, got confirmed this Sunday which was pretty great. She's so solid! I really can see her becoming the Relief Society President or just going back to China and starting a new stake by herself haha. Also her boyfriend, brother Zhou, committed to quit smoking yesterday and fasted for that purpose. We also gave him a blessing yesterday and he really has a great resolve to quit as we set a baptismal date with him last thursday for April 10th which I am really excited to help him meet.
We also found several new investigators this week who have a lot of promise (ok well about 3 of them do) and Elder Wu and I are going to do our best to help them have a baptismal date and commit to come to church.
One investigator we added this week is a 60+ woman from GuangDong which kind of reminds me of when I was with Elder Luo haha but it was kind of frustrating just because of how slow we had to go with her since it seemed like she wasn't even listening when we were talking to her which seems kind of common with older/middle aged folks from guangdong just because of how long it's been since they've been in school (assuming they went) and just a huge change from all the young students that we've been teaching lately who understand a principle after you say it once.
Also one other guy we added was a student from XinJiang who is studying game design at AAU (Academy of Art University... which is basically where pretty much our entire teaching pool is centered right now haha) and he was like "i'll only meet with you if we do it in english cause I want to improve my english" so we were finally like "ok..." But it turns out he's really more interested in learning Bible stories and western religious culture so he can write better script for his video games... which was really annyoing just because of how disrespectful he was being the whole time while we were teaching him... just not really prepared I think. Anyways, we'll keep working with him and see if any miracle happens.
Anyways, sounds like things are going well back in the VA. Although it kind of hurts my pride a little bit to hear Bronwen got a 34 on the ACT haha. That's pretty cool. Good for her. She can just mozy on up and pick up that Monson scholarship that they didn't give to me. But whatever, I didn't want it ANYWAY!
Also it sounds like you're being a super duper awesome Relief Society President mom! I kind of wish that you were our branch's relief society president haha. Not that our relief society president is bad or anything I just think she doesn't have as much energy and gungho-ness as you do. Mainly cause our branch is really not very good at hanging on to recent converts which really frustrates me because we can only really do so much as missionaries but after people get baptized they should really get more attention from the ward. Kind of like how the OuYang family is already inactive and no one really has done anything about it. Not that I can really blame them since their fellowshippers are inactive as well and everyone here is really busy but it's still so frustrating.
Anyways, I'm getting kind of tired of writing, which isn't probably such a good omen since I'm going to be having to do a lot more of it once I get back to school... but I should probably get going.
Thanks for your emails guys! I love you!
-Ian
I get to stay in Downtown San Francisco for at least another 6 weeks! Transfer #5! Aw yeahhh!
I am so excited to be able to help all the investigators that Elder Wu and I have found to continue progressing towards baptism in this area and I really feel that there are even more people out there who are prepared to receive the restored gospel. Although we had a rather average week, it's actually really above average as I went back and looked at my old planners last night. I can't believe Elder Luo and I actually had a time when we had 6 weeks with only 1 investigator come to church. Elder Wu and I have been so blessed in this area. Also it really is the coolest area in the mission. Downtown San Francisco. Pretty awesome. Although Elder Lee is leaving to go serve in Downtown Oakland next transfer which is a bummer cause it means i'm just gonna be in a district with a whole bunch of people from hong kong... and one other American sister... but who's originally from Singapore... so i'm the only white person basically haha... but that's nothing new I guess.
One thing that's really tough in this area is getting investigators to come to church just because it's so far and we have no members to pick people up and no one in our area has cars. However, it means that the investigators who do come just have to show that much more faith which I guess is good for strengthening it. It's just getting them to take that step that is so hard. Like we have 7 investigators with a baptismal date but only 2 that came to church on Sunday... arghhhh!
Our investigator who got baptized last week Sister Ying, got confirmed this Sunday which was pretty great. She's so solid! I really can see her becoming the Relief Society President or just going back to China and starting a new stake by herself haha. Also her boyfriend, brother Zhou, committed to quit smoking yesterday and fasted for that purpose. We also gave him a blessing yesterday and he really has a great resolve to quit as we set a baptismal date with him last thursday for April 10th which I am really excited to help him meet.
We also found several new investigators this week who have a lot of promise (ok well about 3 of them do) and Elder Wu and I are going to do our best to help them have a baptismal date and commit to come to church.
One investigator we added this week is a 60+ woman from GuangDong which kind of reminds me of when I was with Elder Luo haha but it was kind of frustrating just because of how slow we had to go with her since it seemed like she wasn't even listening when we were talking to her which seems kind of common with older/middle aged folks from guangdong just because of how long it's been since they've been in school (assuming they went) and just a huge change from all the young students that we've been teaching lately who understand a principle after you say it once.
Also one other guy we added was a student from XinJiang who is studying game design at AAU (Academy of Art University... which is basically where pretty much our entire teaching pool is centered right now haha) and he was like "i'll only meet with you if we do it in english cause I want to improve my english" so we were finally like "ok..." But it turns out he's really more interested in learning Bible stories and western religious culture so he can write better script for his video games... which was really annyoing just because of how disrespectful he was being the whole time while we were teaching him... just not really prepared I think. Anyways, we'll keep working with him and see if any miracle happens.
Anyways, sounds like things are going well back in the VA. Although it kind of hurts my pride a little bit to hear Bronwen got a 34 on the ACT haha. That's pretty cool. Good for her. She can just mozy on up and pick up that Monson scholarship that they didn't give to me. But whatever, I didn't want it ANYWAY!
Also it sounds like you're being a super duper awesome Relief Society President mom! I kind of wish that you were our branch's relief society president haha. Not that our relief society president is bad or anything I just think she doesn't have as much energy and gungho-ness as you do. Mainly cause our branch is really not very good at hanging on to recent converts which really frustrates me because we can only really do so much as missionaries but after people get baptized they should really get more attention from the ward. Kind of like how the OuYang family is already inactive and no one really has done anything about it. Not that I can really blame them since their fellowshippers are inactive as well and everyone here is really busy but it's still so frustrating.
Anyways, I'm getting kind of tired of writing, which isn't probably such a good omen since I'm going to be having to do a lot more of it once I get back to school... but I should probably get going.
Thanks for your emails guys! I love you!
-Ian
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