Hello!
I decided to reply to you first dad since your letter is very long this week. Although not as long as Joel's blog entry which I just read haha. Pretty funny though. You have all kinds of blogs to check up on these days! I'll try to be as clever and witty as Joel was in his blog but I'm afraid I might fall short. Mainly because it takes much more effort and time than I have or am willing to expend.
However, Tony Zheng is actually from SiChuan and owns a SiChuan not-mongolian-barbeque restaurant. We've only eaten there once since we happened to be there when they were starting lunch for the workers but what they made that day wasn't really that great so I don't think we really got a sample of how their food really is. However, they don't get a lot of business because (Brother Bing Chen, his fellowshipper and our #1 go to fellowshipper man, suggests) their food is too authentic and they don't have enough variety to attract the local general population and certainly not the American population who seek after oily American imitations of Chinese food. It's kind of funny actually since brother Bing Chen is always using our appointments lately to do business... which isn't that ideal... but there you go. He has sort of gone into business with Tony Zheng to write some software to help his restaurant be more organized and help him attract more customers. We'll have to wait and see how it works out. Hopefully well.
In any case, Brother Zheng's baptism went pretty well. We didn't get a huge turnout from the ward which was a little disappointing, but the Spirit was there and it seemed to be a good experience for him. There were a couple things that were really ridiculous though. For example, the person we invited to do a talk on the Holy Ghost, Sister Ren, didn't show up... because... she forgot. So we weren't too happy about that. I ended up giving said talk. Also the person we invited to play the piano said she couldn't play the first hymn and could only play the last hymn... so I ended up playing the piano. Our ward mission leader wasn't too pleased with the turnout either which is understandable... but when he talked about it it felt a little like he was blaming us for that... and I suppose we could have taken a little more initiative in inviting people to come, but at the same time, I don't really feel like it's completely our responsibility that no one was willing to make time to come and we did invite a fair number of people who didn't show up. But that's ok.
I'm really excited about our area and the Chinese group here. Elder Lin and I are working really hard to find more people who are ready to receive the gospel and I feel we are being blessed a lot to find them. Although we didn't have any of those we expected to be to at church actually come, there was another Chinese brother who randomly walked into our meeting and we then were able to begin teaching last night who seems very humble and prepared. He's named brother Zhao and does renovation work in the bay area. There are definitely still some challenges to his progression as he likely smokes and sometimes has to work on Sunday but he definitely is willing to change and I have faith that as he continues to build his faith these things won't be a problem. He also suggested to us that him and a lot of his friends have interest in studying English but only have time at night so Elder Lin and I are thinking of starting a night english class because I'll bet there are a lot of Chinese of a different demographic of the ones we have in our class now who could make it at night. We're also considering making a lot of changes to our English class to make it a better finding tool than it is now which is really exciting cause I think we can find a lot more people through English class.
We also have stake conference next week which is cool. And brother Chen Bing is going to receive the Melchezidek Priesthood! Which is really awesome especially since I thought you had to wait like a year before you could get it but brother Chen was baptized only about 4 months ago. Maybe Bishop Lee is trying to get a Chinese branch established as soon as he can so is trying to get the Melchezidek Priesthood leadership going.
The weather has been very mild and temperate here for as long as I can remember. And that's all there is to report here in California haha.
Sounds like your stake president was a clever clever young man haha. That sounds like the most dangerous thing ever! But I guess you just gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. Boys will be boys. That's just the way it is sometimes. It is what it is! Etc etc.
I'd better go so my companion doesn't have to keep waiting!
Love you! We have a 70 in town to visit our mission named Elder Edwards and for some reason he's doing 1 on 1 interviews with all the zone leaders. Which means me! So we're going up to the mission home tonight at 5... which is kind of annoying cause it cuts off some of our p-day but on the other hand, it should be a pretty unique experience. I've never had a 1 on 1 interview with a general authority before.
I'll let you know how it goes.
Love you!
Have a great week!
-Ian
Monday, September 12, 2011
Monday, September 5, 2011
Caution: Do Not Wear a Wig to Your Baptism
Sept. 5, 2011
Helllowww!
That's a sweet story about Nymka! That's exactly what I hope would happen with all our investigators. For example brother Jiang! Who we can only meet with on Wednesdays cause he's so busy and doesn't have time to meet with us any other day or get baptized. We also heard from one of our members who was down by his place of work, that she saw him smoking again... which is a bummer because it was pretty miraculous that he was able to stop... but I guess he's probably back in an environment where all his coworkers smoke so it'd be pretty hard to resist that kind of a temptation. Oh well, I hope there are more things in store for brother Jiang because his faith has definitely been weakening.
We have a couple really heavy people in our ward here too. It is really pretty sad that people would let that happen to themselves. There is definitely a genetic predisposition to obesity but I also believe that there's no reason to be obese if you have the will not to be. For example, I've been running every morning (except Sundays) since August 1st... although it's really hard and it seems like I have to force myself every time to build up the willpower to do it, it's definitely worth it. Hopefully.
Sister Sun's baptism went pretty well on Saturday. Not a huge turnout, but most of our Chinese group was there to support her which was great. I ended up being the one to baptize her cause we were a little pressed for time preparing her baptism and couldn't think of anyone else to do it haha. But it was a good experience. Kind of funny actually since she was wearing a wig (it looks so real!) and it kind of came off when she was baptized... but that's ok, at least we only had to do it once haha. She was like "this church is so much better than my church in China!" Haha. She is going over to Chicago this next week on the 13th but then we found out she's coming back after like 10 days and she'll be here for a couple more months which is really great cause we can continue helping her to understand the gospel and make sure she understands clearly that she needs to keep going to our church when she goes back to China.
Good to hear you're going out with the missionaries a lot lately mom! It'll definitely be a blessing! We have a really cool investigator scheduled for baptism this Saturday named Tony Zheng. I've probably talked about him before. I was a little concerned to teach him about the Law of Tithing since he owns a restaurant and really works pretty hard to earn what he has but I guess I should've had more faith cause he accepted it without a problem. We're going to go to the visitor's center with him tomorrow morning and getting everything set up for his baptism. It's going to be really great. Last week he was like "I want you to come by my restaurant more so we can talk more about the gospel" haha. We were like "Ok! No problem!"
That's interesting I was the center of attention in your primary cause we also went and did a presentation type thing in primary here too!
There aren't really any sights in our area... so... but we'll probably play some piano etc etc.
Anyways, I'd better go since there are a bunch of people waiting to use computers here in the FHC... but thanks for your letters and support!
Love you!
Ian
Helllowww!
That's a sweet story about Nymka! That's exactly what I hope would happen with all our investigators. For example brother Jiang! Who we can only meet with on Wednesdays cause he's so busy and doesn't have time to meet with us any other day or get baptized. We also heard from one of our members who was down by his place of work, that she saw him smoking again... which is a bummer because it was pretty miraculous that he was able to stop... but I guess he's probably back in an environment where all his coworkers smoke so it'd be pretty hard to resist that kind of a temptation. Oh well, I hope there are more things in store for brother Jiang because his faith has definitely been weakening.
We have a couple really heavy people in our ward here too. It is really pretty sad that people would let that happen to themselves. There is definitely a genetic predisposition to obesity but I also believe that there's no reason to be obese if you have the will not to be. For example, I've been running every morning (except Sundays) since August 1st... although it's really hard and it seems like I have to force myself every time to build up the willpower to do it, it's definitely worth it. Hopefully.
Sister Sun's baptism went pretty well on Saturday. Not a huge turnout, but most of our Chinese group was there to support her which was great. I ended up being the one to baptize her cause we were a little pressed for time preparing her baptism and couldn't think of anyone else to do it haha. But it was a good experience. Kind of funny actually since she was wearing a wig (it looks so real!) and it kind of came off when she was baptized... but that's ok, at least we only had to do it once haha. She was like "this church is so much better than my church in China!" Haha. She is going over to Chicago this next week on the 13th but then we found out she's coming back after like 10 days and she'll be here for a couple more months which is really great cause we can continue helping her to understand the gospel and make sure she understands clearly that she needs to keep going to our church when she goes back to China.
Good to hear you're going out with the missionaries a lot lately mom! It'll definitely be a blessing! We have a really cool investigator scheduled for baptism this Saturday named Tony Zheng. I've probably talked about him before. I was a little concerned to teach him about the Law of Tithing since he owns a restaurant and really works pretty hard to earn what he has but I guess I should've had more faith cause he accepted it without a problem. We're going to go to the visitor's center with him tomorrow morning and getting everything set up for his baptism. It's going to be really great. Last week he was like "I want you to come by my restaurant more so we can talk more about the gospel" haha. We were like "Ok! No problem!"
That's interesting I was the center of attention in your primary cause we also went and did a presentation type thing in primary here too!
There aren't really any sights in our area... so... but we'll probably play some piano etc etc.
Anyways, I'd better go since there are a bunch of people waiting to use computers here in the FHC... but thanks for your letters and support!
Love you!
Ian
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Where Angels Fear to Tread
Hello!
I wish we had a good earthquake here to call people to repentance. Sometimes I feel like we need that here.
This elder next to me was telling me an elder from Hawaii who got called to Oakland and who's patriarchal blessing said he would get called to a city where even angels are afraid to walk hahaha. So that makes me feel pretty hardcore. Fortunately, I'm over in Union City/Hayward/Fremont where I'm sure some of the more courageous angels would endeavor to take a stroll.
In any case, that sounds like a pretty golden investigator that those sisters have. We have a couple who are pretty golden as well... and also some who need a bit more work... However, we had a great week this week. I have never taught so many lessons! We taught a total of 15. We also added 3 new investigators even though we didn't spend a whole lot of time doing traditional finding like street contacting or tracting or that kind of thing. It was really great.
We also added 2 baptismal dates that were immediately dropped on Sunday. 1 because she urgently needs to return to China and may not be coming back which was really too bad because she is really prepared to accept the Gospel. Another because he didn't come to church along with his wife who is one of our more stable investigators, Linda Xu. Really frustrating that the two of them seem so flaky. Something that really bugs me is people who profess to have a very strong faith in Christ but then don't keep the commandments. It seems so hypocritical. But then I suppose I can't say that I'm perfect either and so I shouldn't judge them so harshly. It is frustrating however and we'll definitely strive harder to help them shape up.
Things are actually going really well with Elder Lin as my new companion. He's really motivated to improve and be very diligent which is wonderful and we're getting along very well. I'm also learning a lot about how to be a more effective zone leader since Elder Lin is very organized and planned out. Also, we only speak Chinese one with another which is a very pleasant surprise. I didn't even need to say anything, that's just the way things are going. I think Elder Lin wants to improve his Mandarin as well and he does actually speak it pretty well. I think probably the best out of all the Hong Kong elders in the mission. That was Elder Luo's analysis anyway.
That sounds like a pretty lame anticlimactic hurricane experience. I heard they had an earthquake here on like Tuesday night but I must have slept through it cause I didn't feel anything. Also I've only heard one person talking about it so maybe there wasn't one...
Yes dad I did get that dictionary which is really good! In fact it's sitting by my side as I write. Thanks!
Anyways, Elder Lin's done with his email so I'd better wrap up. Plus we gotta go play some piano. We're teaching a lesson today to a sister who is getting baptized on Saturday, Sister Sun! She's pretty golden. She's actually been baptized before into a church in China but we explained authority and she was like "oh ok I'll get baptized again I suppose." Haha. She's actually here on vacation visiting her son and so we're helping her get baptized and then sending her back haha. We are kind of pressed for time to finish teaching her though so we scheduled an appointment this afternoon so we can get everything taught in time for Saturday.
In any case, love you! Thanks for your emails and support! Have a great week!
-Ian
I wish we had a good earthquake here to call people to repentance. Sometimes I feel like we need that here.
This elder next to me was telling me an elder from Hawaii who got called to Oakland and who's patriarchal blessing said he would get called to a city where even angels are afraid to walk hahaha. So that makes me feel pretty hardcore. Fortunately, I'm over in Union City/Hayward/Fremont where I'm sure some of the more courageous angels would endeavor to take a stroll.
In any case, that sounds like a pretty golden investigator that those sisters have. We have a couple who are pretty golden as well... and also some who need a bit more work... However, we had a great week this week. I have never taught so many lessons! We taught a total of 15. We also added 3 new investigators even though we didn't spend a whole lot of time doing traditional finding like street contacting or tracting or that kind of thing. It was really great.
We also added 2 baptismal dates that were immediately dropped on Sunday. 1 because she urgently needs to return to China and may not be coming back which was really too bad because she is really prepared to accept the Gospel. Another because he didn't come to church along with his wife who is one of our more stable investigators, Linda Xu. Really frustrating that the two of them seem so flaky. Something that really bugs me is people who profess to have a very strong faith in Christ but then don't keep the commandments. It seems so hypocritical. But then I suppose I can't say that I'm perfect either and so I shouldn't judge them so harshly. It is frustrating however and we'll definitely strive harder to help them shape up.
Things are actually going really well with Elder Lin as my new companion. He's really motivated to improve and be very diligent which is wonderful and we're getting along very well. I'm also learning a lot about how to be a more effective zone leader since Elder Lin is very organized and planned out. Also, we only speak Chinese one with another which is a very pleasant surprise. I didn't even need to say anything, that's just the way things are going. I think Elder Lin wants to improve his Mandarin as well and he does actually speak it pretty well. I think probably the best out of all the Hong Kong elders in the mission. That was Elder Luo's analysis anyway.
That sounds like a pretty lame anticlimactic hurricane experience. I heard they had an earthquake here on like Tuesday night but I must have slept through it cause I didn't feel anything. Also I've only heard one person talking about it so maybe there wasn't one...
Yes dad I did get that dictionary which is really good! In fact it's sitting by my side as I write. Thanks!
Anyways, Elder Lin's done with his email so I'd better wrap up. Plus we gotta go play some piano. We're teaching a lesson today to a sister who is getting baptized on Saturday, Sister Sun! She's pretty golden. She's actually been baptized before into a church in China but we explained authority and she was like "oh ok I'll get baptized again I suppose." Haha. She's actually here on vacation visiting her son and so we're helping her get baptized and then sending her back haha. We are kind of pressed for time to finish teaching her though so we scheduled an appointment this afternoon so we can get everything taught in time for Saturday.
In any case, love you! Thanks for your emails and support! Have a great week!
-Ian
Sunday, August 28, 2011
One Year Older and Wiser
Herrrowww!
Yes I am 20 now. So I am no longer a teenager. It doesn't feel all that different. However I might be a little more brief in this email since we have to go back for Elder Luo to pack.
Why pack you ask? Well I'm glad you inquired. He's going to SUNSET! Chinese speaking still!!! It was pretty funny since we were joking about him getting sent there and now he actually is. Not that Sunset is super horrible... but it is cold, and dark, and members don't really like the missionaries that much over there... and there is hardly anyone to teach... However I'm sure he can turn it around. My new companion will be an elder from Hong Kong named Elder Lin. He's actually coming over from the English program as a zone leader in San Francisco West zone. I've heard he's super super obedient and doesn't like to speak Chinese with white people so I might be speaking a lot of English in the next 2 transfers before Elder Lin heads back to Hong Kong. In any case, I'm sure there's a lot of things I can learn from Elder Lin.
We had a pretty excellent week this week. I really feel like we were able to find a lot of the elect in this area. We found a very golden investigator in our English class this past week who actually approached me and asked, "How can I develop a faith in Christ?" So we immediately met with him once class was over and started to teach him. We gave him a Book of Mormon on Thursday and by Sunday morning when he came to church he had finished 1st and 2nd Nephi. Pretty crazy. I don't think I've ever had an investigator who has had such an excitement for reading the scriptures. He owns a restaraunt in Fremont and is pretty busy but is really humble and willing to learn about and follow Christ.
We also went to the Visitor's Center with one of our investigators Linda Xu who is coming along really well. She loved the visitor's center and it was almost magical the way the Spirit worked upon her since out of the blue she mentioned the Word of Wisdom which is a commandment she had previously said she wouldn't be able to accept. She was like "I think I can live it now." It was pretty great. The only concern that she has is she doesn't really like coming to church because she can't understand English and doesn't really like listening to the translation. So she's planning on going to the Oakland branch this coming Sunday to check it out which is something that we discouraged because we'd love her to get integrated into the group here but she's not to be dissuaded. Which is kind of strange because she has been developing some relationships in the Ward here. However, we're still working with her to help her resolve any other concerns and continue building her faith in the Book of Mormon.
Anyways, I've gotta go email the rest of the kiddos. Meaning michelle and Joel.... but anyways, thanks for your letters! That sounds pretty exciting about the basketball game dad. Did you look it up on Youtube? Cause that sounds pretty funny haha. Also since you were able to chew out the Chinese DCM which is always fun.
My birthday wasn't anything too fantastic although I did really enjoy all of your presents. And despite what you think about the cookies not being fresh, they were actually really delicious. Also, the socks are very comfortable.
In any case, I love you! Have a great week!
Ian
Yes I am 20 now. So I am no longer a teenager. It doesn't feel all that different. However I might be a little more brief in this email since we have to go back for Elder Luo to pack.
Why pack you ask? Well I'm glad you inquired. He's going to SUNSET! Chinese speaking still!!! It was pretty funny since we were joking about him getting sent there and now he actually is. Not that Sunset is super horrible... but it is cold, and dark, and members don't really like the missionaries that much over there... and there is hardly anyone to teach... However I'm sure he can turn it around. My new companion will be an elder from Hong Kong named Elder Lin. He's actually coming over from the English program as a zone leader in San Francisco West zone. I've heard he's super super obedient and doesn't like to speak Chinese with white people so I might be speaking a lot of English in the next 2 transfers before Elder Lin heads back to Hong Kong. In any case, I'm sure there's a lot of things I can learn from Elder Lin.
We had a pretty excellent week this week. I really feel like we were able to find a lot of the elect in this area. We found a very golden investigator in our English class this past week who actually approached me and asked, "How can I develop a faith in Christ?" So we immediately met with him once class was over and started to teach him. We gave him a Book of Mormon on Thursday and by Sunday morning when he came to church he had finished 1st and 2nd Nephi. Pretty crazy. I don't think I've ever had an investigator who has had such an excitement for reading the scriptures. He owns a restaraunt in Fremont and is pretty busy but is really humble and willing to learn about and follow Christ.
We also went to the Visitor's Center with one of our investigators Linda Xu who is coming along really well. She loved the visitor's center and it was almost magical the way the Spirit worked upon her since out of the blue she mentioned the Word of Wisdom which is a commandment she had previously said she wouldn't be able to accept. She was like "I think I can live it now." It was pretty great. The only concern that she has is she doesn't really like coming to church because she can't understand English and doesn't really like listening to the translation. So she's planning on going to the Oakland branch this coming Sunday to check it out which is something that we discouraged because we'd love her to get integrated into the group here but she's not to be dissuaded. Which is kind of strange because she has been developing some relationships in the Ward here. However, we're still working with her to help her resolve any other concerns and continue building her faith in the Book of Mormon.
Anyways, I've gotta go email the rest of the kiddos. Meaning michelle and Joel.... but anyways, thanks for your letters! That sounds pretty exciting about the basketball game dad. Did you look it up on Youtube? Cause that sounds pretty funny haha. Also since you were able to chew out the Chinese DCM which is always fun.
My birthday wasn't anything too fantastic although I did really enjoy all of your presents. And despite what you think about the cookies not being fresh, they were actually really delicious. Also, the socks are very comfortable.
In any case, I love you! Have a great week!
Ian
Sunday, August 21, 2011
If You Fail to Plan...You Plan to Fail...
Herrowwww!
Howsit? I have not yet received said cookies or said birthday box, but that's ok. I'm sure it's just a matter of time. With packages, they generally just leave them at the mission office till someone in the zone goes there for some reason and picks them up. We haven't had anyone go to the mission home for a while for any reason so we still haven't gotten any of the stuff there.
In any case, your trip to Philidelphia sounds pretty exciting. Despite the fact it wasn't planned very well. But that's ok. When you make plans, you lose spontaneity and romance and stuff. At least that's my motto. Except not really cause we plan everyday now and I guess I've been at least partially converted to it and my motto is no longer the opposite of dad's. Although I still have a lot of work to do before I actually master goal setting and planning etc. Although Elder Luo and I have been running every morning for the past 2 weeks and are going strong on week 3... so... I feel pretty accomplished about that. I've heard (from Julie Belnap and from no other source so I can't hardly be sure if it's true or not... I'm inclined to think not...) that to establish a new habit you have to keep it up for 3 weeks before it becomes solid. However, I've discovered that a large part of life is about doing challenging things that you may not really want to do but learning to love it. Or something like that.
We didn't have any investigators in Sacrament Meeting this week which was a bummer. Linda had to go to San Jose for some reason and then no one else who promised to show up did... However Linda really is our only investigator with a fair amount of promise. We went over to her (Sister Ye's) house yesterday and talked to her for awhile and set some good expectations of meeting 3 times a week and having daily contact which we think will really help her progress. She's just meeting quite a bit of opposition from friends who seem to mindlessly regale her with accusations of our church being a cult. (Can you use regale that way? Oh well I just did...). However, she does have a fair amount of promise. I do really like her though. She's really funny and has a weird twitch type thing when she blinks where she just crinkles up her whole face. Also her new husband (she married him! which is great cause it remove a barrier to her baptism) and her are always arguing, but in a kind of hilarious way where they're both randomly voicing their opinions and neither really listens to the other and then they start turning to us and explaining themselves as if we might have some solution or judgment of who's right and who's wrong. Pretty funny.
Our new member, brother Chen (who's also reallllllyyyyyy hilarious because he's always got this really funny grin on and his accent is ridiculous since he pronounces his Y's with an R sound like Ruan Lai and Mu Ru and is always saying really funny things) was like "wow I think you really have qing diao or like romance or something haha.
Anyway, it's funny that you mention the weather cause it's not hot or humid here either... although it was pretty hot yesterday... but for the most part it's kind of like paradise here.
Also, that's interesting that you came over to Marina Food the other day dad. Looks like I should've gone there proselyting. You probably saw our church then since it's right across the street from Marina Food. Pretty exciting. I guess that just means there won't be anything for me to take you to see when you come to pick me up at the end of my mission. Oh well. We can just go to the Oakland ghetto.
That's pretty crazy that Alicia's engaged right now. I can't imagine being engaged. She actually sent me a letter this week and mentioned she was going to go to California to meet her boyfriend's family which does sort of indicate a level of seriousness in the relationship, but little did I know the true extent of it. That's cool though, I'll have to write her back now I guess haha.
Congratulations on your passing the tour guide test thing mom! You're gonna be the best tour guide ever!
Also Brother Jiang has kind of fallen off the map just because he found a new job that works him 12 hours a day and hasn't had a day off yet... kind of frustrating because it's not as good as his last job was and now he has the original problem of not being able to come to church... sigh... I'm sure the Lord has a plan for him somehow I just hope he can get baptized sometime soon.
Thanks for your emairs! I love you! I'll miss you on my 20th birthday on the 20th of August, which sounds pretty auspicious although I'm sure it'll be much like any other day... oh well!
Love you!
-Ian
Howsit? I have not yet received said cookies or said birthday box, but that's ok. I'm sure it's just a matter of time. With packages, they generally just leave them at the mission office till someone in the zone goes there for some reason and picks them up. We haven't had anyone go to the mission home for a while for any reason so we still haven't gotten any of the stuff there.
In any case, your trip to Philidelphia sounds pretty exciting. Despite the fact it wasn't planned very well. But that's ok. When you make plans, you lose spontaneity and romance and stuff. At least that's my motto. Except not really cause we plan everyday now and I guess I've been at least partially converted to it and my motto is no longer the opposite of dad's. Although I still have a lot of work to do before I actually master goal setting and planning etc. Although Elder Luo and I have been running every morning for the past 2 weeks and are going strong on week 3... so... I feel pretty accomplished about that. I've heard (from Julie Belnap and from no other source so I can't hardly be sure if it's true or not... I'm inclined to think not...) that to establish a new habit you have to keep it up for 3 weeks before it becomes solid. However, I've discovered that a large part of life is about doing challenging things that you may not really want to do but learning to love it. Or something like that.
We didn't have any investigators in Sacrament Meeting this week which was a bummer. Linda had to go to San Jose for some reason and then no one else who promised to show up did... However Linda really is our only investigator with a fair amount of promise. We went over to her (Sister Ye's) house yesterday and talked to her for awhile and set some good expectations of meeting 3 times a week and having daily contact which we think will really help her progress. She's just meeting quite a bit of opposition from friends who seem to mindlessly regale her with accusations of our church being a cult. (Can you use regale that way? Oh well I just did...). However, she does have a fair amount of promise. I do really like her though. She's really funny and has a weird twitch type thing when she blinks where she just crinkles up her whole face. Also her new husband (she married him! which is great cause it remove a barrier to her baptism) and her are always arguing, but in a kind of hilarious way where they're both randomly voicing their opinions and neither really listens to the other and then they start turning to us and explaining themselves as if we might have some solution or judgment of who's right and who's wrong. Pretty funny.
Our new member, brother Chen (who's also reallllllyyyyyy hilarious because he's always got this really funny grin on and his accent is ridiculous since he pronounces his Y's with an R sound like Ruan Lai and Mu Ru and is always saying really funny things) was like "wow I think you really have qing diao or like romance or something haha.
Anyway, it's funny that you mention the weather cause it's not hot or humid here either... although it was pretty hot yesterday... but for the most part it's kind of like paradise here.
Also, that's interesting that you came over to Marina Food the other day dad. Looks like I should've gone there proselyting. You probably saw our church then since it's right across the street from Marina Food. Pretty exciting. I guess that just means there won't be anything for me to take you to see when you come to pick me up at the end of my mission. Oh well. We can just go to the Oakland ghetto.
That's pretty crazy that Alicia's engaged right now. I can't imagine being engaged. She actually sent me a letter this week and mentioned she was going to go to California to meet her boyfriend's family which does sort of indicate a level of seriousness in the relationship, but little did I know the true extent of it. That's cool though, I'll have to write her back now I guess haha.
Congratulations on your passing the tour guide test thing mom! You're gonna be the best tour guide ever!
Also Brother Jiang has kind of fallen off the map just because he found a new job that works him 12 hours a day and hasn't had a day off yet... kind of frustrating because it's not as good as his last job was and now he has the original problem of not being able to come to church... sigh... I'm sure the Lord has a plan for him somehow I just hope he can get baptized sometime soon.
Thanks for your emairs! I love you! I'll miss you on my 20th birthday on the 20th of August, which sounds pretty auspicious although I'm sure it'll be much like any other day... oh well!
Love you!
-Ian
Monday, August 8, 2011
Things Are Lookin' Up
Herrow!!!
That's a sweet story about Sister G and her friends! I wish every member was like that! It'd be so great! I watched some video on lds.org that Elder Holland was speaking in where he said that nearly 1/10 of the population of Ulaan Baator are members of the church. Which pretty much blows my mind! Here's a link to it in fact: http://lds.org/church/news/elder-holland-instructs-mongolian-saints-missionaries?lang=eng&query=mongolia+ulaanbaatar.
This week was way better than last week. Our area seems a lot more stable now and kind of more organized in a sense. Also very seldom went to Marina Food, which has become a loathsome and dark place in my heart haha. I really agree with you mom that maybe we need to find a new foodmart... although that's pretty much the one that every Chinese person goes to in the whole area. It seems like people should be a little bit more willing to come to church etc since it's right across the street... sigh... oh well, Cal State is proving to be a pretty cool place to go. Kind of like this area's AAU a little bit. Although not quite as many Chinese people I think. We went there this week and found out that we do have permission to go and talk to people about the gospel without getting arrested or told to leave. Even though someone told Elder Luo to leave when we were on exchanges, but that clearly a belligerent anti-mormon possessed with a dark spirit of rebellion against God. Ok probably not, but now we can wave the rulebook in his face and be like "neener neener we're allowed!!!" And that's really what life's all about anyway haha.
Unfortunately, this comes as kind of a result of the fact we only have 3 really stable investigators. Which is better than none admittedly and it does make it pretty easy to keep up daily contact and plan really well for them. We found one new investigator at Cal State East Bay last week who seems really receptive and willing to believe in Christ which is great. She actually seems a lot like the students I used to work with in San Francisco who were studying at AAU. The only difference here is that it will be a lot easier to get her to come to church which is fantastic. She's only been in the States for about 1 or 2 months and is still studying in the ESL program up at Cal State. She was planning on coming to church this week but then had to prepare for a test that she is taking next week. Hopefully she will be able to come next week. We hope that seeing her a couple times next week will help her come around. We were able to set a baptismal date with her for this month though which is really cool. I just hope we'll be able to help her be prepared in time.
Our investigator who was coming along really well, Brother Jiang, isn't doing too great now just because he's still not willing to be baptized. After two lessons of just trying to resolve his concerns, he's still unwilling, so we decided to back off for now so we can help him prepare for a later date. He's also still out of work and is finding the job search pretty difficult due to his lack of a green card. He does have a fake work card but he said now that he believes in God, he doesn't feel right about using it to find work which I really respect and feel is pretty strong evidence of his faith. He's also still reading and praying and I really believe his faith is increasing. I just hope God can help him find work soon so he doesn't have to become homeless, which I hope is an experience he doesn't have to go through.
Our other investigator, Linda Xu, is actually a new move-in to the area from Toronto, Canada. It's crazy to see how the Lord has been preparing her to join the church. She first had contact with the church in Toronto and had a really good impression of the missionaries. After she moved here to meet her fiance for the first time who she met online, she was introduced to our English class by the neighbors of the people she and her fiance were staying with. Just this last week she moved houses and is now staying with members! Basically the biggest, if I didn't believe that God was involved which he almost certainly was, coincidence ever. So she is coming along pretty well. She seems pretty receptive to our message, despite the fact that she is living with her fiance which is going to be a problem probably since they're not really getting along very well and haven't really set a date for the wedding yet. But I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.Our recent converts in the chinese group here are really great though. Our most recent, Rachel, is doing very well and we went with her to do temple baptisms on Saturday which was really good. She had a good experience and then had us and the other Elders over to her house yesterday for dinner. We're going to have her come along to a lot more lessons now since she's on summer break.
Anyways, I'd better wrap up since Elder Luo is finally finished pretty early today. I guess now that he's done applying for school things are much quicker.
Thanks for your letters and your support! Thanks for being such awesome parents! Have a great week!
Love,
-Ian
That's a sweet story about Sister G and her friends! I wish every member was like that! It'd be so great! I watched some video on lds.org that Elder Holland was speaking in where he said that nearly 1/10 of the population of Ulaan Baator are members of the church. Which pretty much blows my mind! Here's a link to it in fact: http://lds.org/church/news/elder-holland-instructs-mongolian-saints-missionaries?lang=eng&query=mongolia+ulaanbaatar.
This week was way better than last week. Our area seems a lot more stable now and kind of more organized in a sense. Also very seldom went to Marina Food, which has become a loathsome and dark place in my heart haha. I really agree with you mom that maybe we need to find a new foodmart... although that's pretty much the one that every Chinese person goes to in the whole area. It seems like people should be a little bit more willing to come to church etc since it's right across the street... sigh... oh well, Cal State is proving to be a pretty cool place to go. Kind of like this area's AAU a little bit. Although not quite as many Chinese people I think. We went there this week and found out that we do have permission to go and talk to people about the gospel without getting arrested or told to leave. Even though someone told Elder Luo to leave when we were on exchanges, but that clearly a belligerent anti-mormon possessed with a dark spirit of rebellion against God. Ok probably not, but now we can wave the rulebook in his face and be like "neener neener we're allowed!!!" And that's really what life's all about anyway haha.
Unfortunately, this comes as kind of a result of the fact we only have 3 really stable investigators. Which is better than none admittedly and it does make it pretty easy to keep up daily contact and plan really well for them. We found one new investigator at Cal State East Bay last week who seems really receptive and willing to believe in Christ which is great. She actually seems a lot like the students I used to work with in San Francisco who were studying at AAU. The only difference here is that it will be a lot easier to get her to come to church which is fantastic. She's only been in the States for about 1 or 2 months and is still studying in the ESL program up at Cal State. She was planning on coming to church this week but then had to prepare for a test that she is taking next week. Hopefully she will be able to come next week. We hope that seeing her a couple times next week will help her come around. We were able to set a baptismal date with her for this month though which is really cool. I just hope we'll be able to help her be prepared in time.
Our investigator who was coming along really well, Brother Jiang, isn't doing too great now just because he's still not willing to be baptized. After two lessons of just trying to resolve his concerns, he's still unwilling, so we decided to back off for now so we can help him prepare for a later date. He's also still out of work and is finding the job search pretty difficult due to his lack of a green card. He does have a fake work card but he said now that he believes in God, he doesn't feel right about using it to find work which I really respect and feel is pretty strong evidence of his faith. He's also still reading and praying and I really believe his faith is increasing. I just hope God can help him find work soon so he doesn't have to become homeless, which I hope is an experience he doesn't have to go through.
Our other investigator, Linda Xu, is actually a new move-in to the area from Toronto, Canada. It's crazy to see how the Lord has been preparing her to join the church. She first had contact with the church in Toronto and had a really good impression of the missionaries. After she moved here to meet her fiance for the first time who she met online, she was introduced to our English class by the neighbors of the people she and her fiance were staying with. Just this last week she moved houses and is now staying with members! Basically the biggest, if I didn't believe that God was involved which he almost certainly was, coincidence ever. So she is coming along pretty well. She seems pretty receptive to our message, despite the fact that she is living with her fiance which is going to be a problem probably since they're not really getting along very well and haven't really set a date for the wedding yet. But I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.Our recent converts in the chinese group here are really great though. Our most recent, Rachel, is doing very well and we went with her to do temple baptisms on Saturday which was really good. She had a good experience and then had us and the other Elders over to her house yesterday for dinner. We're going to have her come along to a lot more lessons now since she's on summer break.
Anyways, I'd better wrap up since Elder Luo is finally finished pretty early today. I guess now that he's done applying for school things are much quicker.
Thanks for your letters and your support! Thanks for being such awesome parents! Have a great week!
Love,
-Ian
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Opposition in All Things
Well Helloooo!
I am in complete support of your bid to Istanbul. That would be awesome! Maybe they'll just give it to you for all those years of dedicated service to the govt that you've put in and stuff. And yeah that sounds about right about the dictionary. I'm pretty sure it is that concise one that you mentioned. Also in answer to your question mom, my Sunday wasn't that great... we got rejected a whole bunch at Marina Food and then no one came to church... so yeah, I've had better Sundays... but also worse... probably... We did however, have some random chinese guy show up at church on Sunday which was pretty cool and we're going to go teach him on Thursday... so... hooray! Also, in our combined 5th Sunday meeting, we had a talk by OUR bishop on that Being and Doing talk... man! It's like it was all coordinated or something!
Last week was both excellent and horrible. We had a Leadership training which was was great. I definitely learned a ton of things that I hadn't been doing very well and could improve on and I truly believe will help me to become a better missionary and better leader and trainer. I also went on a pretty good exchange with Elder Joseph in Hayward 4th, an Elder from New Zealand who's just pretty awesome. However, Saturday evening and Sunday were probably the most discouraging days of my mission so far.
However, for the sake of organization, let's start with the positive. Elder Joseph is a great missionary. We had a wonderful exchange and he is incredibly humble, diligent, and hardworking. He also knows Ryan King haha! Pretty crazy. He said Ryan used to go and help teach a mission prep class on Sunday mornings that he would attend and that he went tracting with him one time. So random but pretty cool.
His companion, named, Elder Kleopfer, has a fairly serious speech impediment, but is in no way letting that stand in the way of his becoming a successful missionary. Elder Joseph is also not letting it stand in the way of their companionship working in unity. By all reports, Elder Joseph does not dominate the companionship at all, but is patient and really gives Elder Kleopfer the opportunity to speak and participate in the companionship which is something I really admire and I feel like is something that I'd have a lot of trouble with if I was his companion.
On another note, people are being really really mean lately. I don't know why, but people here are really causing me to feel a lot of frustration. Which is weird cause I faced about the same amount, if not more rejection in San Francisco while I was street contacting, but, I don't know, it just gets on my nerves so much more here for some reason. Possibly because the places where we can go here are rather more limited. We have spent a lot of time at Marina Food where there are loads of Chinese people, but a lot of them have seen us quite a bit and I'm really beginning to doubt the effectiveness of going there to find people to teach. Although to be fair, our investigator with a baptismal date, Brother Jiang, was found there so... not a total loss.
Speaking of which, it's almost ridiculous how much opposition there is to missionary work sometimes. And sometimes in places you hardly even expect. We met with Brother Jiang last night and he said he wants to wait to be baptized. After further investigation, it turns out his lawyer, who is going to help him apply for a green card, told him not to get baptized because, and I quote (roughly), believing in Christ is bringing him bad luck. This is of course, based on the fact that his boss fired him for wanting to come to church on Sunday and if God really was looking out for him, his boss would've said it would be ok to go late to work on Sundays or give him Sundays off. So, I'm no lawyer, but that hardly sounds like professional advice to me. Is that the kind of thing they're teaching in law school these days? I hope not. In any case, I really hope God helps him find work soon because his rent is due on the 5th and it seems as if he might not have the funds necessary to foot the bill. But I suppose he's got to get through this trial of his faith. I really hope he does. On the upside, he has pretty much completely quit smoking. He said he doesn't really even think about it anymore, which is pretty miraculous considering less than a month ago he smoked a pack a day, not to mention the fact that that was a 40 year old habit.
In any case, I was feeling pretty discouraged yesterday just because it seems like we've talked to everyone who speaks Chinese in this whole city and they all hate us (judging from the Marina Food representative sample), which I know is not the case, but sometimes it really feels like it. But I guess I can't give in to frustration and rejection etc etc and keep thinking of new ways to find the elect, since we really don't have that many investigators right now...
Anyways, thanks for your emairs and support! I got your postcard mom. Thank you! Love you!
-Ian
I am in complete support of your bid to Istanbul. That would be awesome! Maybe they'll just give it to you for all those years of dedicated service to the govt that you've put in and stuff. And yeah that sounds about right about the dictionary. I'm pretty sure it is that concise one that you mentioned. Also in answer to your question mom, my Sunday wasn't that great... we got rejected a whole bunch at Marina Food and then no one came to church... so yeah, I've had better Sundays... but also worse... probably... We did however, have some random chinese guy show up at church on Sunday which was pretty cool and we're going to go teach him on Thursday... so... hooray! Also, in our combined 5th Sunday meeting, we had a talk by OUR bishop on that Being and Doing talk... man! It's like it was all coordinated or something!
Last week was both excellent and horrible. We had a Leadership training which was was great. I definitely learned a ton of things that I hadn't been doing very well and could improve on and I truly believe will help me to become a better missionary and better leader and trainer. I also went on a pretty good exchange with Elder Joseph in Hayward 4th, an Elder from New Zealand who's just pretty awesome. However, Saturday evening and Sunday were probably the most discouraging days of my mission so far.
However, for the sake of organization, let's start with the positive. Elder Joseph is a great missionary. We had a wonderful exchange and he is incredibly humble, diligent, and hardworking. He also knows Ryan King haha! Pretty crazy. He said Ryan used to go and help teach a mission prep class on Sunday mornings that he would attend and that he went tracting with him one time. So random but pretty cool.
His companion, named, Elder Kleopfer, has a fairly serious speech impediment, but is in no way letting that stand in the way of his becoming a successful missionary. Elder Joseph is also not letting it stand in the way of their companionship working in unity. By all reports, Elder Joseph does not dominate the companionship at all, but is patient and really gives Elder Kleopfer the opportunity to speak and participate in the companionship which is something I really admire and I feel like is something that I'd have a lot of trouble with if I was his companion.
On another note, people are being really really mean lately. I don't know why, but people here are really causing me to feel a lot of frustration. Which is weird cause I faced about the same amount, if not more rejection in San Francisco while I was street contacting, but, I don't know, it just gets on my nerves so much more here for some reason. Possibly because the places where we can go here are rather more limited. We have spent a lot of time at Marina Food where there are loads of Chinese people, but a lot of them have seen us quite a bit and I'm really beginning to doubt the effectiveness of going there to find people to teach. Although to be fair, our investigator with a baptismal date, Brother Jiang, was found there so... not a total loss.
Speaking of which, it's almost ridiculous how much opposition there is to missionary work sometimes. And sometimes in places you hardly even expect. We met with Brother Jiang last night and he said he wants to wait to be baptized. After further investigation, it turns out his lawyer, who is going to help him apply for a green card, told him not to get baptized because, and I quote (roughly), believing in Christ is bringing him bad luck. This is of course, based on the fact that his boss fired him for wanting to come to church on Sunday and if God really was looking out for him, his boss would've said it would be ok to go late to work on Sundays or give him Sundays off. So, I'm no lawyer, but that hardly sounds like professional advice to me. Is that the kind of thing they're teaching in law school these days? I hope not. In any case, I really hope God helps him find work soon because his rent is due on the 5th and it seems as if he might not have the funds necessary to foot the bill. But I suppose he's got to get through this trial of his faith. I really hope he does. On the upside, he has pretty much completely quit smoking. He said he doesn't really even think about it anymore, which is pretty miraculous considering less than a month ago he smoked a pack a day, not to mention the fact that that was a 40 year old habit.
In any case, I was feeling pretty discouraged yesterday just because it seems like we've talked to everyone who speaks Chinese in this whole city and they all hate us (judging from the Marina Food representative sample), which I know is not the case, but sometimes it really feels like it. But I guess I can't give in to frustration and rejection etc etc and keep thinking of new ways to find the elect, since we really don't have that many investigators right now...
Anyways, thanks for your emairs and support! I got your postcard mom. Thank you! Love you!
-Ian
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)