October 24, 2011

Hello Everyone!!

This week was the fifth week of this transfer call. I cannot believe how fast the time flew by this transfer, I think maybe it went by so fast because the Chinese branch is so amazing! This week we were able to find 2 new investigators! We went to go see one of the referrals, his name is Jason. Jason is one the most awesome people I have met on my mission. We taught him about the restoration and about the church being restored and he said the entire time he just felt happy and at peace. He committed to be baptized before we even asked him to pray about the Book of Mormon and the message that we share. I started to teach him about prayer and how important it is in coming to know that the Book of Mormon is true and to know what we share is true and he said "I don't think I have to." and I asked what he meant and he said "Because I believe it already" he then said "I have never felt this much happiness and peace in my life as I have felt in these past few minutes. I believe you. It is true." Elder Kim and I were so happy to be able to have that kind of an experience. Jason came to church and so did our other new investigators and they all loved it! The members loved them and every single investigator got invited to someones house for dinner! The branch here does a really good job at loving the investigators and making them feel comfortable. This week we had a dinner at a members house and they fed us a lot of traditional Chinese food. The also had us eat Octopus...that probably had to be one of the most interesting things I have eaten on my mission. I definitely wouldn't go buy it on my own and eat it but it wasn't as bad as it seemed. I think the Lord knew I have been pretty picky about food throughout my life, so he placed me in a culture where they definitely are not picky with what they eat! I just recently found out that one of the recent converts in the Chinese branch is moving to Portland, Oregon temporarily to try and get his green card there, he has been asking me all sorts of questions about Portland haha but I have forgotten most of it ;).

This week we had our district meeting and one of my district members said his stomach had been hurting pretty bad. When we went to lunch and he didn't eat because he said it hurt pretty bad. I asked him where he felt the pain and what it was like and it made me think he could possibly have appendicitis. So I told him to call the medical adviser and see what he should do, but he was stubborn and said he would fine in a little bit. But I took his phone and dialed the number and then put it back in his hand, so he talked to the Medical Adviser and she said it could very well be appendicitis, but that he would have to wait the day out a little bit to see if certain other symptoms came about the would make it more urgent. They are on bike too. Later that day he called me and said they were at a members house and it had gotten worse so he called the Medical Adviser and she told him to go to an urgent care, so we ended our dinner with a member a little short and left to go pick him up at about 7 or 8pm and then we took him to the Kaiser Hospital Emergency Room because all the urgent cares were closed at that time. He got checked in and took him to the back and Myself, Elder Kim and Elder Munguia stayed in the waiting room. Elder Snyder (the one that was hurt) had their phone so he kept sending us updates. Finally he texted us and said that all the tests they did didn't help in finding the problem so he needed to have a CAT scan! They let us go back to the room he was in and stay with him while we waited. His CAT scan result came back a lot later, at about 3am, and we found that he did not have appendicitis but that he had some kind of infection in his smaller intestine. So we had to get a prescription and then go pick it up at a 24 hour pharmacy....needless to say, that is the latest I have ever been up in my entire mission! The prescription solved the problem and he is doing fine now, but it was an a fun story!

I love you all and I hope to hear from you all soon! Until next week!