March 5, 2012

Hello!!!!

Wow this week flew by pretty fast! Today we start the last transfer of my entire mission! From today it is 6 weeks left. I finally feel like I have got the hang of everything out here so I am so excited for these last 6 weeks to work as hard as I can, and I know we will see miracles! So for this past week we did a lot of meeting with our new investigators and seeing where their interest levels are. There were a few of them that ended up not being too interested but we do have a few that are progressing pretty well. One of those people that is doing well is our investigator Mr. Yang. He is the man last week I said that we randomly knocked into and about a year and a half ago I had taught him. He loves meeting with us and this last time we taught him we emphasized the importance of coming to church because he has been doing everything except for attending church, after that lesson we still weren't quite sure whether he would actually come or not, but this Saturday he called us and said "I am going to church, can you find a ride for me?" we said of course and got him a ride right away. When he came to church on Sunday he absolutely loved it. During the meetings he sat next to me and said he wanted me to translate anything anyone said in English for him because he doesn't speak or understand English at all. So throughout church I got translate for him. He is somebody that my companion and I connect with really well, and he loves talking to us. He is like a Grandpa to us. We will be seeing him again this week, so keep him in your prayers if you can :). We had a pretty funny experience with a member of our branch this week. There is a member from mainland china and he likes to have us over for dinner quite often. Well, he called us and I handed the phone to Elder Mensink so he could practice speaking to him in Chinese and then I got distracted talking to somebody else. Later that night Elder Mensink said this member said that the next day we were to go to his house and pick up some food and take it home because he was just recently given a lot of food so he wanted to give us some. So the next day we were driving over and the member called us multiple times asking where we were but I kept telling him we were almost there (and we weren't even late). We got there and I said hi to him and he said "Finally you are here! OK, go sit down, eat."....we were kind of confused because we thought we were just picking up the food, but then the member looked at Elder Mensink and said "I told you last night you would eat here. Oh come on, I told you last night" (and this is all in Chinese btw). Then he looked at my companion and said "You make me sick" (in English)....it caught us so off guard but we just assumed he didn't really know how intense that sounds in English, it was probably a phrase he learned the other day, he has used a lot of funny phrases like that with me before (one of them being...when he had to use the restroom he looked at me and said "Nature is calling" in a broken English accent) that one made me laughed really hard. Anyway, to say the least it was kind of an awkward lunch haha but it turned out really good in the end and we left a good spiritual message with him. And we left smiling and he was smiling, so I think it went well haha.

This week we also had the opportunity to go give a baptismal interview for an older Chinese couple that I had taught for a while. The older man had promised that if he passed the Citizenship test then he would be baptized. Well, he passed and he said he wants to be baptized! We used to go over every week and teach them a lesson and then help him learn English for a little bit so he could pass that test. And he did! He and his wife were both baptized and confirmed this past week!

It seems like time is going by really fast. Elder Bray will finish his mission next week!! So then it will be back down to 4 Chinese speaking elders in our branch. Me, Elder Mensink, Elder Kim, and Elder Winters. I am loving every minute of it down here. And I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for these upcoming weeks! I love you all! Hope you are doing well!