Letter #13

Hey oh and what do you know!

 

Wow it is really crazy how much faster time flies by when you are in the mission field! I really feel like i just barely wrote an email home! But WOW what a crazy week! It is really insane how busy you are out here! There is no free time to do anything! I forget that i am supposed to eat sometimes but hey, i am still continuing to get fat... it is a mystery!

  OK so first of all, it was thanksgiving this week! Which let's just say was not a normal thanksgiving at all!! At first, i went to the MACY'S DAY PARADE! (that was so cool... there were so many famous people that went by on floats and i got pictures it was so sweet!) A lot of Nickelodeon stars so i was really happy about that! It was so cool though as it was awesome to see it in real life! I was so excited! There were so many people there though it was insane! My Mission President is SO cool! He lets us go to things like that all of the time! We are aloud to go to Yankees games that are on Pdays! AND we get to go to one Broadway show before we leave! AND we can go to all of the museums on our Pday as well! My mission president made or Pdays on Wednesdays because it is free to go to the museums on Wednesday! Today is Wednesday right!? ha I have no idea anymore!! But anyways, thanksgiving was really cool! We went to a members house to eat and it was really cool but very different! They live in QUEENS so we had to get special premission to leave our mission boundaries! He allowed us because that is the only family that was able to have us over for dinner! For our meal we had chicken feet, sea food and a bunch of things that i had no idea what they were! AND yes, i said chicken feet! Which actually surprisingly is really good! It kind of tastes like candy in a really weird (not candy way) at all! BUT it was still very good! OH wow i love Chinese food! It is Delicious! After we ate, we all talked! WELL, my district and the family talked and i got lost pretty easily! Chinese people speak sooooooooo fast!

   I was blown away this week with my Chinese! My first church experience was insane!!! IT was so weird not being able to just walk up and talk to people! I definitely tried though! IT was a little discouraging though because of how blunt Chinese people are at times! I had one lady flat out tell me my Chinese was horrible, and she did not like my last name! what do you say to that?! I just laughed, then ran to the bathroom and cried! hahah NO i am kidding, but i did laugh i thought that it was hilarious! I am glad that she was honest about my Chinese! But i love my ward everyone is so nice! At least, if i understand what they are saying correctly!! They all are so humble and really willing to help! they are all also very hard workers. Most of them work all day and everyday!! China Town is always busy! It is hard to get members to come to lessons with us though because they are always working! It is very rare that they have any free time at all! That is why we had to go to Queens for Thanksgiving as that is they only family that was able to have us over for dinner!! it is pretty crazy!

  Because China Town is so busy, it is often very hard to contact people! They have no time at all to do anything! They are usually running, so you have to run after them as you are trying to tell them about our church! ha BUT sometimes they will still talk back and it is really funny! I have recently found something that works pretty well though! You offer to help them carry their stuff! They are always walking around with huge bags and boxes! I saw this guy carrying five bags of Chinese food in each hand!! I asked if i could help him, and asked my companion to come with me! We helped him with his food all the way to his house!! Most of the time, we walked with him we were just talking and getting to know him! AND he was asking questions about what we do as missionaries! When we got to his house, he tried to pay us!!! We refused the money and he was very confused!! We said that he could pay us by letting him teach him about the church!! He agreed and gave us his phone number! I really hope that we have the opportunity to help him learn. I think that would be so cool! That was probably one of my best contacts the whole week! We continue to pray for opportunities to serve people!

  We don't have very many investigators, but the ones that we do have are really cool! One of them is getting baptized this Saturday!! AND he is so ready! I don't know him very well at all but he is so smart. He has really read the book of Mormon and has a very strong testimony that it is true! He loves the scriptures! This is a person my companion and his old companion taught, before his old companion left! BUT i am giving a talk at his baptism and i am extremely nervous! It is going to be in front of real Chinese people! NOT just missionaries at the MTC! It is going to be crazy! Oh and me and my companion are doing a duet in the Christmas program in Chinese!!!! hahahahah! that will be interesting!! I really wish that you could all hear what it will sound like! Just imagine "angels we have heard on high" sung in Chinese by two missionaries that can't sing! IN a language that one of them does not know! Doesn't that just sound marvelous!!

  Ok now it is time for my two favorite stories of the week! First one: Our land lady asked us to take out the air conditioning vent from our window! It was one of those ones that hang out of the window and that is held down from the window being shut! I am sure you can see where this is going! We had Elder Fan (the native elder from Hong Kong) hold down the air conditioning unit as we tried to pull up the window! The window was really old and really hard to open!! My apartment is 100 years old! SO me and my companion and Elder Fan's companion were pulling up on the window to get it open! The window opened way faster then we thought that it would, and then we saw a flash of light (electricity) and heard an unearthly scream (Elder Fan) as the air conditioning crashed five floors down to the street below!!!!!!  We sat in silence for about a minute and a half... after that we all started to cry we were laughing so hard! AHHHH that was amazing! Luckily our land lady was really nice about it and did not get mad! We are also lucky nothing else broke and no one else was hurt!! I hope that you are getting the correct imagery from this story!

  Next story is not nearly as funny! I don't know if any of you have seen the rain in New York, but it rains to the side! Because the wind blows soo hard!! It is the strongest wind that i have ever felt in my whole life but it is really funny because in China Town a ton of little Chinese men almost get blown away! This morning i saw a little Chinese man, fighting to keep his umbrella in his hands! He kept pulling against the wind until finally the wind BROKE HIS UMBRELLA IN HALF!! It was so funny! ah gosh, i love it here!

  Well, i hope you are all doing great! i am loving my mission more and more each day! i am exited to know Chinese that will for sure make things a lot easier! The language is insane! But i am doing great! Thank you all for your love and support!

 bao zhang lao