LETTER #20

Hello HELLO!

 

This week was another awesome week! I was very lucky! I met many more amazing people and had some great giggles! I will start by telling you about some of the new people that i met this week! OR should i say, taught! The first story was about two english class students that we taught together...they were a crack up! So to start off, i will tell you how we got them to meet with us! A PING PONG GAME! They beat us two games in a row and the last game we said, "if we win, they would have to listen to a lesson from us about Jesus christ"! The heat was on but after a very intense game we won! We decided to watch the movie "finding faith in Christ"! That is such a great movie! Then after, we started to talk to them about what they thought! Sha jie mei seemed interested but Ruby was not really! Ruby went off on some crazy story that i did not understand at all! it was crazy! it was very fast, i think that it was about her brother falling in a cave or something! My chinese is still horrible! But any ways, it was funny! They said if we beat them again this week they would be willing to meet with us again! What have i gotten myself into here!!?

I also met an awesome blind guy when i was tracting! When we said we were missionaries, he asked us to come in and sit down! He also grabbed his sister to come listen to our lesson! His family and his sister's family live in the same small apartment! It is so humbling to see some of these people's living conditions! At the end, we taught them to pray! AND it was very cool! The sister already went to another church "Ming" ( a very popular chinese church that steals all of the chinese people!) but she did not know how to pray the way that we do! We taught them both and then asked if they would be willing to try it! They said yes and both closed there eyes and started right away! Not out loud but in their heads! That was not really what we had in mind but it was awesome! The spirit was so strong and they prayed for a very long time! I could really tell they were feeling the spirit! Unfortunately, the girl did not want to meet with us again but the blind man really liked it! I was on exchanges with a new elder that day, so I gave that investigator to him and his real companion! But I am very exited to see what happens!

We also met a really cool lady that moved here from China twenty years ago! She was very cool! She was very giggly and had a great personality! She talked our ear off and talked very fast but i really liked her! She was also very hard for me to understand!!!!! She had a very strong accent! All of the accents are getting frustrating! Right when i get one down, i meet someone from another place that i have never heard of before and it is nuts! But, that lady was so awesome! She wants to continue to meet with us, and wants her daughter to come with her to attend church! I was very excited!

This is probably my favorite story so sit back and get ready for the ride.... we were out contacting and i met this awesome kid! He said that he was from New Jersey and was only staying for a couple months but he was very nice and said he would be willing to meet with us the following day! I continued to contact and then right as we were getting ready to return home, he comes up to me again literally out of no where! Like i was talking with my companion, look over and bam he is right there! But he started to tell me that when i ran into him he was walking back to his church where he had left his bag! He went back to his church and it was locked! I guess he wanted to go back up to New Jersey and really needed money to get on to the bus! He asked me if he could borrow 20 dollars for a bus ticket. I was a little skeptical because of what happened to Elder Faulkner, but i just had a feeling i needed to give him the money. So i gave him the money! As i was pulling money out of the bank, he told me that he has an English name too... Shart! NO, i did not spell that wrong "Shart"! OF course, being the mature man that i am, i started sweating and turning red from trying so hard to hold in my laughs! It was horrible! I asked him who gave him the name and he said it was given to him in Malaysia where he is from! It was way to funny! He said that he would meet with us the next day but did not show up! I have a feeling that i will be seeing him again very soon! I hope so!
I also forgot to tell you we are having a baptism this sunday! I am so excited! It is lin yao, the daughter of a recent convert! She is so awesome and prepared to be baptized! We spent a lot of time with her this week which was awesome! We took her up to Harlem to watch another baptism which was also a funny experience! It was this Dominican lady! She was extremely spunky! When we introduced her to lin yao, she gave her a huge kiss!! (The complete opposite of how most chinese people will act!) It was so funny! Luckily, lin yao took it well! But it was awesome! We also went to her house and listened to her play this really awesome instrument that i don't know how to say in english! It is this side ways guitar thing without any frets it is so cool!

  I also had an awesome experience and was able to go on a split with an english speaking missionary!! The english program is so different! We had a ton of appointments! AND contacting most people will actually give you a chance to speak! It was cool and I met some great people! AND then we have to remember we are still in New York so there were some people here that were not so nice! I got screamed at a few times, but it was not so bad! For the most part, it was awesome! We ended up tracting a lot of people that spoke spanish! Luckily, the elder that i was with, spoke a little spanish so he could still kind of talk to them! This one spanish lady invited us right in after he said we were the missionaries! It was very awkward to not speak chinese at that time! She said that her daughters were already baptized! The English speaking missionary and his real companion are going to return to teach her! ha! in Spanish! It is so amazing all of things the lord is willing to help us with out here!

Well, that is most of my coolest stories! Sorry this email was all over the place today! I hope that you understand everything! I love you all so much! Thank you so much for your great examples!! Until next time, this is Bao Zhang Lao signing out!