Letter #29

hello hello hello!

 

Well this week was a great one! A few of our other investigators dropped off, but we have found some great new ones and some of our others are progressing greatly!! We also had a baptism on Sunday! Which as I am sure you know, was an amazing experience! Chen di xiong was baptized; it was so great to see how happy he was! His friend ni dao mao baptized him which was also an awesome thing to see! Our district also had 3 other people getting baptized! I love seeing the effect that baptisms have on people! They always change so much right after they are baptized! We always have them go and bare their testimonies right after! That is always my favorite part!

Street contacting is becoming really effective! I think that it is because the weather is starting to get better so people are in a better mood! People have been giving out phone numbers like crazy! China town also has a new group of so called “weekend warriors”.. They are from Korea and on one-year missions.. They can only say " i am not Chinese, i am Korean." in Chinese.. So I don't think that this is much of a threat! They are giving out a ton of these books though that is starting to litter the streets of china town. They are funny though and all very happy! A new thing I have been trying with street contacting is passing out more pamphlets! Those things are so awesome! They explain everything that we believe in so well! I also tried giving out books of Mormon but did not see that much success.. People are intimidated to take a full on book; a pamphlet is a little friendlier I think!

We found some great new people! The first one is ling! He is a high school student.. I contacted him after school and asked him if he had time at that second to go with us to the church and hear a lesson. He said that he would. We taught him the first lesson and he was very interested. He was asking some great questions! I was teaching with elder Duran (the Chilean elder) and it was really good. Elder Duran is so good with the scriptures! Every question that ling asked, he immediately had a scripture to answer the question! The teaching was so powerful that way! It really made me realize how important it is to use the scriptures! When we use them, it shows them how important the they are and will give them a desire to read them! It is so important they read them to get a testimony! I really want to start getting better with my Scriptures! It is extremely hard but I need to! I don't use them enough.. The Chinese people have a hard time understanding them so I feel like it is easier to just explain things. Explaining does not make good teaching..

I am starting to love my branch!! This Sunday a little old lady named xu jie mei sat next to me and said I brought you a present! She reached into her bag and pulled out some chocolate, a bag of spicy nuts, and a coke! She started to giggle as she sat it all on my lap! I wanted to give her a hug so bad! She is the nicest little lady every! I am so happy I am able to develop relationships with all of them! They are so awesome!

It randomly started snowing today! I am very confused! I thought that it was spring. This whole week has been really nice though! Just today is bad and hopefully it clears up tomorrow! We need to have more of these awesome people walking around that have been inside all winter! These kids have all been playing this really fun looking game! It kinda looks like handball but it is played with a really small ball, and they hit it really hard! I might try to get in a couple rounds on that. I might have to train though they take it pretty serious! They wear gloves and everything! Me and elder near bought a ball to go practice.

I am so amazed with how fast time is going by! I feel like each cycle is only a week long! This cycle is ending very soon! I am scared that elder near might be leaving! He has been in china town for a long time now; it is most likely he will. I am going to miss him! He has been very fun.. And our personalities work well with each other.

Well I got to get going we are heading over to the museum of art today! I am excited! I love you all so much! Thank you for all of your support out here it really helps me a lot! Hope you have a great week!

Bao zhang lao!

Letter #28

hello hello.

Well this week was a little rougher then usual, but it was still good! It was bad because 2 of our bap dates are not answering their phones and not meeting with us, so they are not going to be able to be baptized as planned! Not going to lie I am a little sad about that.. they still want to learn but they are just so busy with their work and never have any time! We are going to meet with one of them tonight and I am exited about that! I hope that we can set a new date for her to be baptized! She is so ready all she just has to find the time! The other one Wu is very prepared as well, and has the same problem! I hope that they will start to develop faith in prayer, and realize that they can avoid this problem if they sincerely pray to have time.

On a good note, the rest of our investigators seem to be doing good! Chen Di Xiong is getting baptized this weekend! I love him so much, he is such a stud! He is not even a member of the church and he payed his tithing last Sunday already! This man is such a miracle! I am learning so much from teaching him! He obeys everything that we teach him, and is constantly asking for more to read. He LOVES praying! I wish you could hear him talk about it, the spirit is so strong when he does! You can really tell that he knows that it is a true principle!

We are also meeting some really cool people lately! We have been so lucky! Ling is the first one I want to talk about! He has already been baptized in another church, but because he moved to china town he was looking for a closer church! We contacted him on the street and he was so exited that we spoke chinese! He was amazed by the decision that we made to be missionarys and said that he wanted to meet with us! I was very surprised when he called us the next day to meet up! He was very accepting, and was so interested in the book of mormon! He left to north carolina for a few weeks, so it will be a while until we see him again, but I am very confident in him! We also met Wu Di Xdiong! He is a tour guide in china town! I told him that it has always been a dream of mine to work on the disney jungle cruise ride! He came to church on sunday and I was so impressed! We also met a Wu Jie Mei! She asked us to help her study for her test to get her green card. She is an english class student. after helping her study, we asked her if she is nervous. She said that she was. We told her that she can pray and heavenly father will help her feel better! She seemed very interested in prayer! We also met a Huang Jie Mei! Another english class student, who asked us to teach her how to pray! She missed the english class on prayer. She is so nice! We might go help her translate in her parent teacher interviews! That will be interesting!

Oh and by the way! Guess who almost all of the chinese people think I look like now?! If you just said harry potter then you are right! I have no idea why but they are all convinced that I am his brother of something! I have actully had like 5 people tell me this before this week but this week it got alot worse! I saw a member of our branch and her friend talking looking at me and laughing! I went over to see what the joke was and found out I look like a wizard.. that was interesting! That was definetly a miracle that I wrote down for this week it made me laugh so hard!

I really realized this week how important it is that investigators have their own faith, and own testimony! It is so obvious right now with our investigators! There is a big difference between the ones that are doing their reading and praying, and the ones that are not! The ones that are, are exited to meet with us and have this new glow to them!!! The ones that are not, do not answer our calls, and do not meet with us! It is so important not to borrow other peoples testimonys and work to have your own!

Well I love you all so much! Sorry this one is a litte short again! I am rushed today! I hope all is going well for you! Thanks for all of the love and support!

 

 

Elder Barton

Letter #27

Hello everyone!

 

Another great week over here in chinatown! Elder Near and I tried some new things for contacting and we had some great results! Because things are starting to heat up, me and elder near decided to go basketball contacting! A lot of the high school kids play after school so we decided to go give it a shot! I don’t know how well you guys remember my athletic abilities but yes it was a little rough!! ha-ha! I ended up using my experience for a listening activity in English class! I was a little sore the next day and I got a blister on my toe but it was so worth it! Soo many people stopped and looked at us to see what we were doing playing basketball in white shirts and ties! It was good! We also met two really cool kids, Bing and Allen! we really want to play with them again!

As far as our investigators this week, it was a little rough! We met with a lot of new people but none of our baptismal dates met with us except chen di xiong! I was very disappointed. But… wow I cannot say enough good things about chen di xiong! He is way to cool! He prays twice everyday! AND says he loves to meet with us because of the peace that he feels! He lives a crazy life and he loves to hang out with us and feel the spirit! We introduced to him the word of wisdom this week, and there was no question to him that he was going to follow it! He drank coffee and tea but he said if it is what god wants him to do, then he will do it! It is weird having someone so solid I am not used to it! But I am so happy for him! (this is the one that has his family still in china.) But as far as our other baptismal dates, I was a little bummed! None of them answered their phones even!! Wang jie mei was supposed to get baptized this weekend but there is no way… she is not ready at all. We are going to have to push it back a couple weeks!!

I had a really cool experience this week contacting with the English program! We have started doing zone blitzes now and I am loving it! It is nice to go contact in English every once in a while! BUT anyways! I had a man come up to me and say you look very familiar have we met before? I said no.. He had a very heavy accent so I asked him where he was from! He said he was from Poland! I got really excited and told him that a lot of my family was from Poland! He said that was why he recognized me! He could tell that I was polish! He had a lot of questions for me! He started telling me that he does not believe that any churches have authority and that it left the earth when Jesus died! He was right on the money! But he also said that he did not believe in our church! He thinks that the book of Mormon is a lie and he did not even want to try reading it. As he said this, I got a memory of my grandpa making polish pancakes for my family and I asked him if he had tried them. He looked at me surprised and said yes, I have and they are very good. I asked him how he knew that he liked them and he said because he had eaten them! I told him that it was the same thing with the book of Mormon! He needs to read it to know if it is true! I thought that was so funny! It is hilarious how heavenly father works through us sometimes! I gave him my phone number and a card! I really hope that he will change his mind about the book of Mormon.

As for new investigators, we have two that are awesome and I really want to talk about! The first is jiang chi! She is so awesome! I contacted her a long time ago and she just came to our church one random day and we taught her a lesson! She is so cool though! She is a singer. We recorded her singing this Chinese song and set it as our ring tone! She was just in the hospital because she broke her arm but she cut off the cast because it was itching her and she wanted to shower! ha! The other is xu ji mei! She is soooooo smart! she was a doctor and a Chinese teacher! She helps me with my Chinese a lot! She also sang in the Chinese opera. I thought that was pretty awesome! I met her through the lady I told you that I contacted her and her white husband was cussing at me in English behind me as I talked to her! It was her friend! That girl had to stop meeting with us because her husband was Jewish and didn’t like us! But I am so happy we ended up getting a new great investigator from that! Both of those people I just told you about are from Beijing so they have awesome accents!

Chinatown also got a new addition! Sister Sue! She is from Taiwan! I only met her once so I don’t really know anything about her yet but she seems cool! Sister Tai went home though so that is kinda sad! It was weird seeing someone go home that I knew! It kinda scared me a little because I realized that missions end! I am so happy I still have a lot of time… I am getting scared with how fast it is going though!

The best small miracle that I saw this week was pistachio ice cream! My companion and I had a rough, long day of contacting, not really finding anyone that was interested. Then we found this store... we had never seen it before so we decided to go in and take a peek. In the back fridge we found it... the beautiful delicious green ice cream! I had never tried it before and oh my goodness it was awesome! It made me so happy! I am addicted to that stuff! my forty-day fast is getting so much easier! I think I am starting to develop good habits! That is always a good thing!

Well I love you all so much! Thank you for all of the love and support you guys are them bomb! Sorry this letter is a little short, but the place is starting to close down so I got to speed it up! love ya!

bao zhang lao!

Letter #26

Hello!

Wow that was an amazing week! First of all I just want to talk a Little bit about my elder bednar experience! It was so cool! My companion and I sat on the front row, so we were very close to him. Wow I wish that I could explain everything that I felt and how strong the spirit was in that meeting in an email but I really can’t it was just way to special! I had so much personal revelation come to me during that meeting. Things that I didn't even know I was looking for. But when they came to me, it was so clear and obvious that it was just for me. I have such a testimony of apostles being called of god. It is so obvious when you are in their presence! We all also had an opportunity to shake his hand, and look him in the eyes, another experience that you cannot explain in an email. I was so grateful for that opportunity! I needed that so bad.

The rest of the week was also incredible! We got a referral! Something that never happens in china town! A member of our ward taught his friend about our church, enough to even give him a desire to be baptized!! This feeling is SO much better than us finding someone! It really shows this member has a testimony! We taught him on Saturday with ni dao mao (the member). It was so great! ni dao mao was testifying so boldly and the spirit was so strong! Especially when we taught him about prayer. ni dao mao started to testify about how prayer can help you with any difficulties that you have in your life! After he said that chen di xiong (investigator) became very interested. He started to talk to us about his family. His family is still living in China and he came over here to work so that they could have enough money. He lives in an apartment about the size of a bed because that is all that fits in it. We didn't go there but he told us. He lives there so that he can send more money to his family. I have never met someone that is so selfless. He works crazy hours but calls us whenever he has even an hour of time! The part that was so touching to me was when he was talking about his children. He misses them so much and really worries that they will be ok. It drives him crazy that he can’t watch them grow up. He said he talks with them every night on a web cam. He is such a great guy! I can’t wait to see how much this gospel is going to help him in his life!

I also had the opportunity to go to the temple twice this week! Once with my branch to do baptisms and once to do an endowment. When we went to do baptisms I saw my MTC companion serving in the New York south mission! It was so awesome to see him! He is doing so well. It was awesome to talk to him though he is having a very similar experience to the one I am having! He said it is really hard looking over at Manhattan all of the time and not being able to come over AND CHECK IT OUT! That was not supposed to be in caps but lets just go with it! He is such a great guy though and it was great to catch up with him. The endowment was also very cool! That was my first time in the Manhattan temple, and wow it was incredible. It is amazing how no matter where the temple is you still feel so peaceful inside! If it can still feel peaceful in a crazy place like New York that is really saying a lot!

Chinese is still insane! Right when I feel like I get it and I am stud, something will happen that completely humbles me! For example this week I had the opportunity to teach a district meeting. In the opening line that I said, my district started cracking up! Well, I still have no idea why but I am sure it was bad!! It continues to go up and down! But I can feel it slowly getting better! My understanding is a lot better than my speaking though! My favorite thing to do for study is still read out of the book of Mormon! Although most of the time I have to look at what the character or the word means when something clicks I get so excited!

The biggest thing that I really learned this week (I think) is trust. I think there are so many times when we spend so much time waiting around for an answer or a miracle to come but I think most of the time it will come through doing! Sometimes we will not receive answers to prayers when we are on our knees, it will come through us trying something and not giving up on trying! I personally do this one so much! I am loving this new small miracle thing that I am doing! It really is helping me to trust more!

Well, sorry this week’s email is a little short. But I can assure you I am still loving my mission! This is the best experience ever! There is not another place where a boy can become a man! I feel myself becoming more of a man every day! Everything from hair on my chest, taller, stronger, more agile, and stronger. Ha well those things have not happened YET but I am sure that they will! Ha I love you all so much thanks for all of the love and support out here it means everything!

Love, Bao Zhang Lao