Letter #31

Hey hey hey!

 

Just got back from playing soccer and football with the elders in my zone! It was so fun! It always feels good just to go run around after a long week! The football game was really fun despite the constant interruptions! Chinese people walking across the field and through the game like it was no big deal. And all the sudden, a bunch of high school kids just started brawling. There were probably about twenty or thirty kids all just fighting… it was a little interesting, I am not going to lie!

But any ways, we had a great week! We continued to meet with our new investigators and they are really starting to progress beautifully! Especially Chen… he is doing so well! This is the new Chen, not the baptized Chen! He is doing great! He has actually been reading the book of Mormon and da da da praying!! I am so happy! Every time that we meet with him he always brings in the best questions! Last time, he asked what the brass plates were! We invited him to be baptized, and it went well. He said that he wants to go through all of the lessons, then he will make a decision! I really respected that answer. But he said that he really has a good feeling when he meets with us, and loves praying! He always says the most powerful prayers the spirit is always so strong!

We also met with Kitty again this week! It was.. interesting! We are still a little confused what to do with her. She loves meeting with us! This time she said she feels such a peace when she comes into our church. She is just a little slow. But usually after the fourth or fifth time we explain to her, she will understand! This week she said she liked the spirit world because it reminded her of this story about a monkey king! In this story, a monkey steals fruits from the gods and gets caught! He is sent to this special cavern were he can only eat fruits that fall in and drink the dew from the grass. She said that she thought he was in the spirit prison and had to repent. Ha it is kinda a tough situation! We love her though! She is very nice! We found out this time her mom died recently. She was so happy to know where her mom was! The plan of salvation is so beautiful.

We also met some new people this week! And my companion and I had a record-breaking week for phone numbers! One day, brother Chen came with us contacting! (The one that is our recent convert) He was doing so well! He would speak to people in fujiuinese (a dialect a lot of people speak here as well as mandarin). People were very interested in what he had to say! He had so much power! I had a really cool experience that same day when we were street contacting! I saw this man sitting on a bench next to where we were contacting. He was smoking a cigarette and looked very lonly. I had a strong feeling that I needed to go talk to him. I started to walk over, but got distracted by another person. But the spirit immediately changed my course back to this man. I told Elder Near where I was going, then walked over to him. I sat next to him on the bench and started to talk to him. At first, just small talk. There were some funny kids in front of us that I used to strike up a conversation. As we started to talk about church, I found out that he had previously been to many churches. One in Indiana, one in New Jersy, Brooklyn, but he felt that they were all the same, just good people doing good things. I talked to him about authority (using a plane ticket analogy my dad taught me). I then encouraged him to pray and ask if what I had taught him was true! He agreed he would! I am excited to see where that goes!

I also received so much help with Chinese this week! I have been struggling to have my Chinese progress, so I talked with Elder Faulkner (a white Chinese speaking missionary known for great Chinese) and asked him what his secret is…. He asked me what I had been studying and I told him I would memorize the words that I learned from the week and read some little kids books that I got for Christmas. He laughed and said, “there is your problem!” He asked me why I wanted to learn Chinese. Then said, “if it is to teach the gospel, study the gospel”! He said, that all he does for study is read the book of Mormon! I have been doing that every day and I am really noticing some good results! Words come faster and I am starting to speak clearer! I am so grateful for him.

Conference this week was so awesome! I really wish that I would have gotten so much more out of it before my mission! I took notes but in a way that elder bednar recommended that we do! He said that we should right down what the spirit is telling us not what the speaker is saying! It definitely requires much more attention but it is so much better! My favorite talk was one from elder christopherson about correction! I really thought that was something all of us can work on! It is the only way we can do what heavenly father intended us to do, progress..

WANG XIAO JIE also called us in the middle of conference to meet with us this next week so I am so exited about that! She was the one that had the Bap date then disappeared! She said she had just been really busy! But I guess she lost her job, so now she wants to meet with us again! I guess this is one of those bittersweet miracles!

Well this week was awesome I hope to have another good one this week! Thanks for all of the love and support! You guys are amazing I am so blessed!

 

Bao Zhang Lao