Hello my dear friends!
I am back in Chinatown and loving it! I have decided that I am much more of a city person then an up state person. Don’t get me wrong, I loved up state! But, it was just so slow.. I would street contact for three or four hours and maybe talk to 20 people on a good day. Here I talk to over a hundred people every day, and it is just marvelous! I really did not realize before how much joy I get out of talking with people. It is the best thing ever!
Chinatown has changed a lot! We have three new sisters that were not here before! Two of them are from Taiwan and one is from main land china! They are all so cool! It has been hilarious teaching them some English. Sister Gao (the one from mainland china) can now say, "what’s up homie g?" if you say that in a Chinese accent I promise you that you will laugh. It sounds so funny! They have been helping my Chinese a ton as well! My companion and I do not speak any English all day long! And we do not read English all day long! He makes me struggle through the characters until I finally understand what it means. He has been really good for me! In Connecticut my tones got really bad! I still remember how to say everything, but my tones are just off a lot of the time. So that is not very fun. But Elder Fan has been helping me so much!! I love this guy! He makes me laugh so hard.
One of the things that I really liked about coming back to Chinatown was teaching English class again. It is still the exact same group of people and you get to have a pretty close relationship with them from teaching English. It is kinda funny how it works. But anyways, I walked into the room to teach, and Elder Near got on the piano and started to play a song on the piano that kinda sounded like the beginning of “eye of the tiger”. Then he started to tell English class to but their hands together for the “return of Elder Barton”! I am not going to lie to you I felt like I was a movie star. It was almost like being Ammon in the road show again. Ok maybe not quite that cool. That was a pretty intense experience. But it was cool. I really like teaching English class.
Elder Fan and I have also had an amazing week. We got a few referrals from members and investigators. It is always a good feeling when you get them from an investigator. Two of them want to be baptized this week! Pretty crazy considering that we met them on Sunday! They have been meeting with us every day in order to prepare for their baptism. It is a husband and a wife, which is also really cool. We are so excited for them! This is a miracle! Such a miracle that it feels like I am dreaming. I have noticed that the biggest miracles always happen when someone new comes into an area. Or if you are on companion exchanges.
Chinatown has had so many baptisms since I left! I barely recognized anyone on Sunday! It was like going into a new church. Luckily we were able to see some of the converts that Elder Near and I had while we were together. It was so good to see all of them again! Chen Dixiong is starting a restaurant! Fan Jie Mei moved to Queens now, but she came up to see us, and she has been doing really well. She had this huge backpack full of English learning books! Wang di xiong had a baby! All kinds of new things happened! But it is so good to be back! It almost feels like coming home after a long trip.
My mission president gave me permission to call Jing, and see how she was doing up in Connecticut. I was worried that she did not have any one to translate for her on Sunday. It turns out that her daughter did for her, and it went really well. I was glad to talk with her, and see that everything is still going well.
Well I hope that all of you have a great week! The church is true! Thanks for all of the love and support!
Elder Barton
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