This week has moved by so quickly. I'm surprised by how quick it was. It was a good week. I look back and see that amidst quite a few trials we had a lot of success! I'm so glad to share it with you every week as well as things that I've learned from the scriptures.
We had a share of hard things happen to us this week, but the hard things always seem to preceed (spelling? I can't spell at all anymore) a miracle or a learning experience.
So a couple days ago (since we don't have tons of investigators to visit) we had a big chunk of our day that we just had to go finding. Please note-- this is the part of missionary work that I don't feel like I'm good at. This is the part that you just kind of walk around in populated areas and talk to everyone (although we do this everywhere). This is the part that also includes knocking on doors. This is the part where you have to think outside of the box to get people interested in talking to you. It's hard and a skill that I have far from mastered. In fact whenever I think about it I just get a little intimidated because I think I'm so bad at it. I'll do it, but I'm still working on loving it and figuring the secret. Anyway this particular day we were looking for people to teach and I just didn't feel like I was good at it. Every time I talked to someone, I did what I knew how to do in my limited Chinese and we ended up with nothing. I was telling my companion that this part is tough for me when a woman made a b-line for me and just said "wow you are so pretty!" After some talking we found out that she is Christian so we started telling her more about our message. I was so excited! It was a miracle! But she kept changing the conversation to be about other people that don't have Jesus yet. Then she said she was going to take us to a family's house that doesn't have the gospel. So we followed her. And we followed her. I kept talking to her, but she just walked and didn't say much. And we followed. And followed. Eventually I was looking at my companion like-- what is going on? What do we do. Eventually we stopped. This lady pointed to a family's huge shrine and said "See, they don't have Jesus. They will be home at 8:00pm. You wait here so you can preach to them." Then she left. And that was it. I thought I was gonna die! Literally I was so bummed for about 45 seconds. Then my companion and I just started laughing so hard. This is HILARIOUS! It probably doesn't seem as laughable to you, but we had to laugh because we just walked and walked until this lady saw a house of people who were OBVIOUSLY not Christian. It's just funny.
Anyway later that day we had another trial. We went to a neighborhood that we had knocked at a week previous in order to visit a potential investigator. They weren't home so we decided to knock on the doors we hadn't been to yet. We knocked on the door of this old woman who saw us and immediately said "Bu Yong" (Pretty much means I don't need this.) So I asked if we could do service for her. She said "bu yong." So I asked if she knew anyone we could serve. She started to think for a minute. Then a neighbor came right up to us and said "Why are you bothering this old woman. Can't you see she is Buddhist? We are all Buddhist. Everyone on this street. We don't need you here." I told her we were looking for someone to serve. She just kept ignoring me and saying "We don't need this. We don't want you here. Go away." I just started tearing up right in front of her. Then she left and we walked away from the lady's door. Then I cried harder for about 30 seconds trying to hold it back. I was just so sad for these people. They just don't understand. Anyway, I didn't let myself go. I wiped off my tears before they got worse. We stood in front of the next door for about a minute looking at all the signs that showed they were obviously Buddhist considering whether we actually want to knock on their door. We did. A man came out just as his wife and two kids were walking around the block. We talked for a minute. They said they can't meet with us because their parents are all Buddhist. I asked them, if their parents didn't disapprove would they be interested. They said probably, but they just can't right now. We invited them to English class and moved on. We kept knocking that street. About 15 minutes later they all came out to find us and asked us to come back to their house for water. We went over there and had a great time just becoming friends and answering questions about what missionaries do. We shared a lot that they didn't know already. Then we watched their son sing songs for us in English. It was fun and we started establishing this relationship with this great family. We left them with our information and said we hope to see them again, maybe we can all go out for food. Sure we left and they still felt like they couldn't investigate the church, but they did learn more than they knew before and a seed has been planted. Miracle.
Another miracle. We were biking to Yingge to go to dinner at the Bishops house. Pause-- first of all-- I thought my old area was big. I remember biking around there always thinking "wow this area is huge, we bike SO SO SO much." False. My new area is HUGE. We have to bike so far to get to Yingge. And it's not like we bike a long time with bywalkers on the street to stop and talk to, we bike a long time with nothing around us except for our own thoughts. It's a long trip that we make often. And the way home is the pits because it's all uphill. Anyway we were heading to Yingge. Once you leave the main part of Bade there isn't anyone around, but there were people on either side of us at the beginning of the trip. I was thinking about how we shouldn't just pass everyone up on our way. So I decided that the next person we passed I was going to talk to. I just pulled over. It was this girl who is 16 and she is actually pretty interested. She said she considers herself Christian, but she doesn't know much about it. We taught her a little bit and then invited her to meet with us again and she set up. Sweet girl. It was a great moment running into her.
Then hilarious-- we got to Yingge and we were heading to the Bishops and I saw a cart with this super delicious dessert that my companion had yet to try so I stopped. Not even a second later my companion comes crashing into me. HILARIOUS! I guess she didn't see me stop because she was busy looking at a bakery. Moral of the story: my companion and I are obsessed with food and easily distracted.
On our way home from Yingge that evening we stopped at a 7/11 to get water and we ran into a black man from the Dominican Republic. He spoke Chinese to us with a Spanish accent. It was super hard to understand so I just asked if he spoke English. Turns out he does. That was way easier. Hilarious. It's awkward seeing other foreigners because you can't just assume they speak English so we all just speak Chinese in TERRIBLE accents until someone just brings up English then we all switch and it's much simpler.
Oh I'm supposed to mention that my district leader, Elder Davidson, says hi.
Also-- there is a beautiful place in Bade that we pass by everyday. It's called the Chocolate Reservoir. I'm not sure what that means, but I just know that I must go before my time here is over. It's not open on Mondays though. I guess I'll wait until the Wednesday that we have a temple day. I'm counting down days to go to the place of chocolate and glory and happiness. IT WILL BE A BEAUTIFUL TIME!
Also-- my companion says I get stared at by everyone here. Random people tell me I'm really pretty all the time. Moral of the story is that being here is a MAJOR ego boost and I don't think I want to be in America where not everyone thinks I'm beautiful. Having blonde hair in an Asian country is very useful.
Okay enough of that. Time for the spiritual stuff.
This past English class we were teaching the spiritual part at the end of class and shared about Alma's repentance process in Alma 36. We talked about repentance and how it feels and how we do it. The spirit was strong and there were two people that seemed particularly interested. I felt like I should invite them right there during class to be baptized. One man said he wants to so we were able to get him in touch with the Elders. Another girl said she would think about it and is willing to meet with us.
I know that this church is true. I know that it's been restored. Everything that we expect to happen from Paul's teachings in the bible is happening. We have a living prophet and 12 apostles and they are directed by Christ. We are in the fullness of times with the true and living complete gospel on this earth. This truth is precious. Share it with everyone.
Anyway. That's all for now.
If you haven't read the Book of Mormon yet, go read it! It's a great book! And if you aren't a member of this church and haven't started meeting with the missionaries yet, go do it! There's no time like the present. I know this is true and everyone else can know to if you just do what is promised in Moroni 10:3-5.
Go get 'em champ!
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