This week was good. I still love my companion.
I guess mom was saying that ya'll still don't know much about Sister Bang.
We've been together for about 2 months now. She's great. She's 19 and her
family lives in Texas. Her dad's family is Korean and they joined the church
and then moved to America. Her mom and dad met at BYU. And thus we now have a
family almost identical to ours with 2 sisters and 2 brothers and 1 dog.
They've moved a lot because of her dad's work. Sister Bang loves to eat spicy
food and red bean soup. I do too-- so we make a good combination. I'll make you
all red bean soup when I get home-- it's sweet. And delicious. She wants to be
a doctor and she's super accomplished. Other than that we're super similar.
She's just 189350928x cooler than I am.
Recently we haven't had electricity in our
apartment so I had to call our land lord, our real estate agent, and an
electrician to get things worked out. Needless to say-- talking on the phone to
someone about Jesus and about electricity are two very different things.
Eventually we got it fixed though.
However-- we got it fixed just to open the door
to a new problem-- our hot water heater is broken. And so I've had to make a bunch
of phone calls again-- and there are a lot of "fixer" people in the
world who do not like talking to me on the phone. Not because I'm mean-- but
because I speak Chinese like a 5 year old. I can only imagine how frustrating
that would be. And you guessed it-- we haven't had warm water to shower in for
4 days. Add that to the fact that heaters don't exist here-- we've been very
cold. We have someone coming this afternoon to fix our water. And Sister Bang
and I finally got cold enough that last night we called President Day and asked
if we could sleepover at the other sisters apartment in order to take warm
showers this morning. It was a much appreciated sleepover. Our apartment is
just 64 degrees everyday-- but it sounds like ya'll are a lot colder than me in
Virginia. So I'm just gonna count my blessings. Blessing one: a blanket (:
Also this week I got a letter that we commonly
refer to as "death papers." Yes-- that's the letter that asks about
me going home. May 10th. Eek. JUST IN TIME FOR MOM'S BIRTHDAY! That'll be a fun
time.
There is an article on Deseret News about
an outdoor baptism they did here. It was in my ward! I was before I moved to
this ward-- but still cool because I know the people in the article. It's
called "Weldon Kitchen and the Baptismal waters of Taiwan's WuLai
Canyon." You can go look it up.
By way of work here in Nankan-- things are
still going. Because of Chinese new year coming up-- it's been hard to find new
investigators. We find people who are willing to me after the new year. So even
though they aren't new investigators yet-- we've found a lot of people who have
good potential to accept the gospel. Also a lot of the people we're teaching
the gospel to right now have said we need to wait until after the new year to
meet with them. It's tough because we aren't seeing them often-- but things
will work out.
One cool coincidence (or rather something
aligned by God) happened this week though. We were heading to visit an
investigator with the Young Women's president and we ran into the mother of the
family we are teaching. She was in her car and saw us and called us over. We
introduced the two of them and explained that when her family comes to church, her
daughter will meet this lady and spend time with the other young women. She
seemed really excited about that. We have a goal for them to come to church
next Sunday.
Another really cool thing. I was calling
members one evening on our home phone. After I called everyone I needed to call
I called a couple numbers of people who had met with missionaries a long
time ago. No one answered but after we planned that evening (and thus
after I had forgotten everyone I called) a lady called us. I answered. She
seemed really confused-- and I was too because she called me. At first she was
really reluctant to tell me her name or talk to me. I explained that I was a
missionary. She said she's seen missionaries biking before but has never
actually talked to them (which added to my confusion because I hadn't called
anyone who doesn't know who missionaries are). We got to talking and she
explained that she's prayed before and had Christian friends, but she has her
own religion. She also explained that she really likes hymns and being around
Christians or in Christian churches because they make you feel warm inside.
After some more talking I asked if she wanted to come to our chapel and meet us
to do a chapel tour. She was really interested in meeting. She was a really nice
lady and we're meeting with her next Tuesday evening. I'm really excited for
that because I know she'll be able to feel the spirit at the church. Also-- I
don't believe it's coincidence that I talked to her on the phone that evening.
It's cool to see how God's hand is in His work. Well that night when I was
saying my prayers I had the thought to look in the pile of previous
investigators that I had called. It turns out that this number belonged to a
woman that had met with missionaries in 2004-- and the lady I talked to was
probably her sister. Cool, huh?
Anyway-- we keep praying for these people. I
know that the Lord loves them. He loves all of his Children.
Lastly I want to share with you a talk I read
this morning. I remember hearing this talk when I was a Junior in high school
and really liking it. So reading it again today really touched me. http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/04/at-all-times-in-all-things-and-in-all-places?lang=eng&query=dalton
What she says is true-- sometimes when we live
our values or stand up for what we believe-- we stand alone in a crowd. But we
really are never alone.
ONE MORE THING I FORGOT TO MENTION! I've been
asked to translate at our Zone Training Meeting tomorrow. Eek! I'm a little
nervous because I haven't done much translating-- but I think it'll be good
practice and Heavenly Father will help me.
The end. Thank you all for all of your prayers
for me, my companion, and my investigators. I know that they really are heard.
And I can tell you that knowing you all pray for me-- really bouys me up when
I'm really really really ridiculously tired because we bike really really far
(speaking from experience-- because we biked for a solid 2+ hours last Friday).
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