Wednesday, January 16, 2013

1/14/13

So the return date might change according to a synchronization that's going on with all the trasnfers so we'll let you know as soon as I know :) but I think we're still planning around July 17 :) yay! hahaha. sadly, I'm not going to make it for July 4. but that's ok :) YAY!!!!!!!


OK. so this week was a short week because we just emailed you on wednesday, but that's ok. I'll see what I can remember from this week. First of all:

Why is everybody getting married?! isn't that a bit many people to be getting married? bahaha. Soon vicky will be married when she gets off her mission in two transfers :) hahahaha. I can't believe I've been out for a year and a half already O.o I feel old. I keep telling all my investigators and members that I've only been on a mission for about a year. :) XIAYITIAO!!!!!!! I've already been out for ages hahahaha. OH NO! :)

Thank you for putting the prescription up for me :) hahaha, our friend didn't put a return adress on the envelope hahaha. it only said vietnam so i wasn't able to do anything about it hahahahaha :) it's ok though. Internet is so powerful!

Alright. So I shall explain the pictures I am going to send to you :) The picture is of Elder Lutui representing Taiwan in Ping pong hahahaha. eh's really good and it's so fun to play him because he jjust giggles the whole time. hahahahaha :) "Jus for fun! Jus for fun!" and then he'll smash the ping pong ball hahahaha :) sports night is the greatest with him. he's really cool because he likes to play with the investigators and soeverybody really loves him it's so fun. Last time, we just sat down with two of our investigators and taught them :)  YAY!
The next picture is of elder johnson during our weekly plan. We have about half anhour to introspect: Whcih is basically a retrospection of the week. and this was his introspection hahahahaha. Since our unit isn't air conditioned, we decided to go to the church because it is. hahaha. We're going through a heat-wave right now so it's incredibly hot! OH MY GOODNESS! IT"S SOOOOOOOOOOO HOT! it's ridiculous. Out in western queensland, the temperatures got up to 50 Celsius.... O.o OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!! I think the highest it got last week was maybe forty, or around there hahaha. it's crazy. so we've been sweating our brains out because of the heat and now we hope our wives are becoming beatiful. My face is becoming so beautiful because of hte sweat all over it hahaha. as soon as we left teh room, we all felt like we were dying hahahaha. :) Thank goodness the church is air conditioned.

Finally, that is a picture of one of my favourite churches. hahahahaha. It puts up these random signs and so it adds to our spiritual thought bank . it's a lot of fun :) hahaha. this weeks was especially funny. If satan reminds you of your past, remind him of his future :P bahahahahahaha. too much fun. oh no! :) so repentance is an eternal concept. if we repent, god can forget what happened, and we don't have to remember either :) yay!
So those are the pictures, I don't think I have any others to send your right now. I did get your package with the new SD card, but I don't know if I'll be able to fill up all the sd cards that I haven ow. I'll definietly try my best. It's my new goal to create new fun membories :) yaya hahaha. so we're going to be hopefully taking more pictures of everything.

This week, we tracted a lot, and taught a lot, and set a lot of baptismal dates and did a lot of weird random stuff. BUT we didn't seem to have too many stories after wedensday, whcih is rather depressing, but we're a work in progress :) bahhahahaha.

We have these investigators which are the COOLEST people IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love them! they are the greatest. My favourite is this Older gentle man from Guangdong, he's the man. His chinese has a really thick cantonese accent ands o it's hard to understand him sometimes, but it's a lot of fun talking to him :) He's got so much faith, but doesn't really know anything about anything :) hahaha. When we asked him, he just said that he loved the feeling, but didn't know a thing aboutt any  religion. He was baptized into the church of england, but they didn't tell him anything about what it emant so now, we're bringing him up to speed. This week, we brought brother huang from hong kong to help us (emeritus area 70!) and he was fantastic! there was no concern that he didn't have a perfect resolution for. Word of Wisdom, he smashed (I'll have to tell you more about that later :)) but he was also baptized into the church of england when he was younger, but ran into missionaries. It was the coolest lesson in the world! I LOVED IT!!!! But he's fantastic. he's planning on being baptized here soon. When we sat down to have a lesson with him, he said: "I decided to be baptized. I thought about it for a while and now I'm going to be baptized" hahaha :) YAY! I LOVE DAVID! I'll take a picture of him. He used to be a policeman in China back in the day, but now he's here. He's older, but he's very very very healthy still. it's so funny. he comes to sports nights and plays basketball like he's 19 still :) he's the man. If he were a bit taller I bet he could have been able to dunk hahaha.

The other super duper cool investigator is this girl named jacquie! I know that sounds french, but she is the COOLEST!!! she asks the funniest questions and they're kinda weird sometimes, but she is the BEST!!! :) She's anurse here from shanghai (Nong ho!) (I'm learning shanghai hua hahaha) and her english is really really good. like it could be better than mine ni a minute hahahaha. it's that good. but it has to be super good because she's a nurse. ANYWAY. She's also preparing for baptism but the lessons are so funny with her because she guides the lesson according to her questions and it's GREAT! we have a lesson plan and then her questions lead us along the path of folloowing that lesson plan :) she's so cooperative :). It may take a minute because she needs to covercome some things, but she ahs a will of steel and she's super supesr dedicated. if she gets motivated to do something, she'll do it. She's awesome.

We had a fun experience as we were contactin gon the streets. a taiwanese family passed us as we were talking to people and one of the kids said hello to my companions as they were walking by, and then he responded in chinese. THe kids all screamed and ran to their parents yelling: "Ta hui guoyu!" hahahaha it scared the mom and she smiled at us. Sadly she was running onto the bus so we couldn't talk to her, but I think that was a good contact :)

Mom is translating again?! YAY!!!!!!!!!!! I don't think we'll be able to see President Uchtdorf's CES fireside, but I'm sure you translated it perfectly hahaha. :) my chinese is still very bad because everybody here speaks english and everything is in english here. so please forgive me if I come home and can't speak chinese :) hahaha. I'm working hard though! :)

Dad is always serving people! I love it. he's such a perfect example of selfless charity :) I wish I were as cool as dad. :) HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Jeff is going crazy again over in medical school. :) Big hug little hug.  I stumbled across your hair in the bag.... yes.

Sister Chen is INCREDIBLE!!! She's really cool. She's my example and she'll be home from her mission before I am hahaha. it's too funny.  I can't believe she's almost home! She's got two transfers left. and she spent her whole mission in zhongli?! JIA YOU JIA YOU JIA YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Verina! I'm so excited for you to go on your missioN! i'm sad I'll not be able to see you for a long time, but I know theis is something that the lord wants you to do! JIA YOU! I bet nide zhongwen bi wo de zhongwen hao. :) Zhong yan ni er.

Jon! Good for you on setting goals! i've really gained a testimony of goals while I've ben on my mission. They've helped me focus so much! I can't wait to be able to put more goals into action :) it takes a lot of effort, but the better you are at focusing on them. the more successful you can be :)  You get what you constantly focus on!
Well, I think that's about it for this week. It was kinda slow. really really really hot. Pray that we never have a heat wave like this. EVER! it's really really hot.

This week, I was studying and I found a lot of information about the preisthood responsibility of men. I really found it interesting because God needs people who are willing and ready to fulfill future positions and stuff and so He needs us to be constantly worthy! so many stories of random people being called to replace missionaries in places of leadership. I love it! I personlly am not a really big fan of leadership positions. I don't really like them at all. but hopefully we can all be and stay worthy fo the Lord's trust and be able to act when He needs us to act. :)

Thank you for all your love and support! :)
JIA YOU JIA YOU!!!!!

Elder Joseph Chen







1/9/13


HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)
so this week! we had fun. it was fun. hahahahaha.

I just got your packages. it was crazy because everybody was like: ok guys! it'st ime to get your packages :) SO we went and got our mail and packages and I had like A MILLION packages :) hahahahaha it was too funny. Thank you for the batman mask and socks Jeff hahahahahahahahaha. oh my goodness. I opened it at zone meeting after I just trained about some stuff, I put it on and everybody was like: OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!! jealousy hahahahahaha that's too funny. They were all wanting it and I was like... bahahaha that's awkward, because it's mine :) yay. anyway. I'll send a picture in a second with me strutting my stuff. hahaha.

SPEAKING of Strutting stuff. In that picture that looks like my jacket! bahahahahaha. YEH! at least somebody is using it. I was worried that all my clothes would have an awkward shade of yellow or something hahaha because nobody wore it for so long, but it seems like it'll be fine. :) IT"S SNOOWWWWWWWWWW. I haven't seen snow in such a long time! I miss it kinda. It's super hot over here all the time. For example: Today, everybody was sweating like there was no tomorrow. OH MY GOODNESS!!!! we all got to go to the temple today and we have to take public transportation rather than driving our car, so we took the public transportation and it's SUPER HOT AND HUMID!!!!!!!! OH MY GOODNESS :) Thank you for sending that deoderant. I was almost out of the stuff hahaha. I am stinky :) but now I have more hygeine stuff than I ever wanted :) bahahahahaha.

ALSO I dubbed your package the: "Get beautiful package" We were jocking and saying: since I'm going to be going home soon, my parents want me to be beautiful and smell good :) so they sent me protein and cosmetics :) YAY for cosmetics. hahahaha.  I'm on a 14-day process of becoming beautiful :) bahaha. just kidding. I have this tube of toothpaste that guarantees whiter teeth in 14 days. I am now on day 5 of a 14 day process for beauty. :) FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABULOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This week. I decided to begin studying cantonese. lei gamyab yao me ye zou? :) HORRIBLE pronunciation. I was talking to this guy from hong kong and he told me that he couldn't tell if I was a chinese or American accent... hahahaha.  I decided that chinese kids have the THICKEST australian accentsi n the world hahaha. when they say: I KNOW! it sounds kinda like: OI KNOUER! hahahahaha too much fun.

We had a lot of crazy tracting experiences this week hahaha. there was this one door, we knocked and nobody answered so I told one of my companions to yell: You ren zai jiali ma?! and then this lady poked her head around the corner and was like: you.... WASSAI Waiguoren hui guoyu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it was SOOOOO funny. Her name is Li Laoshi and she is the funniest person EVER hahahaha.She invited us in and told us that she was christian and stuff but when we tried seeing what she understood but she was missing lots and lots of information. we asked her what she believed about god and stuff... it was interesting. We decided to teach things to her that were super basic and stuff but she couldn't really grasp it. ANYWAY! we eventually were able to get her to church and it was the greatest thing in the world! hahahahaha. oh my goodness. She sat down on this one row and then all the chinese members and stuff eventually sat around her! hahaha she unified a bunch of people including some australians and stuff. it was way good for everybody. :) so we hope we can baptize her as soon as we completely help her understand and stuff.

Another thing that happened while we were tracting. we tracted into this guy who told us his name was daniel and so we were able to geta hold of his number. so we called him later on and it turns out that the number was actually a guy named daniel, but he was a pastor up in north queensland  BAHAHAHAHAHA haha.  so we assumed that he had dropped us. it was too fun. Oh well.

We had a really fun miracle this week. On munday, we were talking to our zone leaders and they told us to set a baptismal date on monday, so we decided to set a baptismal date. and we had no lessons. so we went out and hoped for a chacne to set a date and then WE SET A DATE. it was this investigator who I ahd taught back in gold Coast, but he moved up here just barely and so we met with him and asked him to be baptized and he said... ok :) so we shall work with him hahaha. :)

I'm going to try to attach photos and stuff, but these computers are really slow and I don't know how it's going to work because the computer always freezes if I send too many so I'll end this big one for now and send a few more of pictures.

OH YEAH!!! Dad! thank you so much for writing me a letter! That totally made my day! haha :) thank you so much for all the encouragement you've given me so far! you are the man!

Mom is the man for helping out so much ahhaha. :) Thank you for al the support you've given me!. :)

Jeff! Congrats on being married. I'm glad your wife is wearing my clothes! hahahahaha just kidding. Congrats! I hope you have a fantastic testing time and stuff. Good luck at school! too much sibling pressure! I always feel bad that I never did lots of things :P hahaha.

SISTER CHEN IS ON FIRE!!!!!!!!!!!! She's super duper cool and I think we're going to be super cool friends hahaha.

Verina! I'm excited for you to go out and serve! TAIWAN!!! DOUBLE SISTER CHEN! PREPARE TO GET BAPTIZE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jon! welcome to the world of... eyeah.... THE MAN! I'm glad you're super duper active. there are some missionaries taht aren't active... and they're weird bahahahaha.

OH YEAH! can you do a favor for me?

Shout out to Brandy Phan!!!!! :) Who is in vietnam but is still super cool. She said that she can't really get a hold of me, but she can read my blog and tried adding Verina as a friend on Facebook, but she was wondering what my prescription was so that she could send me a pair of glasses. So if you post it on my blog or tell Verina to add her ( actually don't know what her vietnamese name is, or the name on facebook)  but if you put up the prescription, that'd be really cool :)
LOVE YOU ALL! now I'll try attaching the pictures.
Elder Chen

thank you Jeff for your gifts. they have brought joy to us all


This is sister pangue and Elder Sison. all from the philipines. hahaha. everybody guesses that I'm from there so we took the philipino picture at the temple today. they're both in our zone :) hahaha. they are the coolest. and this picture makes me look fat :)
this i our zone :) FIND ME!!!!!!!!!!!! :) hahahahaha. temple day. guess todays lucky color!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WRONG!!!!!


it is green!

guess today's lucky number!!!!!!!!!

NOOOOO

It is 4.5


12/26/12

OH MY GOODNES!!!!!!!!!!!!! JEFF IS MARRIED!!!!!!!! HOLY COW OH MY GOODNESS OH MY GOODNESS! That's crazy! Congratulations Bro!!!!!!!!!! that's awesome. I just showed my whole district the pictures of your wedding hahahaha. it's crazy. I can't believe you'r married. that's..... not cool. should've waited hahaha. just kidding. all goods!!!! Zao Sheng guizi. Yong yu ai he! Bai Tou xie lao! :) hahaha. I can't believe it. I was supposed to tell you somet hings, but then I ddecided against it because I forgot.

ANYWAY!

I'm still BLOWN! that's crazy! Jeff is married. Oh well. Kara! welcome to the family!!! :) we're weird.

Alright! Back at the ranch, we're all doing pretty well. we don't ahve too much time today because I was looking at all those pictures :) ahhahaha. I can't believe it. oh my goodness. well. this week, we had to email the church office the pictures of all our baptisms and BAM! I spent a long time trying to attach all these photos and it was a mess and it took forever hahaha. anyway. that was a good start to the christams season.


we went to brother and sister munro's house for lunch on sunday. The car in the back is the one I drive :) that MASSIVE Van! yeah. we call it either Teancum, or the MAV aka. Mormon Assault Vehicle. We can fit ten missionarires in that thing. YEH! Brother and Sister Munro are the ones taht went back to utah and visited you all. They're going on a mission in three weeks. From left to right: Elder Johnson is my  new companion as well as Elder Allan. I'm follow-up training both of them now. Bro. and sister Munro. The missionaries in the back are Elder Allan (My companion), Elder ladd (Being trained by Elder lee), and Elder Lee is the missionary in the front. It's really hot down here during christmas so brother munro isn't wearing a tie.  He usually does, but yeah...

we also had a ward christmas party here in the chaple. They were expecting only 100-150 attendants, but had 200 becasue the missionaries brought 50 people :) ALL ASIAN! so the tables in the middle and the one right here, and one other in the back corner were filled with chinese investigators, members, and missioanries. the bishop told us that he has never seen so many investigators at a single party. Now we just need to go out and baptize all of them.


And then a member here gave us a lot of fruit. This is one of the boxes taht they gave us after we had eaten a lot. There were Six REALLY big mangos, a lot of oranges, passion fruits, and apricots. They were delicious. So we are taken care of here. :) and our flat is really nice too, if you can't tell. The floor is a little bit gross, but it's nice.

and this week, we did service for some of our members because of the christams season. We went to a members house that was moving and helped them take all the trash out. and so this is the place we dumped it all. it's a giant trench with a huge truck with a shovel in the front that jjust keeps going back and forth to dump the trash into different areas and incinerates them. It took a long time to figure out how much we had, but we had over 200 kg of garbage that we need to do. hahah :)

This week, we also worked a lot through members. We had more referals this week than EVER! it was wonderful! we have a sister named wynnie in our ward now, and she's a return missionary from Taiwan. Born in zang hua, and then served in Taipei. She's a fireball fellowship. it's wonderful! She lives with several non-members and we're workign with them now. Cindy and Leon (who we baptized earlier) just moved into that house as well. THey also live with a couple known as Wu Jiating. Brother Wu was baptized back in Taiwan, and within two years became a member of the bishopric. They are a fantastic family! we love working with them. I wish they would let us serve them more.... oh well. we'll just baptize all the people that live in their house.

WOW! I'm still going crazy that Jeff is MARRIED!!!!!! WOAH!!! now I have to say my family has 8 people instead of 7!!! ayaoweiya!!!!!!!!! mmmzaia!!!!!!

okay!!! :) YES!!!! It is definitely alright to skype at 9:30 in the morning on 12-26!!! I will be skyping at that time. I'll have to add you as a friend on skype before I can actually skype you, but we'll definitely figure it out.

I can't even remember all the things that happened this week!!!! We're in a tripanionship. It's GREAT! The sad thing is that Elder johnson's trainer wasn't super good at doing missionary stuff, and so we have to work more with him. But it was good. During the coorelation meetings, He started saying more and contributing more information. Because of his last transfer, where not much actually happened, he was really discouraged, and so now we're working on giving him confidence in his work. we're planning on baptizing this week which will be his first baptism. I hope he will be able to baptize this man. He is the greatest. I LOVE ELDER JOHNSON!!! he's soooo funny hahaha. he's one of those really goofy funny missionaries that just goes around and makes people laugh. he's really good at it too.  His sense of humor will definitely help him become a fantastic missionary in the future. I have faith in him.

When we took him tracting for the first time, it was so funny to see his approach to the investigators.  Even though last transfer he just tracted the whole time, he wasn't too hot at tracting. but it worked. His smile just makes people happy I guess. The first sentence he says is: "Ni hui shuo putonghua ma?" hahahaha. it shocks the people so much ahhaha.  they start to jibber in chinese and he can't understand so I have to either wait for him to say something else or jump in. usually, I let him go for it :) it makes me laugh so much hahahaha. He's a very humble missioanry too. He can take criticism very very very smoothly. that's something I need to definitely learn from him.  He's such a great example of humility in listening to the guidance of his leaders and those serving around him.

ok... so I don't think this email will send with the pictures, I need to send it in another email or it will freeze.

Well, I'll talk to you on wednesday!!! :) LOVE YOU ALLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OH yeah, quick other update: We've got members feeding us all day for the next three days hahahaha. breakfast, lunch and dinner. we're double booked for some of them. hahahaha.it's good.

Bishop is having us over for breakfast on c hristmas, and we're bringing all our members and investigators hopefully.

JEFF!!! YOU"RE MARRIED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GO AND BE A GOOD MARRIED MAN!!!!! :) I love when we see awesmoe 90 year old members and they're still in love hahaha. it's good.

DAD is the man! He still looks the exact same age hahahaha. what a shuai ge!

MOM! thanks for everything you do for us! :) I love seeing pictures of all of you. you still look super duper young. I hope people don't mistake me for your husband in the temple again ahha

Sister chen is a FIREBALL in Taiwan!!! oh my goodness. She is going crazy over there in taiwan.

Verina! you are ready for your mission! Go and DO!!!!!! It'll be a sacrifice, but I'm sure you'll be ready to go when it comes time.  Go until there's nothing left in the tank, and then go farther. The lord will provide.

JONJON!!! What a shuai ge! hahaha :) You're getting HUGE!!!! man. I need to start working out and stuff or you'll get bigger than me!

Kara.... I'll see you.... later? hahaha :) i'm excited to meet my... sister in law? is that what you call it? oh well.

Love you all! and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!! See you on wednesday!

Elder Chen

Bishop Guy and family on Christmas Breakfast :)


My companieros!



The Taiwanese guys lawn! he doesn't like Jehovah's witnesses


EMP!!!!!! Enthusiasm Makes Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEH!!!!!


12/31/12

Happy new years!!!!!! :) hahahaha

SO! the new years celebration for us is a p-day!!! hahaha :) so it's new years eve! i know it's still the 30th of december over there, but we get to celebrate things a tiny bit early. I hope church was good for you. It was good for us. Nobody was at church though sadly hahahaha.  all the YSA are in Sydney or Adelaide on something they call convention, which is basically a bunch of them get together and try to find a spouse hahahahahaha.  All our ward missionaries broke up with their girlfriends right before the actual convention so that when they ended up going, the could go and find a wife without a single regret hahahaha :) YAY!!  I'm glad we don't have convention over in the states. It's just called BYU I guess.

Speaking of which!!!!!! I'm really old! hahaha. I just realized that i'm going to be turning 21 this year and I haven't been a teenager for half a year. I think that was a very big step for me :) hahahaha.  OOOOLLLD! I realized this as I was talking to my companions and realized that they graduated from high school 2 years after me O.o OH NO! OLD HEAD. soon, people will be coming out that weren't even in high school when I graduated!!!! bahhahahaha.

This week, we had one of the FUNNIEST adventures.  We have this investigator named Kiki and she is HILARIOUS! she's super super talkative and very excited about life and so whenever she comes to church and stuff EVERYBODY knows her hahahaha.  She's really loud too. Imagine... the most talkative person you have ever met, and then multiply that by like twenty! ahhaha. it's toooo funny. Thank goodness. Most of our investigators were getting boring. hahaha. Kiki is THE BEST!!! :) Sadly, she was on a trip this week, and we weren't able to meet with her, but Elder Johnson gave her a call and she sounded SUPER enthusiastic with HEAPS of energy, but she just told us that she was superd uper tired and wouldn't be able to make it to church. hahahaha. oh man.  She's probably like mom was when she was really young. kiki is married to some guy that i don't think is super excited about church and stuff.

ALSO the christmas festivities were horrible! hahahahaha we kept on eating and eating and eating.  The day I skyped you, it was so funny. RIght after, we went to a meal. so at 10, we had a meal, then 11:30 we had a meal, and then 12:30, we had a meal, and then 1:30 we had a meal after which we had a break till 5 when we had another meal hahahahahaha.  I felt SOOOOO sick.  At the 1:30 appointment, it was a polynesian feed which means HEAPS of meat and stuff, and they wouldn't let us leave until we had finished the food. All of us were miserable. hahahahaha. None of us could eat and we were all just sitting on their couches and trying to eat. I fell asleep halfway through because I was sooo into my parasympathetic nervous system hahaha.  It was bad. they took pictures of me. I don't think I'll send them to you :) hahahaha.

We met up with this chinese guy named peng, he is from shandong, and he is the FUNNIEST person in the world. He's a Ph.D student in Chemical Engineering and really talks really fast. Since my companions are both relatively new, the lesson was basically me and peng talking the whole time hahahahaha. He'd be like "nijinnianduoda?" (SUPER FAST with a SUPER thick dongbei sounding accent) "eh?" "Nijinianchusheng?" (stil really fast and thick) "OOOOH bu shi xue sheng" hahahahahahahaha. I would have to translate back and forth. it was good fun. he's pretty fun to be around. He's really old, but he likes to hang out with young people because that makes him feel cool as well hahaha.  He told us that all his friends are really old and didn't like to do things like go to church and stuff.  He's so funny.

We also tracted HEAPS this week. President wanted us to tract more, and so we've been tracting up the WALL. it's so much fun.  Especially with Elder Allan and Elder johnson. They're so funny.  One of the doors, there was a asian guy that couldn't really understand any english at all, and Elder Allan said: "Hey! would you like to be a mormon?!" BAHAHAHAHAHA. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't even stop laughing enough to translate the sentence ahhaha. The guy was super confused. We didn't get his number, but he wasn't even chinese. I don't remember where he was from. I just couldn't communicate with him!

OH YEAH and then there was this super eppic guy as well. We saw a giant bag of shoes in front of his house, so we decided to ask him about it: "Hey! are these shoes all yours?" "Why?" (super slow) "oh we were just wondering" "I don't understand what you are saying! (points at Elder johnson) YOU! what is he saying?" bahahahahahahaha he wasn't interested at all and he turned aroundto go away, as he was walking away we asked him "Where are you from?"  "I cannot say" bahahaha. so we continued tracting.

The next door was pretty excitinga s well. the person in there was just gardening and it was a really cool front yard so we went in and took some pictures and talked with him, he's from Taiwan and has been here for a long time but every few weeks, he has Jehovah's witnesses come by and annoy him hahahahaha. afterwards, he wasn't interested, but heard me cough and then tried to give me some chinese medicine... it was kinda weird... I've never really trusted that too much. hahaha, it ooked weird.

Well this week, I have to do a training on teaching people and not lessons. HOWEVER. as I was preparing the training, I realized that there was so much stuff about humility!!!!! I learned so much as I was trying to prepare that training. It has to do so much with realizing that you may not be the best at teaching and you have to be exerting so much effort to align your will with god's will. Dallin H. Oaks also said that if we always just wait for the spirit to dtell us what to say, we won't be very successful. it depends a lot on our own preparation and our effort.  More important than speaking is listening. I realized it is better to be the missionary athat listens rather than the missionary that teaches! There is so much I need to learn out here!!!

WEll, I llove you all so much!!! hope you have a fantastinc new years and congratulations Jeff once again. Also Anna is also married? Everybody is getting married!!!! Good thing I have a long time till that :)

Love!!!
Elder Chen

12/17/12

OK! SO!!!!!! we'll probably skype you around 9 am our time on the 26 so you can talk on christams day. I'll have the orth family confirm it with you before we actually do so I don't call over vicky :) hahahaha. so you can have two separate 40 minute sessions of missionary talk! :) YAY!

SOOOO How was your week!? My week was really really really boring. there are no chinese or taiwanese running around. only a bunch of koreans. it's kinda depressing. we always talk to everybody anyway, but yeah. It was a lot of fun :) OK! SO! today was transfers!!! and DUN DUN DUN!!!!!!!!!! We are in a threesome!!! hahaha. it's almost really exciting. I'm with Elder Allan, and Elder Johnson and I'm supposed to be follow up training them. it's pretty funny. I wasn't really sure if I was supposed to follow up train anybody, but now I have to do both my trainee and Elder lam's trainee. hahahaha. too much fun. ALright. Also here are some pictures :)

I ripped a hole in my other pants :P bahahahaha, GAAAAH! TOO MUCH BIKINGGGGG!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOthe hole is a lot bigger than the picture suggests, and it's on my pigu ahhahaha. I"M FAT!!!! :)

because it is "winter time" int he rest of the world, we decided to have hot pots :) YAY! this is some of the people there. there were more people on the other side of the table, but we're just yeah.... on this side of this table. it's good. We had hot pot! and it wa sgood. They bought a lot of meat. The good thing about the students here is that they're all risch people from china, but it's ok. hahaha. I love them. They are fantastic. It's hard to understand some of them because of their accent but it's good.

and this is elder davies! He is THE MAN!!! i love him. He's from Utah as well. his mom is from Taiwan, but his dad is american so he's a hunxue. It's so funny to serve with him. He's crazy hahahaha. Sadly, he's gone down to gold coast in my stead. but it's ok. He'll be back here. hopefully before I go home.

and this is imp.... he's crazy hahahaha. The other day, we were asking him what his belief in god was. it was too funny. he was telling us that God was a 16 dimensional being that couldn't enter our world because it's impossible for us to enter into a 2d world, but it is definitely possible that he's crazy. soooo. yeah. he said that god doesn't really love us because we can't love paper and stuff. hahaha. it was too funny. 2d vs 3d. OH NO! to much for my brain to handle. hahahaha.OK. so those are some of the pictures that we had this week. it was good. ANYWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOW!!!!! THE WEDDING ANNOUNCEMENTS!!!!!!!! That's crazy!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOOD HEAVENS. JEFF is getting married!!!!!!! oh NOOOOOO! that is his wedding announcement isn't it!!!!! OH my goodness. that's crazy! I CAN"T BEILEIVE IT! you're getting married at the end of the world. 




12/9/12

It's almost christmas!!!!!!!!!! and we still haven't organized skype times!!!! ono!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we'll organize it this eek and make sure that brother orth organizes that with you for a bit. hahahah :) I love brother orth. HE IS THE MAN! it's so funny to be around him sometimes.  Usually, we just coorelate with our ward mission leaders, but with him, we hang out and have fun all the time. He is the man. The other night, he left a message of singing "Called to serve" on the phone, but changed the lyrics for him.  hahahaha, it was funny. He's the greatest. too bad he has to work on mondays or we would invite him to come and hang out with us :) He said he'd go to America in 10 years when his son is ready to go on a mission. I think I'll be an old old old old old man by then. oh well. we'll pray for him hahahaha.
OK! so. here is the pictures... hpoefully they work, I don't completely understand these new email formats. it's no good. hahaha. all goods.

ALLRIGHTY! i shall explain these pictures a bit ahhahaha.


FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!


There was a relief society party :) and there were a lot of asians. and we helped because the young men and women didn't come to help very much. BUT NOW! the relief society likes the missioanresi :D YAY!

So elder lee decided to wear a mask. This is what I woke up to in the middle of the night. NIGHTMARES hahaha. he's funny. He was born in Taiwan, but moved to canada. this is him.

then joy was baptized

and we danced.

That was this week! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SO that last picture goes:(Left to right)

Brother Orth(Ward missionleader. the MAN), Elder Lee (taiwanese), (I don't actually know who she is, but I think she's part taiwanese), Joy (baptized), Elder Monsen (half Taiwanese), Elder Davies (Half Taiwanese), Me (Taiwanese), and then the pink shirted shuaige is Mingsu. TO BE BAPTIZED! he taught us this thing called gangnam style and it makes me laugh ahhahahahaha. it looks like we're riding horses and stuff. But it's cool. So that is how we celebrated the baptizm of Joy :)


12/3/12

OH MY GOODNESS!!! it's december already! isn't that insane?! I can't even believe it's gone by so fast! I remember last december I was also in Eight Mile Plains. Isn't that the crazies!? I think it is. Anyway. A year ago, there was this family in the ward called the Chong family and they always had us over for dinner. while I was in the City, they moved to an area called ipswich is a predominantly Islander area.  This week, the Chongs came back to visit and it was a really strange experience. I felt like I was back at the beginning of my mission all over again! Isn't that crazy?! oh my goodness. Anyway. That was my little odd moment from church for the week. We also practiced singing, and I can't sing, but they made me sing anyway, just so that it looked like there were more asians on the stage during sacrament meeting. I think this week we were just practicing after church, but on sunday, we'll be singing. pray for the congregation please :P hahahahaha. hopefully nobody complains about that!

Speaking of which, this week was a CRAZY week! So, the police don't really like us, actually, australians don't really like us in general. It was so funny. we were all contacting people and talking to people, and then three police officers came and talked to us (don't worry nothing happened, I remember what you taught me mom about these things) and they said that evidently somebody called and complained that the missionaries were harassing people? Anyway, we talked to them about it and we got gan zou-ed. anyway. since I was the district leader over all the chinese missionaries, I had to figure thigns out between everything and it killed our week. so we didn't have too many funny stories. Except for the fact that my ping pong skills are terrible. I'll tell you about that later :).  SO THIS WEEK! We did a lot of liasoning between ward members, police, office, missionaries and it was a tad bit stressful, but we got it all figured out. we're going to be tracting a lot more! so heads up! there are going to be many much tracting stories :D yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Those are sometimes the funniest.

Of the tracting experiences... there was this one muslim guy that we tracted and I was so distracted by his hair. He was balding, so his hair was really thin, but the worst part was that it was super long and he smelled like curry! EWwwww! anyway. His forehead was very shiny but, I kid you not, there was a circle of hair growing on his forhead. it was just a circle... like, it was weird. I just kept looking at it to see if it was real or if he had just shaved his head around this circle and then shaved the middle, but it was a LEGITIMATE CIRCLE!!!!!!!!!!!  O.o SO! Jeffrey Yishi! if you can have your dermatologist friend shuoming yixia, that would be lovely. I'm' still stuck on it, it looked so weird. I had to laugh afterwards.... I couldn't stand it.  and he had something orange in his beard..... NOT going to speculate as to what that was.

I think one of the three nephites drove past us the other day and yelled: Jesus Loves You!!!!! :D Or it could've been a member. either way...

it's kinda hard to tell you what happened this week because it was not very long because of hte temple P-day! hahaha. it was good though.  It felt pretty long. OH YEAH! Brother orth's son got baptized and we were able to go  because we brought our investigator along and she really liked it. HOWEVER! in the beginning of the service, there was a cellist who was sitting there and tried playing a few songs... I couldn't even tell what songs they were. ANYWAY. everybody in the congregation was kinda like.... "uh........." and the bishop didn't say anything about it. it was pretty funny. hahahaha. I was dying. my companion and I were laughing so hard. ANYWAY. when Brother Orth and such were getting changed, sister orth asked if I could play the cello while they were changing. SO I did :). Elder Lam (Also at the baptism and described the cello as: "A pig trying to sing bass") had some music, so I looked over his shoulder and played "Our Saviour's Love" and it was good :) I felt better. Afterwards, I played "If the Saviour Stood Beside You" and I think that is my new favourite song ever :) I LOVE IT!  SO I'm going to have Elder Lam Make me a copy. so we can play it later in life :) YAY! i just need a pianist. oh wait! I DOOOOOO!!! :D I love Verina/Future Chen jiemei!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Minus the part where I don't see her for three-four years.... that parts a little sad.

OK! Dad is the BEST! I love him. I've been able to go to a lot of different members' homes and we always feel more grateful for my family.  they're wonderful homes, but it's not the same. Especially when mom sends us pictures of her graduation. Vicky looks like she's so angry out of her skull :)  Thank-you dad formaking me work! it was terrible at the time, but now that I'm older and have retrospective aspect, I'm really grateful for it :)

MOM!!! you are so funny! You're starting to translate again?! oh my goodnes!!! that's super duper exciting! Ig et to brag to everybody that my mom is quatralingual: English, Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Mom language :) We try to make kids smile all the time, but I'm not sure I'm as good at it as Mom is! :)  YAY MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! good for you! :)

Jeff! good luck with your tests and stuff!!!!!!! Zhu ni hao yun!! I couldn't figure out what was going on with your email. the characters were a bunch of numbers and stuff, and I don't think I fully comprehend the meaning of your pinyin! but you're right. my chinese is stinky. hahahaha.  Zhong Yan Ni Er. oh yeah! and you're getting married!? Zao Sheng Gui Zi. Bai tou xie lao. Yong yu ai he. (If you didn't notice, I've been studying some chengyu)

Sister chen is THE MAN! I love her. She's super close to finishing her mission though. so I don't lover her as much as I should, but that's ok. she'll be married by the time I get home. wish her the best of luck!  She's killing it!!!!! There aren't any sisters in this mission like her. they're cool, but not hat cool... and the elders get really frustrated sometimes with the sisters.

VERINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I already gave you a bit, but you are the est! I wish I could play the piano! everybody who plays the piano is SUPER DUPER Valuable out here.

JON IS THE MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait to hear all about the success you have! You're the man! OH YEAH! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! EARLY!!!!!! sadly, to us, it's not so merry. Everybody is going back to china. so we had to temporarily drop most all of our investigators.

ANYWAY ping pong story. We're teaching this girl named lillian and she's a crazy ping pong player! It's so fun to watch her play because she looks crazy hahaha. you know those old asian guys that are running around screaming and jumping and climbing on the table to play ping pong? yeah.... she's kinda like that. it's pretty cool.  hahahaha.

we didn't have too many stories this week actually... hahahaha. and it was a bit short to take too many pictures, so I didn't really take any pictures. however! I did also film an experience where we killed a zhanglang the size of my HAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY CAMOLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it was SUCH A BIG THING!!!!!!!!!!!! and it could fly! but my son drenched it with poison so it couldn't fly. it was too heavy :) YAY! however. we were screaming because nobody wanted to crush it because it makes this sickening crunch sound when it dies.... yeah. ALSO!!!!

Little known fact to me: ZhangLang hui yong cesuo!!!! Zhidao ma? Zhenshide.

We also sprayed poison all around the outside of our house and along the seems of the windows, but it seems like the ants still come in! there are so many of them it's ridiculous! after a day, the floor is black with their bodies... ew. so we have to vacuum every day. we were tempted to do one of those bio bomb things... but decided against it. hahahahaha. we don't want to stay down in the other flats... ten missionaries is too many for one or two flats. O.o

OH YEAH! and a member gave us a lot of eggs this week, and so we didn't have to buy eggs. and the eggs she gave us were HUGE!!!!!!!!!!! they were big eggs. I don't remember what a white egg looks like anymore though. there are no white eggs.

Elder Adams used to make a joke like that. hahahaha. he was be like: Ino rder to have white eggs, you have to have white chickens. Everything is black down here. NO WHITE EGGS!. it wasn't really funny, but since Elder Adams is a senior missionary and he's really old, it was funny. I love the Adam's couple. I mis them, but they're back in america and finished their mission. hahahaha.

Today is Sister Munro's birthday! so wish her a happy birthday! We love her lots and lots. She's the greatest :)

well, I'll probably type dao zheli. :)  LOVE YOU ALLLLLLL!!!

Thanks for sending so many letters and packages!!!!!!! We LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we as in everybody because they all know I get mail every time :) ahhahahahahahaha

Elder Chen

ps. we have a crazy week lined up. and my english is getting worse and worse!!!!!!! I feel like a terrible trainer sometimes :P hahaha. Mang ren xia ma! :)



11/28/12

SO! This week was a bit slower than usual. As you probably noticed, we are at the temple this morning... oh my goodness... my english is horrible. I don't know what to do about that. That's ok. ANYWAY! it was a really long week spent organizing a lot of different thinks. InCLUDING home teaching. OH MY GOODNESS! I never want to organize home teaching again. it was the longest meeting I've ever had. hahaha. it was ok eventually. I was able to maintain sanity for the first million hours.  :) hahhahaha. BUT it was good. The home teaching is mostly organized and now... we sit and pray and call and eat and sleep. hopefully they all do their hometeaching. Now that I've seen the process of selecting appropriate companions, I've realized that they must have thought I was a pretty odd kid. Bro. Nelson is the man, and so I think they were thinking I was pretty bad... which I was. REPENTANCE!!!!!!!!!

OKEY DOKEY! another really great thinga bout that experiencei s that not only did I realize that I've repented a lot in my lfie, but i was able to see how much revelation and the holy ghost have to do with everything that goes down in assigning companions, families, etc. As we were assigning, I would be thinking of a name and then someone else in the room would call it out. It was incredible. ANd it wasn't very slow. As soon as we got started, things started to go really fast.  People all had the exact same Ideas. Whenever I said something to assign a companion or a family, the others would agree and then I'd start thinking of how the match would actually work. It's brilliant. I lvoe it.  I hope I don't have to do it again, but that is something that I'd love to watch again. The Lord truly is leading this work! We're all just little cogs in a big big big machine that is rolling forward without any hands. we might just accellerate that a little bit :) YAY FOR ACCELERATION! It's just like Elder Holland said: We aren't waiting for slow natural growth!!!!!!!

ok. OTher than that. we had a BIG family home evening!!!


Then biked home!!!(Sweaty)


and then went to the temple the next morning :)


with elder taufa!

I really like this new message thing. I feel like I've typed a lot to you all and so I feel better about this one. Usually it doesn't look like I've sent you much, but the scrolly bar --> is really small now! GREAT SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!! more pictures

OK! so this week. There is a little boy named Ronny! and he's the funniest person in the world. I taught my son that "Zhu Ni Zao Sheng Gui Zi" means good luck. But in truth and in reality it means: "have a kid soon" Well. he decided to  yell it to one of our friends while we were at a bus stop. it was pretty funny. the end.

OH BUT IF ONLY IT WAS THE END! after yelling it, a lot of people were looking at us a little funny :P hahahahahaha.  ONE kid named ronny (this is why ronny is relevant) heard it and totally went CRAZY!! hahahahahaha. He was in love with Elder Allan because he had never seen a white kid that could speak chinese. :P hahahahaha. oh my goodness.if only I could have filmed their first contact. it went something like this:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH'
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
You can speak chinese?!!??!?!?!?!!?!??!!?! (^^)v

"um.... dui"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH'
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
"MY name is RONNY!!!!!!!!!!"
"I can speak english!!!!!!!"

deng deng.

It was pretty funny. then my son got an awkward hug and Ronny left. We got his number.... we teach him now... he wants to get baptized in january

So ronny is the man. he's too funny.

Did you know? Sister Chen and I have exchanged 86 Emails? That is the fun fact for the day. In two weeks it shall have hit 90 and we shall both be really old. I hear she has five months ish left?! I have no idea. that's crazy! Sister Chen is CRAZY?!?!?!??!?!?!? I don't know why I put question marks there.... it just kinda happened. The end

ok. Also. we had a family home evening which was supposed to be small. but then that picture happened. and now ping pong is our greatest finding tool. The mission team might want to buy another ping pong table because the asian people love it SOOO much. It's too funny. I don't